Updates for London have ended for the day but we'll be back at 08:00 on Thursday with the latest news, sport, weather and travel for London.

BBC Weather

There will be some clear spells around, but it'll be often cloudy tonight with a little light rain or drizzle. 

It should stay frost-free, with the centre of London staying rather mild. 

Lows of 4C (39F).

Riz Lateef
BBC London presenter

Join me at 18:30 on BBC One when we'll be getting into the detail of the Spending Review on a day which saw the chancellor announce:

• A turnaround for the Met's finances as its budget is protected
• The introduction of a dedicated Help to Buy scheme for Londoners
• An end to government grants for the day-to-day running of Transport for London services.

Evening Standard

A man who found a massive diamond ring outside Nando’s, external has returned it to its “distraught” owner after launching a Facebook campaign to find her.

Two people glued themselves to the gate of an immigration centre near Heathrow Airport last night in an attempt to stop a charter flight carrying failed asylum seekers leaving the country.

Ten anti-deportation activists gathered to protest at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.

The Met Police, external and London Fire Brigade, external attended the scene but no-one was arrested.

Brixton Blog

Lambeth library campaigners today accused the council, external of mounting a “fake” consultation and called on respondents to mount a “write in” campaign to thwart it.

Susana Mendoca
BBC Radio London Political Reporter

Other key points:

- Spending Review and Autumn Statement at-a-glance

- 'Tampon tax' proceeds to go to women's charities

- School funding to be overhauled

Valerie Shawcross, Labour leader on the London Assembly, has responded to the Spending Review's implications for London transport.

Image source, PA

She says: “Removing the entire revenue subsidy will blow a significant hole in TfL’s income and risks threatening the renewal of the bus fleet, our capacity to tackle overcrowding, and the delivery of hugely important road safety projects.

“The chancellor has significantly undermined any future mayor’s room for manoeuvre over fares.”

BBC Travel

There's very slow traffic on A305 Staines Road tonight in both directions because of an earlier accident.

The Tube is running fine but there are minor delays on South West Trains and no Thameslink service between Blackfriars and London Bridge.

The Labour candidate for mayor has set out in more detail his claim that the Spending Review "hammers Londoners harder than people anywhere else in the UK".

He said George Osborne was "slashing" TfL's grant and added: "London councils face bigger cuts than authorities anywhere else in the country – despite having the biggest increases in population and serving some of the poorest communities in Britain."

Image source, PA

He was unappeased by the chancellor's promise on police budgets, saying "there’s still real uncertainty over future funding which could see London lose thousands of officers" - apparently referring to the police funding formula, which is under review.

One of the new programmes announced in the Spending Review was a specific mechanism to help Londoners get on the housing ladder. 

Here's how it will work: 

Lord Porter, Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, has welcomed the localisation of business rates as "positive".

However, on how it would affect local authorities in general, his words were stark: 

"Today's Spending Review has handed down a difficult £4.1 billion funding cut over this Spending Review period for our residents and comes on top of almost £10 billion in further demand-led cost pressures facing councils by the end of the decade. 

"The consequences for our local communities who will suffer as a result should not be underestimated."

Caroline Pidgeon, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, said: "It is welcome news that commonsense has obviously now prevailed and that serious plans to slash the grant to the Metropolitan Police Service have now been dropped by government.

“The challenge is now on the Mayor to also back down on his dangerous plans to scrap nearly every Police Community Support Officer in London, plans that would devastate neighborhood policing in our city.”

Tom Edwards
Transport Correspondent, BBC London

Image source, Getty Images

The dark clouds have been on the horizon for some time.

Transport for London, external (TfL) had been told it would eventually have to be self-sufficient with its operating costs in 2013.

Today it was told when.

There will be no more general grants from government for day-to-day running of services from 2018 - earlier than TfL thought.

That grant currently stands at £591m a year - it will be tapered down.

How it deals with it isn't clear yet but TfL will undoubtedly have to be more commercial.

It is currently planning to raise £16bn by 2020/21 through property and advertising and the like.

And it will have to more efficient; it is currently planning to cut £16bn by 2020/21. That could affect the number of staff.

There will also probably have to be some choices on infrastructure investment in terms of priorities.

What it means is by 2018 London will be the only city in Europe where there is no day to day transport subsidy.

That bad news is tempered with some good news for transport bosses.

Image source, Getty Images

Previously a £10bn investment had been announced in the run up to the election until 2019/20.

Today it increased to £11bn covering another year until 2020/21. It breaks down as follows:

- £5.8bn Investment Grant (infrastructure)

- £1.4bn General grant (day to day)

- £3.8bn borrowing

So investment in the big ticket infrastructure items such as the Tube upgrades look like they're ok.

But the purse strings just got a little bit tighter at TfL. Some will say this shows London Transport is more than capable of looking after itself and this is a vote of confidence.

Others will say it leaves a big hole in TfL's finances that it will now have a big challenge trying to fill.

As always, let me know what you think.

Nick Beake
Home affairs correspondent, BBC London

The overriding emotion in Scotland Yard when the government's U-turn was announced was total surprise. They saw the Evening Standard line this morning that cuts would be 10% and they effectively thought "okay, we can deal with that." Although mightily relieved, they're still concerned London will be disproportionately affected by the new funding formula. This has been delayed after the Home Office admitted the process had been flawed.

As part of the CSR build-up the Met identified savings of £800m - which they claimed could have lead to 5,000 officers being lost. 

Although police numbers seem safe - they're likely to push ahead with streamlining and new ways of working they'd identified.Growing pressures on certain areas of the Met remain in particular, counter terrorism, child sexual exploitation and cyber crime.So tonight huge relief, a feeling their very public warnings were justified, but a sense big challenges still ahead.

In a move sure to rock the foundations of every Londoner's belief system, TfL has confirmed it is carrying out an experiment in which passengers using Holborn station are asked to stand on both sides of the "up" escalator during rush hour.

Image source, Abdullah Al-Mazyad

Peter McNaught, Operations Director for the Central line, said: “Holborn station is one of the busiest on the Tube network, experiencing high demand in both the morning and evening peaks.

"As part of a three-week trial to reduce queues and keep people moving through the station, we are encouraging customers to stand on both sides of the ‘up’ escalators during busy periods.

"We believe this will increase the capacity of the escalators as more people will be able to board, preventing queuing at the bottom of the escalator.”

BBC London will keep you posted on any angry scenes resulting from this departure from Tube etiquette... Plus, have your say on our Facebook page, external.

During his Consumer Spending speech, the chancellor announced the government will "contribute to a memorial to those victims of terrorism who died on the bus in Tavistock Square 10 years ago".

Thames Valley Police has issued a pithy response to the chancellor's announcement that police budgets will be protected. 

Susana Mendoca
BBC Radio London Political Reporter

This was an Autumn Statement that pretty much pulled the rug out from under those who'd been hoping to flog the chancellor over the future of London's policing and its "hard-working families". 

Two big u-turns from George Osborne. Perhaps the most surprising: that there would be no cuts at all to police budgets - no doubt influenced by concerns after the attacks on Paris. It's putting to bed, for now, the threat to the Met of losing another 5,000 officers. 

Then there were tax credits. Again, a huge climbdown for the chancellor as he scrapped that idea which he'd wanted to push ahead with just weeks ago. It could have adversely affected at least 357,000 working families in the capital. 

Labour's shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, himself a London MP, said that George Osborne had listened to Labour's concerns and seen sense - and he accused the Chancellor of nothing more than “hot air” in his pledge to build more affordable homes.

The Conservative candidate for mayor has tweeted: