Discussion of transport needs in London tends to be based on the idea
that the population of London is increasing. It is, but not by as much as Ken
Livingstone says.

Ken estimates that the population of London will increase by 700 000
by 2016 (I don't know whether you got the impression that I did that it was
much more), but the government estimates that the increase will be only 200
000, the rest (2/3!) is Ken's wishful thinking. This is reported here :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/st...665779,00.html

I cannot find the newspaper article which said that this was a
DELIBERATE overstatement by Ken to screw more money out of the government,
but I suppose we are as entitled as journalists are to see a discrepancy and
seek an explanation for it.

(Obviously it is more likely that the population of London will grow
if the whole national population grows, but I believe that slow decline,
followed by steeper decline after about 2020 is more likely. I don't think
that government and its statistical services have taken on board the likely
permanence of the fall in birth rate. French subsidies and perks for having
children don't seem to work, but Scandinavian childcare policies do work,
and with much less fuss than would have been expected a few years ago, the
Tory party fell into line with Labour childcare plans. Will it work? The
future's not ours to see! I'll be dead by then)

Here is Ken's plea :-

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comme...780289,00.html

And again, surprisingly (to me anyway!) revealing that London had even more
people in the late 50s than now :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/st...665779,00.html

Although it's a little off-topic, I have come to resent media
manipulation. We, the public, are not sheep to be hearded. Sectional
interests get their stuff published in the media with too little checking.
Nor are the media guiltless. You often see a politician under interview on
TV, being pushed into a corner, and forced to say something, and that
statement is quoted, all its context stripped away, as "news" a few minutes
later. The quote was obviously produced to order.

Forgive my rant.


Michael Bell


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