"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith which provides cheap fuel for London's
buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of London said
half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support, which
was also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr Johnson said he
thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded."

Always seemed a bit odd to me...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7419227.stm

Paul

On Sun, 25 May 2008 14:49:12 +0100, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith which provides cheap fuel for London's
buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of London said
half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support, which
was also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr Johnson said he
thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded."

Always seemed a bit odd to me...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7419227.stm

Applause.

Livingstone has said "It shows that he [Johnson] is more interested in
pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda..."

True, if pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda is dismantling the
policies you implemented to pursue your left-wing ideological
agenda...

On May 25, 11:33*pm, James Farrar wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 14:49:12 +0100, "Paul Scott"

wrote:
"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith *which provides cheap fuel for London's
buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of London said
half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support, which
was also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr Johnson said he
thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded."

Always seemed a bit odd to me...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7419227.stm

Applause.

Livingstone has said "It shows that he [Johnson] is more interested in
pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda..."

True, if pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda is dismantling the
policies you implemented to pursue your left-wing ideological
agenda...

Please explain how Ken Livingstone had a left-wing political agenda
that included joining New Labour, advocating strike-breaking,
privatising part of LU etc etc.

Boris Johnson has an unashamedly right-wing agenda. Ken Livingstone
had a conveniently-acquired right-wing agenda, occasionally regressing
when his conscience got the better of him.

On Sun, 25 May 2008, MIG wrote:

On May 25, 11:33*pm, James Farrar wrote:
On Sun, 25 May 2008 14:49:12 +0100, "Paul Scott"

wrote:
"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith *which provides cheap fuel for London's
buses once the agreement ends later this year."

Livingstone has said "It shows that he [Johnson] is more interested in
pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda..."

True, if pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda is dismantling the
policies you implemented to pursue your left-wing ideological
agenda...

Please explain how Ken Livingstone had a left-wing political agenda that
included joining New Labour, advocating strike-breaking, privatising
part of LU etc etc.

Which part of LU did he privatise? I take it you're not referring to the
PPP, which he fought tooth and nail.

Boris Johnson has an unashamedly right-wing agenda. Ken Livingstone had
a conveniently-acquired right-wing agenda, occasionally regressing when
his conscience got the better of him.

Establishing a tax on car use to pay for buses, not kowtowing to the
Americans when they refused to pay it, setting up the first civil
partnership scheme in the UK, and (re)starting an anti-racism music
festival don't seem particularly right-wing to me.

tom

--
All bloggers must die.

Tom Anderson wrote:


Which part of LU did he privatise? I take it you're not referring to the
PPP, which he fought tooth and nail.

A number of people on the left (the very hard left, this is) see the
closure of the ELL and its incorporate into a privately operated London
Overground as a privatisation. I don't, particularly, because it's a
good idea and you have to set it against the fact that greater public
control applies on the rest of LO, the creation of which is hardly a
right-wing act.

Boris Johnson has an unashamedly right-wing agenda. Ken Livingstone
had a conveniently-acquired right-wing agenda, occasionally regressing
when his conscience got the better of him.

I'm not sure Boris' agenda matters here. For instance, his Routemaster
spiel is mostly lifted from a 2005 report edited by the genuine right
wing ideologue Dean Godson, who has the distinction of being sacked from
the Telegraph for being too pro-Israel (and doesn't seem to be a
particular expert on transport issues). Boris evidently came along
substantially after this crowd were already thinking of how to win in
2008 and he's now surrounded himself with an unpleasant clique of them.
It's therefore unsurprising that extending a deal with Chavez and co.
isn't to their taste, but doubling bus and tram fares for the poor is
apparently perfectly OK (as, presumably, is fuelling buses from Saudi
oil or even paying Venezuela market rate for it). It's a shame they had
to lie about the reasons, however.

In comparison Livingstone (whose ideology, such as it is, is personal)
is at heart a pragmatist who'll take any kind of public/private control
as long as it works (cf. nationalising East Thames Buses, leasing class
378s privately, outsourcing DLR and congestion charge operation,
bringing Silverlink Metro under Tfl...). Given this record, the fact
that he opposed PPP seems likely to be based on practical grounds (he
considered it wouldn't work) rather than ideological ones. Ironically
there are more than a few Tories who actually quite like the idea of PPP.

