London Daily Lens

There has been a clear and rapid increase in illegal nitrous oxide use in the UK, and litter picking groups around the country are finding clear evidence of it.

Members of Peterborough Litter Wombles discovered 82 discarded canisters in a single day around Norman Road Car Park, one of the largest hauls the group has ever collected, in an area already known as a hotspot for nitrous oxide paraphernalia. Volunteer Harry Machin said sessions usually turn up between just three and 12 canisters, making this find "off the scale."

Cambridgeshire Police confirmed the force has disposed of 972 canisters over the past year, and said officers have also noticed a shift towards larger canisters rather than the smaller silver versions once more commonly found.

Nitrous oxide became a Class C drug in 2023, and Peterborough councillor Ishfaq Hussain has now put forward a motion calling for a public awareness campaign alongside stronger enforcement against its illegal sale, to be debated at the city council this week.

On this day in 1945, results were declared in the UK general election, revealing a landslide victory for Clement Attlee's Labour Party and a stunning defeat for Winston Churchill's Conservatives.

Voting had actually taken place on 5 July, but the count was delayed until 26 July to allow time for ballots cast by soldiers still serving overseas to be counted. Labour won 393 seats to the Conservatives' 197, securing a majority of 146, its first ever outright majority in Parliament.

Despite Churchill's personal popularity, with approval ratings as high as 83 percent following victory in Europe, voters were far more focused on Britain's post war future than on his wartime leadership, with housing, full employment and social security topping the list of concerns. Labour's manifesto, promising a National Health Service, nationalisation of key industries and a new welfare state built on the popular Beveridge Report, resonated strongly, while the Conservatives were still associated with the mass unemployment and appeasement policies of the 1930s.

Churchill went to Buckingham Palace to resign as prime minister within hours of the result, with Clement Attlee arriving to be appointed in his place just minutes later, in one of the most dramatic reversals in British electoral history.

On this day in 2008, the Ministry of Defence announced that Royal Marine Reservist Matthew Croucher would receive the George Cross, the highest British and Commonwealth award for gallantry not in the face of the enemy.

Croucher earned the honour after throwing himself onto a Taliban tripwire gr***de during a reconnaissance mission near Sangin in Helmand Province on 9 February 2008, using his rucksack to pin the device to the ground and tucking his legs to his body as it detonated.

The explosion ripped the pack from his back and pitted his body armour and helmet with fragments, yet he escaped with only a nosebleed, perforated eardrums and some disorientation, an outcome that shielded the rest of his patrol from what would otherwise have been a lethal blast.

Despite a medic's recommendation that he be evacuated, Croucher chose to remain in the field, anticipating that Taliban fighters would come to investigate the explosion, a decision that led to a successful ambush in which he personally killed one of the attackers.

He was initially put forward for the Victoria Cross, which would have made him the first Royal Marine to receive it since 1945, before ultimately being awarded the George Cross instead, presented to him by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace that October.

On this day in 1917, King George V issued a proclamation changing the name of the British royal family from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor.

The decision came amid intense anti-German sentiment during the First World War, with the family also relinquishing all German titles and dignities held by relatives, replacing them with British equivalents such as Marquess of Milford Haven and Earl of Athlone.

The final push came after German Gotha bombers carried out a daylight raid on London in June 1917, killing 18 children at Upper North Street School in Poplar, a devastating coincidence given the family's own surname of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

King George V tasked his private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, with finding a suitably British name, eventually settling on Windsor after the castle that had served as a royal seat since the Middle Ages, having considered and rejected options including Tudor and Stuart.

The change proved hugely popular with the British public and helped forge a lasting association between the monarchy and British national identity, a reputation that would prove valuable again just over two decades later when war broke out with Germany once more.

Argentina says the Falkland Islands belong to them.

In 2013, the people who actually live there were asked what they thought.

1,513 people voted to remain British. Only 3 said no. That's 99.8%.

These are ordinary islanders, farmers, fishermen, families who have lived there for generations. They were occupied by Argentine forces for 74 days in 1982, with soldiers moving into their homes and residents placed under curfew. 255 British soldiers died to get their home back.

When they were finally given a vote, they didn't hesitate.

On this day in 1439, King Henry VI's government took the extraordinary step of banning kissing across England.

The proclamation came during a fresh, brutal outbreak of the Black Death in 1438 and 1439, at a time when kissing was the standard greeting in English society, exchanged between friends, church parishioners, and even servants kissing the rings of their lords. Though people had no concept of germs, they had noticed that close contact with the sick tended to spread illness, which was reasoning enough for the young king's administration to act.

Let’s go guys