Author: Phil

At 8am this morning TfL is still reporting that 9 out of 12 Tube lines are out of use. TfL and RMT had 9 hours of talks yesterday from 2.30pm to near midnight.

In the nice cup of cocoa city, London, it seems our public transport quango is incapable of robust contingency planning.

In spite of having curtailed services at 5pm, an hour ahead of the strike on Monday, to get trains back to depots it still can’t get them going again quickly. You might imagine that this vital public service could work through the night to get us all back to work this morning but no.

Keep taking the cocoa.

Ken Livingstone’s Transport for London seems to be notably phlegmatic this morning in the face of the substantial collapse of its Tube network last night. It seems that the combination of 2,300 RMT workers at Metronet, a desire by TfL to get all their trains back to depots and a hyper-sensitive safety culture have contrived to take out most of the Tube network from 5pm yesterday afternoon. TfL seem to be resigned on our behalf for this disruption to continue until the end of Thursday – they see no prospect of service on Thursday evening although the strike is meant to be over at 6pm. Not so much the city that never sleeps as the city that goes to bed early with a nice cup of cocoa.

TfL talk about the Piccadilly line being part suspended but anyone west of Hyde Park Corner has no service so Northfield people are screwed like everyone else.

In one of their press releases TfL say: “Transport for London also advised that walking should be considered as an alternative for short journeys.” Great health advice but not much use to millions of Londoners with no alternative to the Tube this morning.

Ultimately the person we should blame is Mayor and Chairman of the TfL board, Ken Livingstone.

In the meantime if you want to throw rocks at Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, go to the Department of Transport at 11.30am this morning. Crow will be leading a lobby of RMT members calling for an end to the part-privatisation of the Tube and for Underground maintenance to be brought back in-house.

The lobby takes place at Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1 4DR, between 11:30 and 13:00.

At the very least lean out of your office window and shout abuse at these idiots. If you are a bit braver go and poke this man in the chest and tell him he is a freak.

I had expected the Tube to be horrid this morning as today is the day we are all back to work after the holidays.

I have misplaced my Oyster card so it cost £7.80 to get into town and back. The Piccadilly line train at 8:25 am was packed full. I had an appointment to make so I pushed on and spent the trip to South Ken with my neck bent so that I could squeeze in by the door. At South Ken the Circle line was down so I had to wait for ten minutes for the next District line train. No drama but just a typical, expensive journey. One hour and ten minutes later and I arrive at County Hall only 10 miles from my home.

Thank heavens that I am not travelling tomorrow when RMT is calling out its Metronet members for three days. According to the Telegraph the hideous Bob Crow is looking for “copper-bottomed guarantees” that their members will not be affected by the collapse. The RMT is treatening 3 days this week and another 3 days next week. Instead of getting the country back to work after a break these socialist throwbacks are trying to ruin us all.

If you do have travel problems over the next few days there is only one person to blame. Ken Livingstone. He is the self-selected chairman of the board of TfL. He even managed to have Crow as a board member of TfL from 1st June 2002 to 31st July 2004. The Mayor’s bleating press releases of last Thursday, Friday and today and TfL’s of today don’t really amount to much.

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.