London's tube drivers are divided

After strike action brought the London Underground to a halt for a week in September, last week’s announcement that the RMT union had reached a pay deal was met with headlines about a deal that ruled out strikes for the next three years.

A lot of coverage of tube strikes is overly simplistic and partisan. This week we’ve been talking to the key players to ensure you understand the nuanced tensions behind the scenes between rival unions — and explain it means for your commute.

Scroll to the end to find out why not all tube drivers are in agreement.

We’ve got a fascinating members-only London Centric story coming this weekend — if you want to support ambitious, original investigative journalism about the capital that’s entirely funded by readers, make sure you’re subscribed.

The rise of the water charge in London restaurants

London Centric’s story on how some of the capital’s restaurants have started switching the ‘service charge’ to an ‘admin charge’ to sidestep tipping legislation was picked up by The Times, Time Out, and even some other outlets without the ‘Time’ in their name.

One reader got in touch off the back of it to let us know they’d spotted an uptick in online complaints from customers being charged for water at London restaurants.

Licensing regulations require restaurants that sell alcohol to offer tap water for free. But it seems that customers asking for still water and not paying attention are being served up bottles that have been “filtered” at a charge.

If customers are happy to pay for a flask of filtered water, that’s fair enough. And ultimately there’s a tension between customers’ unwillingness to put up with higher menu prices and the need for restaurant owners to make a profit.

There’s no suggestion that these restaurants are doing anything underhand. But among those charging, we found:

• At Fallow in St James’s Market, filtered still and sparkling water is at £2 per person.

• Pasta bar Notto, with spots in Covent Garden and Piccadilly, charges £1.50 per person for “unlimited” still or sparkling filtered water.

• Canteen in Notting Hill has a £2 water charge, which they explained in a response to a critical Google review is an “in-house system that filters and carbonates water for our guests, which of course is at a cost to us”.

• Brother Marcus in Covent Garden charges £1 for filtered or

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