Category: Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Back in August I did a piece for ConservativeHome on TfL’s finances. At the time some people tried to rubbish what I was saying. It seems that the Mayor agrees with me though. In a recent answer to a question from Assembly Member Andrew Pelling the Mayor said:

TfL’s Annual Report for 2006/07 shows Tube gross operating costs as £2,087.2m and gross revenue as £1,534.3m. There were 1,014m Tube passenger journeys. That gives an average cost per journey of 205.8p against fare revenue of 151.3p, with a difference of 54.5p.

For buses, gross operating costs were reported as £1643.4m and gross revenue £1026.8m, with 1,880m journeys. Hence the average cost per bus journey was 87.4p, with 54.6p raised from fares, leaving a difference of 32.8p.

My way of expressing the same facts was to say that it costs us 55p every time someone gets on a tube and 33p every time someone gets on a bus. The idea that the Mayor can afford to cut bus fares to 90p and offer half price bus rides to low income people is ridiculous. They may be admirable things to do but they are unaffordable and unfinanced. The only way money can be made available for these initiatives is to reduce investment or put up other fares. No doubt the Mayor will burn TfL’s reserves and/or delay capital spending this year to pay for these rises and then hope to put up fares again if he gets re-elected.

I got an e-mail from the Mayor’s office this afternoon. It must be a quiet afternoon if they are browsing blogs. Sam Strudwick writes to say:

Dear Phil,

The Sun’s story on Friday was actually inaccurate. The car was in fact hired by LBC radio to take the Mayor to their studios. The Sun printed an apology in Saturday’s newspaper. You can read their apology here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article365952.ece

Yours sincerely,

Sam.

I replied straight away to say that I would put things right. Hasn’t he (she?) got anything better to do?

Anyway the Sun story is wrong and they have apologised. Shame they couldn’t have chosen a more flattering picture of the Mayor with which to illustrate their apology.

I am very keen to keep this blog accurate so I too in turn apologise for re-printing the Sun’s inaccurate story.

The other stories here are all too accurate!

The Mayor used this graphic on 29th August to mark the unveiling of the Mandela statue in Parliament Square. I figured that I would write and find out how much it all cost. The Mayor’s reply (click to enlarge image below) arrived this morning dated 19th October. A seven week turn-around is a little poor but I am grateful anyway for the information.

It looks like Londoners paid £464,000 towards Nelson’s big day. The contrast with the Victorian generals Napier and Havelock whose statues in Trafalgar Square were raised by public subscription (see previous posting) does not look good. Livingstone easily has the charisma and authority to lead a campaign to raise the money for a statue to Nelson Mandela. It is a shame he thinks it is OK just to raid the public purse for every little boondongle he thinks is right. Why not ask the people?

Rather cheekily the Mayor asks Ealing for a donation. I will send the Mandela Statue Fund fifty quid. I am not sure many others will and I think the London precept payer can assume that the £219,000 ain’t coming back.

I bought the Sun today, purely to read their withering “Betrayal will haunt Gordon” leader on Brown’s Euro sellout you understand. In passing I saw this photo spread (click image to enlarge) featuring a minicab waiting in a disabled parking bay to pick up Livingstone to take him to work. Although he is in charge of TfL, chairman of the board no less, it still doesn’t suit him to use public transport – unless there is a photocall involved.

Update: Apparently this story is inaccurate – see here.

I reported on this bogus consultation exercise in early September, see previous posting. It closed today.

Yesterday the Evening Standard was reporting that a study, funded by Land Rover, from the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that the scheme will push 10,000 new cars onto roads in the zone.

Today the Standard says London Councils and London First are pretty down too.

London Councils says:

As the emission related proposals relate only to the central area – the impact on CO2 emissions across London will be marginal.

The lack of a residents discount for vehicles liable for the higher charge will cause many residents to sell their vehicles and purchase different vehicles. Therefore the emission benefits of the higher charge are only realised when Band G vehicles are scrapped altogether as a Band G vehicle used outside the congestion charging zone will still contribute towards CO2 emissions.

Tackling the emissions from Taxis would be a more cost effective way of reducing CO2 emissions than the current proposals.

London First’s Baroness Jo Valentine, Chief Executive of London First, said:

The Mayor’s proposals are unlikely to work. Politely, it’s a dog’s breakfast. By letting Fiestas, Puntos and Polos back into Central London for free, the Mayor will encourage more cars back onto our clogged up roads.

We must reduce emissions but a costly scheme that will have, at best, a minimal effect is not the right solution. By all means, reduce the charge to encourage cleaner cars. But the Mayor must not use taxpayers’ money to increase congestion in the name of climate change.

Business backed the original charge because it promised to reduce congestion. We aren’t prepared to endorse a naive, green-washed proposal that represents a backwards step.

The BBC is reporting a backlash from black cab drivers in response to the Mayor’s modest proposals to get the LDA to fund help for women and BME people to get the Knowledge.

I don’t know who to be the most repelled by. The London Cab Drivers Club aren’t coming across as the most attractive people in protesting about some modest measures to diversify the London cab trade. On the other hand the Mayor is yet again raiding the LDA’s economic development funds to make a gesture.

If the Mayor was serious about furthering the interests of BME people in London he would look at giving minicabs more rights. First off, why can’t minicabs use bus lanes?

Secondly, why can’t minicab drivers use toilets on TfL premises – these people are licensed by TfL so it is not as if they are strangers to TfL. At South Ealing station locally we have had problems with mincab drivers weeing in the park. Allowing both black cab and minicab drivers to use TfL toilet facilities might also do something tangible to make the cab trade more attractive to women, although I can’t see cabbing, on your own late at night ever being that attractive to the majority of women.

