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There will be significant disruption to rail services across south London, starting this weekend and continuing through to November 1, for engineering works.

There will be no Southern, Thameslink or London Overground trains in the Peckham Rye, Tulse Hill, Crystal Palace and Tooting areas.

Network Rail is modernising 1980s track and signalling on lines, with work starting on October 26.

“This work will provide a more reliable service with fewer delays,” says Southern.

Pity the poor people of Streatham (and Croydon North), who this morning discovered that they have elected as their MP – effectively given him a job for life – someone who thinks ignorance is some kind of acceptable excuse for a government minister.

And someone who really thinks it quite impertinent to be asked direct questions about their prediliction for accepting thousands of pounds’ worth of freebies from the very people they are supposed to be overseeing in their government job.

One thing that the not-guilty verdict, delivered by an Old Bailey jury yesterday in the controversial case of the police shooting of Chris Kaba, failed to provide was any clarity.

Croydon’s longest-serving MP, Steve Reed OBE, is the latest cabinet member to be named in the mounting scandal around the new Labour government’s apparent endless capacity for accepting gifts and freebies from big-money donors, industry interests and lobbyists.

Reed, now the MP for Streatham and Croydon North, has been accused of being “wined and dined by the very family of firms he must now take to task”.

Tories, environmental groups and a TV celebrity go on the attack as £130m cuts to rural budgets are next in Labour’s austerity plans.

Croydon MP Steve Reed OBE could be the real reason that his party leader, Keir Starmer, has been banned from Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub in Oxfordshire.

The former Top Gear presenter and Sunday Times columnist opened The Farmer’s Dog in Asthall just before the August bank holiday. After the success of his Amazon Prime series, Clarkson’s Farm, it seems Clarkson’s Pub is the obvious follow-up.

If you were hoping to plan any trips by train for the October half-term week – forget it.

There will be no train services on parts of the railway and London Overground network across a large part of south London for seven days at the end of October, as Network Rail conducts works to upgrade its signalling system.

Services to stations affected will include London Bridge, Crystal Palace, West Croydon, Gipsy Hill, Beckenham Junction, Streatham, Mitcham Junction, Carshalton, Sutton and Wimbledon.

Why were Labour MPs threatened with losing the party whip, and what does it mean? ANDREW FISHER on how Croydon’s MPs voted over the removal of pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payment

The decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payment for 9-out-of-10 pensioners has proved controversial for Labour, has seen MPs’ inboxes deluged with correspondence, while a petition raised by charity Age UK attract half a million signatures, in what has become the first major skirmish for Keir Starmer’s new government.

Transport for London has today started a consultation on three bus routes, which is likely to affect journeys in and around Streatham and Morden, and will see the end of the 118.

Under TfL’s “proposals” (which mean it is what they intend to do, come what may…):

Route 118 would no longer run

Route 45 would directly replace route 118, operating between Denmark Hill and Camberwell Green and Morden

Bus stops between Brixton Hill and Clapham Park no longer served by route 45 would instead be served by route 59 if it were to change as proposed

Network Rail is to carry out track repair works in the Crystal Palace area for nine days from August 24 until September 1, with Thameslink and Southern disrupted.

Passengers are being advised to “plan ahead” during the “major track upgrade”, which will include the Bank Holiday weekend.

The works are part of a plan to “reduce train delays and improve passenger experience”.

Five sets of switches and crossings and nearly one mile of track will be replaced by Network Rail.

From August 24 until September, there will be no Southern services at these stations: