Month: Aug 2007

I am pleased for Nelson Mandela that he will get to see a statue of himself unveiled in Parliament Square today.

He is one of our age’s heroes so good luck to him.

Originally Livingstone wanted this statue in Trafalgar square and back in 2000 the Mayor commented unfavourably about two of the statues already there:

I think that the people on the plinths in the main square in our capital city should be identifiable to the generality of the population. I have not a clue who two of the generals there are or what they did. I imagine that not one person in 10,000 going through Trafalgar Square knows any details about the lives of those two generals. It might be that it is time to look at moving them and having figures on those plinths that ordinary Londoners would know.

He was dissing Lieutenant General Sir Charles James Napier who fought with great distinction and was repeatedly wounded in the Peninsula War (that will be freeing Europe from tyranny in case your history is not up to it) and Major-General Sir Henry Havelock who again fought with great distinction in India and died of dysentery far from home. Whatever you think of British India he was a lion of a man who, given the chance of displaying his military prowess, led an army to the relief of Lucknow and although vastly outnumbered won a succession of spectacular victories.

What Livingstone failed to mention was that both of these statues were raised by public subscription. Indeed the inscription on Napier’s statue says (see photo):

Erected by public subscription. The most numerous contributors being private soldiers.

The situation with Mandela is not so good. In spite of his world renown the Mayor cannot be bothered to ask us for money so he just took it from us. According to the Sunday Times:

The estimated £500,000 cost will be met largely by the Greater London Authority.

The Mayor’s £3 million a year not-so-freesheet, The Londoner, is far from being immune to popular culture, however right on the Mayor pretends to be. You have to go back to the August 2005 issue to find a “newsy” photo on the front page. That issue showed a policeman laying a floral tribute in the memory of those killed and injured in the 7/7 bombings.

In the 21 issues since then every issue has carried a front page celeb picture. We might have an argument about Nelson Mandela on the front page of the June 2007 edition. Clearly a world icon and superstar but with limited connections to contemporary London. Of these 21 issues there have been 11 men and 10 women on the front page. The men are a right old mixture including oldies such as Mandela, Sir Ian McKellan, Lionel Richie and Henry Winkler. Also on the list are noted ugly bugs Martin Freeman (the drippy one from The Office) and Gordon Ramsay.

You have to agree though that the ladies are all corkers. Note that 7/10 of the images are cropped to maximise the amount of flesh tone across the image. No sexism there then Mr Mayor. Still, it sells papers. Well, no, it doesn’t. If you are a London council tax payer you are required by the Mayor to contribute your hard earned cash – so enjoy the pics.

I saw the Mayor’s press release about his Venezuelan oil deal yesterday and my first reaction was to be just to be so depressed. It will be great for people on income support although if the level of income support is wrong I might suggest that that is an issue for central government to solve not London council tax payers. I might also suggest that benefit dependency will not be tackled by more concessions to those that choose to stay out of work because they could not match their income from benefits by doing actual work and getting paid like the rest of us.

Yesterday I showed pretty comprehensively that the existing reduction in bus fares in September was unaffordable whilst TfL’s costs were so out of control. Now the Mayor is giving away even more money. As ever the Mayor is being totally disingenuous about the costs and benefits involved here. By all means talk about the benefits but what is all of this going to cost?

The Evening Standard said yesterday:

The Mayor’s office today revealed that the oil deal was worth between £10-£12 million when measured by current oil prices and exchange rates.

The piece goes on to remind us that:

In return, a team of officials from the GLA will work in Venezuela advising on recycling, waste management, traffic and on reducing carbon emissions.

The cost of these services is unknown (see press release from the GLA Budget Committee). They are likely to be in the order of millions if you are thinking of paying for expensive GLA/TfL people to be in Venezuela and not doing their day jobs here. I can’t imagine that the Venezuelans will expect anything less than £10-12 millions worth otherwise they would be getting a very bad deal.

It is hard to believe that the oil deal will make ANY contribution whatsoever to this new fares concession. This will be paid for by higher fares for the rest of us than would otherwise be the case or reduced capital expenditure. There is no-one else to pay.

A previous press release from the Mayor back in February suggested that 250,000 would receive a benefit of £280 each. This is a claim that the Mayor did not repeat yesterday as last time around Damian Hockney from One London did the math and suggested that the scheme could cost up to £70 million (the math being multiply £280 by 250,000).

Although the Mayor did not repeat the statement that this concession would be worth £280 he does keep talking about 250,000 even though his own people are estimating that only 160,000 will apply. Apparently the Mayor’s office claim the cost will be £15 million due to lower take up than that implied by the 250,000 and the fact that some people will travel more as a result of the concession. So not only will you pay higher fares but the buses will be more crowded too!

You have to wonder if the Mayor isn’t feeling just a tiny bit defensive about all of this. He has got fully 20 of his little helpers (a mishmash of leftwing MPs, trade unionists and spokespeople of left-leaning advocacy groups) to back him up. I also note that so far there is not a big ad campaign running. Remember the totally gratuitous £793K spent on ads to give away 100,000 free Oyster cards. See previous posting. Only last week the Times was reporting that his old buddy Hugo Chavez was proposing that he be allowed to serve as president for life and get control of central bank assets. No wonder he is feeling the need to wrap the old security blanket around himself.

Just in case you had any scintilla of a notion that the Mayor’s £3 million a year not-so-freesheet, The Londoner, had any relationship whatsoever to news the Mayor will have completely destroyed that idea this month by ensuring that it has had the same headline for two months running.

I exaggerate maybe, not quite the same:

August: Bus fares to be cut by ten percent

September: Bus fares down by 10% from the end of September

One reason that TfL is in such a poor financial position is that it has to give the Mayor £1.5 million a year to pay for this rubbish.

After last month’s frankly untruthful statement that:

I am pleased that the strength of London’s economy, and efficiencies achieved by Transport for London, mean that fares can now be reduced with no cut in this investment programme or financial risk to the transport budget. This economic strength and operating efficiency creates benefits that should be returned to London.

this month the Mayor repeats the porky:

The reduction in fares has been made possible by London’s economic growth which has meant that fares income is more than expected.

Last month I published a letter from the Mayor himself that showed that this cut was unaffordable. Click to enlarge his letter below:

TfL’s own annual report and accounts underline the unaffordability of this move, see below (click to enlarge).

Today ConservativeHome has published some in-depth analysis from me on Transport for London and its finances. The highlights are:

• In five years Transport for London has consumed £12 billion in subsidy but £8 billion of this has been wasted supporting TfL’s bloated cost base.
• TfL has a structural deficit of £1.6 billion per annum which it can’t seem to solve in spite of ramping up fares.
• In three years highly paid managers have more than trebled at TfL from 450 in 2004 to 1,441 in 2007.
• TfL loses 30p every time someone takes a bus.
• TfL loses 55p every time someone takes a Tube.

Follow this link for the whole thing.