Establishing a tax on car use to pay for buses, not kowtowing to the
Americans when they refused to pay it, setting up the first civil
partnership scheme in the UK, and (re)starting an anti-racism music
festival don't seem particularly right-wing to me.

Quite.

Tom

On Mon, 26 May 2008 08:39:19 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:

doubling bus and tram fares for the poor is apparently perfectly OK

From the BBC article cited in the first post of the thread:

"The mayor of London said half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000
Londoners on income support, which were also funded by the deal, would
still be honoured."

On Sun, 25 May 2008 23:33:28 +0100, James Farrar
wrote:

On Sun, 25 May 2008 14:49:12 +0100, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith which provides cheap fuel for London's
buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of London said
half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support, which
was also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr Johnson said he
thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded."

Always seemed a bit odd to me...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7419227.stm

Applause.

What - for sneaking out a controversial announcement, that will double
fares for the poorest people, in the middle of a bank holiday weekend
hoping people wouldn't notice?

I'm interested to know where this policy change was in the Tory
manifesto for the Mayoralty.

Livingstone has said "It shows that he [Johnson] is more interested in
pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda..."

True, if pursuing his right-wing ideological agenda is dismantling the
policies you implemented to pursue your left-wing ideological
agenda...

So the right thing for London's public transport users is for
politicians to play "I smash your ideology while I build mine" is it?
God help us if this is the game that's being played. Can't wait to see
the culmination of 4 years of Boris's policies (such as they are) if
this is the first example of what happens to fares.
--
Paul C

In message , at 09:37:55 on
Mon, 26 May 2008, Paul Corfield remarked:
What - for sneaking out a controversial announcement, that will double
fares for the poorest people, in the middle of a bank holiday weekend
hoping people wouldn't notice?

Whose fares are going to double? Not these ones obviously:

"The mayor of London said half-price bus and tram fares for
250,000 Londoners on income support, which were also funded by
the deal, would still be honoured."
--
Roland Perry

"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith which provides cheap fuel for
London's buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of
London said half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income
support, which was also funded by the deal, would still be honoured. Mr
Johnson said he thought many Londoners were uncomfortable with how the
scheme was funded."

Always seemed a bit odd to me...

Indeed, though I've always also been uncomfortable with the use of the
funding as I don't think it is TfL's place to be involved in the benefits
system.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:37:55 on
Mon, 26 May 2008, Paul Corfield remarked:
What - for sneaking out a controversial announcement, that will double
fares for the poorest people, in the middle of a bank holiday weekend
hoping people wouldn't notice?

Whose fares are going to double? Not these ones obviously:

"The mayor of London said half-price bus and tram fares for
250,000 Londoners on income support, which were also funded by
the deal, would still be honoured."

Bad BBC reporting, I'm afraid. They missed out 'until the deal
expires'. If you read the rest of the article you find this bit from
the horse's mouth:

"He [MBJ] added: "We will continue to offer the half-priced travel
concession to Londoners on income support for the duration for which the
deal was originally planned".

Because of the way the BBC wrote the story it's unclear that fares are
going to double for those on income support, but that does appear to be
the case from what Johnson is reported as saying. Not immediately, but
at some point after August 20th. We'll have to wait for the official
TfL announcement, I suspect. It's noticeable that I haven't seen any
Tories jumping on Livingstone's instant press release which starts:

‘Boris Johnson’s announcement today that he is doubling bus and tram
fares for people on Income Support is a direct attack on the poorest
Londoners.'

If Livingstone, in his haste, had got the first line 180 degrees wrong
we'd have heard about it, surely? They wouldn't miss an opportunity to
make him look a mug, such as by saying 'because of identified cost
savings against the previous wasteful regime we can keep the low fares
adn tell Chavez to stuff it' or similar.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the deal wouldn't have been
renewed by the Venezuelans, and this is a spoiler, but there are good
reasons to suspect otherwise, such as the likelihood that blaming Chavez
for increasing bus fares for the poor would be too good a line to miss.

Tom