Thirdly, the Mayor could make it easier for all types of cabs to pick up and drop off at public transport interchanges. Cabs of all kinds are public transport too and integration should mean including cabs. The easier the “last mile” is with rail journeys the more attractive they become.

Finally, TfL should look at more efficient use of minicabs’ deadtime, especially when they are dropping off or picking up at airports and major stations. If a Londoner takes a minicab to Gatwick what is TfL doing to make sure it has a return fare? Can’t TfL commission or licence some kind of text based system that would match punters to empty minicabs? Surely this would reduce the carbon footprint of cab journeys in London, reduce fares for customers and increase convenience.

The way to help BME people in London directly is to level the playing field between black cabs and minicabs. Black cab drivers will always be able to differnetiate their offer with the Knowledge and their specialised vehicles. They don’t need special privileges such as use of bus lanes. The black cab drivers will hate these proposals which is perhaps why Livingstone is not prepared to tackle this special interest group head on. Stop posturing Livingstone and make some real changes.

This has been a great weekend for news as far as I am concerned.

On Friday Gordon Brown announced Crossrail as a part of his election-winning giveaway goodie-bag.

On Saturday England performed magnificently on the rugby pitch and Gordon Brown chickened out of an early general election.

I think Labour would have lost a lot of seats but not enough to ensure a stable Conservative government that could change the course of our country’s future. I think a reasonable majority 18 months down the track is a much more attractive proposition. By then the economy will be looking sad and Gordon Brown’s mismanagement of domestic affairs for the last ten years will be hard for him to deny.

Which brings us back to Crossrail. Brown could have announced this scheme 10 years ago. He spent 10 years not giving this scheme the go-ahead because he did not see the electoral advantage in it for him and his party. Now he sees that the zeitgeist is running against him in London and that both London MPs and Livingstone will have a hard time keeping their positions in general and mayoral elections and all of a sudden Crossrail is a goer.

As far as I can see Crossrail will be great for Ealing, London and the whole country. I moved here in 1987 mainly because I thought that it was brilliantly situated for access to the City, West End and Heathrow. Crossrail just takes that to another level. The financing of Crossrail will come to be seen as a problem though.

Between Ruth Kelly and Gordon Brown they held out for more cash from the City. I think that it is a shame that the Corporation of London agreed to give up £200 million. Why? Because this cash was earmarked for economic development. I know that Crossrail will drive both London’s and the whole country’s economy but other parts of the country get transport infrastructure and economic development funds. It seems London has to make a choice. Don’t forget that the Mayor is also using LDA cash that should be going towards economic development to fund his bread and circuses programme, you know Tate Gallery extension, Tour de France, Childcare Affordability Programme, etc.

The London London Chamber of Commerce and Industry have shown how London subsidises the rest of the country. In the context of a net outflow from London in the range £5.8 to £20.4 billion the price of Crossrail at £16 billion over 10 years of building seems pretty modest.

The worst part though is that the London Mayor has agreed to underwrite this programme with our council taxes, see warning from London Councils here. As the blog Burning Our Money points out this programme is likely to cost a lot more than the advertised £16 billion. The Corporation of London’s economic development pot is just a spit in the bucket. The Mayor has signed a potentially huge blank cheque with our cash. He doesn’t care about our tax bills. He cares about getting re-elected and getting his hands on Crossrail. This is a project of national significance and as such should be underwritten by central government not London. The contrast with the Mayor’s Olympic funding pledge could not be more stark.

The Mayor’s job was to get Brown to give us the cash for Crossrail and not to expose Londoners to unecessary risk. The Mayor has blown it.

Twisty old Livingstone is on the bus theme again.

According to today’s press release from the Mayor TfL commissioner Hendy and Livingstone have given up their Sunday to promote the Mayor’s 10p bus fare cut which came into force today.

As we know the Mayor has shouted from the front page headline of the Londoner about this three times in three successive months.

It is good to see that this blatant piece of electioneering is being done on their own time. If Hendy and Livingstone want to give up their Sunday to get the Mayor re-lected fine. I hope that no-one in the Mayor’s press office picked up any overtime either.

None of the Mayor’s outpourings mention that two years ago off peak Oyster bus fares were 80p, they went up to £1 last year and this year they will be 90p. So off peak fares will be 12.5% higher than they were even after this supposed cut.

Although Brown had to work hard to keep his stage grin on yesterday as Livingstone pumped his arm it is clear that the PPP feud between Brown and Livingstone has definitely been been settled. Besides the mood music – such as Brown’s favourite sidekick, the corrupt Balls, joining in the Johnson baiting yesterday – the Brown team are putting themselves out to prop up the Mayor. If Brown is thinking of playing a long game with the general election then having a Tory mayor in place for that period would really make that plan look unattractive so I guess it is not surprising.

Giving Livingstone the main conference platform is one example of this.

This story (left) popped up whilst I was on holiday and provides another example. Whilst youth provision is properly a subject for minister Balls and for the Boroughs I really don’t see how the Mayor fits in. How does youth provision fit into the Mayor’s competences? It does not. Balls is quite happy to do a photocall with Livingstone to allow him to rebrand £40 million of an existing government programme as his own. The Mayor also seems to be happy to divert £20 million of LDA money towards this programme. Aren’t they meant to promote economic development rather than youth clubs? I’m not saying that youth clubs are a bad thing. Just that the LDA’s economic development pot seems to be being spent on anything rather than economic development.

Right now Labour ministers are twisting the City’s arm to get more cash for Crossrail but at the same time LDA budgets are spent on anything other than what should be their main priority – getting young Londoners good jobs in the City. Or am I missing something? Are Livingstone, Balls and co so patronising that they don’t think that London youth are capable of working in about the only world class industry that we still have left? What is the LDA doing? Investing in the Tate gallery, sponsoring the Tour de France and paying for youth clubs.