It seems that barely a day goes by in London without major disruption on the tube, more announcements of strikes and overrunning engineering delays. Indeed, at the time of writing, another tube strike in London is imminent, yet City Hall shows no sign of getting a grip.
The tube strikes have cost London hundreds of millions of pounds at a time of financial pressure and have caused massive inconvenience to Londoners. Londoners expect the Mayor to make resolving the
tube dispute his top priority. However, Boris Johnson has taken an entirely different approach.
Rather than resolving disputes and disagreements, the Mayor and his staff issue insults and provocative statements towards people who are, ultimately, his own workforce. When Boris was pressed live on air about his role in the fire strike, there was a long and embarrassing silence.
The silence has been even longer on the tube. Boris Johnson has never met the leaders of the two tube unions involved in the current dispute. It’s not simply that he has not met them over this dispute, he has never met them full stop.
This from a Mayor whose campaign manifesto promised to deliver a no-strike agreement with the tube unions. That was a fantasy, quickly abandoned after the election in favour of demands for central government for legislation to make strikes more difficult.
Meanwhile, in terms of the fire service, the Tories imposed a chair of the fire authority – Brian Coleman –- known for his confrontational style and provocative statements. That’s the reason why London, unlike other regions, has not been able to find a resolution to complex issues relating to shift patterns without strike action.
Just at the point that the Fire Brigades Union and the employer had re-entered talks, Coleman wheeled out a new threat, this time to the number of fire engines in London.
Where is the Mayor while all this is happening? London government appears to have given up the ghost. Ribbon-cutting takes precedence over serious solutions to serious problems.
But there is plenty to deal with. Between them, City Hall and Whitehall are unleashing a succession of damaging policies for London. George Osborne and Boris Johnson will hit London with a double blow of fare rises – inflation plus 3 per cent on the rail service, and inflation-plus-two per cent on London fares. That will see a single bus fare up yet again, now up by 44 per cent since Boris Johnson became mayor.
Outer London does not escape, with a four and five zones pay-as-you-go Oyster journey excluding zone one up 13.63 per cent.
One-Day Travelcard users, peak and off-peak, who do not travel into zone one, will be hit hard. The zones two-six one-day Travelcard is to go altogether, so that passengers will have to buy a zones one-six Travelcard instead, which in peak hours will mean an increase from £8.60 to £15, up by 74 per cent.
We need an approach that protects Londoners and bases itself on fairness in difficult times. Yet measures that hit many people hard around the country – such as rising student tuition fees or cuts to child benefit – will, if anything, have a worse impact in London because of the higher cost of living. And the same factor means that changes to housing benefit threaten to cause misery and social dislocation in the capital.
While fares will rise, Londoners are starting to see the impact of Tory cuts to public services, such as the police. Boris Johnson is cutting police officer numbers by 455 posts and forcing borough commanders to make spending cuts at a local level.
By refusing to guarantee the future of London’s dedicated neighbourhood police teams, the Mayor is raising fears that these will be dissipated and undermined, particularly in outer London.
One borough commander has revealed that officer numbers in his area may not be sustained and that the ring-fence which ensured local police teams stayed local has been withdrawn.
Once again, where Boris Johnson acted as a pioneer, the coalition Government is following. Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls has pointed to cuts in police numbers in Manchester and the West Midlands and we can expect similar cuts elsewhere.
As police cuts come hurtling down the line, the Mayor has been blind-sided by the decimation of spending on the London Development Agency.
London will be left as the only part of the country with no inward investment agency, and with spending jeopardised on employment and skills programmes for local people for the Olympic park, tourism promotion in the run-up to 2012, plans for youth crime initiatives, volunteering and mentoring, plans for better public spaces.
Whether in Whitehall or City Hall, the Tories do not look after London’s interests. That is why we need to win the case for Labour’s alternative that sends a signal to David Cameron that cuts and higher fares are not welcome in the capital.
