Esther Addley

London

Senior News Writer at The Guardian

@Guardian

Articles

Plans to replace 2031 census in England and Wales set to be abandoned after backlash

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

Plans to scrap the 2031 census in England and Wales are expected to be overturned after a backlash from senior statisticians over proposals to replace it with a patchwork of alternative data sources. The UK government said in 2014 that its “ambition” was to abolish the mandatory national survey after 2021 and instead rely on piecing together “administrative data” collected by other bodies and surveys.
One of two black boxes recovered from Air India wreckage, police sources say

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley |Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Recovery teams have found one of two black boxes from the wreckage of Thursday’s Air India crash in Ahmedabad, police sources said, as others have continued the grim task of identifying the 241 passengers and unconfirmed numbers of people on the ground who died.
‘Panic and sadness’: British Gujaratis in Harrow gather to mourn Air India dead

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

In Harrow, north-west London, home to a large community of British Gujaratis, there was a sense of shock and profound sadness as people gathered at a community centre to mourn those who had been killed in the Air India flight. Everyone’s phones had been buzzing all day on Thursday, said Aneka Shah-Levy, a local Labour councillor, as friends and family members across the world anxiously checked in on each other, and shared rumours and snippets of what information they knew.
‘A wonderful mystery to be solved’: Search begins in Dorset for ‘the Mother of all tanks’

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

At the height of the second world war, while British authorities were calling on citizens to donate metal to be recycled into weapons and warships, attention at the army base of Bovington Camp in Dorset turned to a collection of historic vehicles dating from the first war – among them a legendary tank that had been nicknamed “Mother”. Mother was the prototype for the world’s first battlefield tank, the Mark 1, which had been developed by Britain in 1915-6 to break the deadlock of the trenches.
Noblewoman may have ordered brazen murder of priest outside St Paul’s in 1337

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

Almost 700 years ago, in a busy London street in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, a priest called John Ford was brazenly stabbed to death in a crime notable both for its public nature and its ferocity. It was early evening, just after vespers on 4 May 1337, and the street in Westcheap would have been bustling with passersby. In full view of them all, one man sliced Ford’s throat with an anelace, a foot-long dagger, while two others used long knives to stab him in the belly.
Worried about weed: should London follow New York and decriminalise cannabis?

4 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

The last time London dabbled in decriminalising cannabis, it brought one part of the capital to a brief but giddy high. In 2001, an enterprising Scotland Yard borough commander empowered his officers in Lambeth to caution rather than arrest those carrying small amounts of the drug for personal use – freeing them, according to the scheme’s proponents, to concentrate on more serious crimes.
The Olympics’ dirtiest race ever? - podcast

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Esther Addley |Alex Atack |Tony Onuchukwu |Homa Khaleeli |Elizabeth Cassin

“I felt very ready on the start line. I was like: ‘OK, this is it. This is what we’ve worked for.’”For the British Olympic athlete Lisa Dobriskey, reaching the women’s 1500m final at the London 2012 Games was a huge moment. She’d come fourth in Beijing four years earlier. This was her chance, in front of a home crowd. When the race began, Lisa remembers feeling alarmed at how slow it was because she knew at some point it was going to take off. And then it did.
Split payments and second jobs: how music festival fans afford soaring costs

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

From Monday to Friday, Jessica Heath works as a civil servant in central London – but when the weekend comes, it’s not time to relax. For the past two years, the 28-year-old has also worked evening shifts most Saturdays and Sundays at a nearby wine bar, with one clear aim – to save up for her summers. Heath has been a huge music festival fan since she first went to Leeds as a teenager and each year, including day events, she takes in at least seven, some as a volunteer.
Food and freedom: exhibition charts radical history of gardening in Britain

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

“Being able to grow your own food is one of the most radical ways that you can express your freedom, your sovereignty, your liberation,” says Valerie Goode, the founder and chief executive of the Coco Collective, a Black-led community gardening organisation in south London. “When you leave your food production in the hands of other people, you are leaving your health, your wellbeing, your sense of identity … in the hands of other people.
Cornish tin was sold all over Europe 3,000 years ago, say archaeologists

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Esther Addley

In about 1300BC, the major civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean made a cultural and technological leap forward when they began using bronze much more widely for weapons, tools and jewellery. While a form of the metal had previously been used in smaller quantities by the Mycenaeans and Egyptians among others, bronze was now abundant – but how?