Ban the tube strikes

Richard Tracey, the Conservative Transport Lead on the London Assembly, wants a vote in Parliament on banning tube strikes so we can see which MPs stand up for Londoners

When did Bob Crow, the General Secretary of the RMT Union, last compare you to Hitler? For me and my Conservative colleagues on the London Assembly the answer is 'last Monday' when we released ‘Struck Out’, a report suggesting an alternative to strike action on the London Underground. 'Struck Out' makes the case for Parliament to pass legislation banning strike action on the Tube. In return transport unions would gain the right to binding pendulum arbitration if 50%+1 of their Members voted to take a dispute to that stage. The report finds that 59% of Londoners believe it is too easy to strike with only 14% believing that it’s too difficult.

Binding Pendulum Arbitration (BPA) would entail an independent arbiter choosing between two competing positions. So if Transport for London (TfL) calls for a pay freeze for Tube workers and the RMT want a 10% increase the arbiter would have to decide between those options. He cannot suggest a compromise. The result of this is that both parties have an incentive to be reasonable. Under BPA, calling for a ridiculous wage increase is not shrewd negotiating; it is simply a way of ensuring your opponent wins.

The current system - allowing a few unions to exploit their monopolistic position to squeeze ever more money out of London fare-payers and taxpayers by almost constantly threatening strike action - effectively encourages extremism. The unions who aim for the highest possible pay increases for their Members are likely to end up being most successful irrespective of the cost to ordinary Londoners.

London Assembly Conservatives want bigger Council Tax cut from Boris

The London Assembly has 25 members, nine of who are Conservatives. That means that the combined forces of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Green Party will not be able to muster a two thirds majority to scupper the Mayor of London Boris Johnson's Council Tax precept cut of 1.3%. So that is good news for the five million Council Taxpayers in the capital. In Harrow and Kingston it will be more than cancelled out by tax rises from the borough councils. In Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham the borough councils will be providing a further saving.

Labour have objected that a 1.3% cut is a footling sum. So they proposed a amendment not to cut the Council Tax at all.

The Conservatives on the London Assembly offered a different approach. They called on Boris to go further and cut the Council Tax precept by 3.5%. This would be financed by ending the extraordinary perk where Transport for London staff are not only given free travel but allowed to nominate a "significant other" also to have free travel:

Boris cuts Council Tax again

Good news for Council Taxpayers in the capital. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson is cutting his share of the Council Tax precept by In his draft budget the Mayor sets out his intention to reduce the Greater London Authority share of the Council Tax bill by 1.2% from April. If the budget is approves it means the bill for a Band D property falling from £306.72 to £303.00. It follows a 1% cut in this financial year.

 It means Boris has either frozen or reduced the precept every year since his election in 2008.  He is pledged to reduce the GLA share of the council tax bill by 10 per cent over his second term as Mayor; and has already cut his share by 20 per cent in real terms since becoming Mayor.

The budget plans to maintain the police at 32,000 while rationalising the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade buildings.

Boris says:

“Against a difficult economic background my planned budget will cut council tax while making significant strides in growing our economy, fighting crime and improving transport. Next year the Government will carry out its spending review and I will continue to champion the capital to ensure we get the funding necessary to support the economy and quality of life in this great city.”

Harry Phibbs reviews Victory in London by Alex Crowley

Victory in London: The inside story of the Boris campaign by Alex Crowley (Bretwalda Books. £17.99)

This is a story with a happy ending. Really two happy endings - as for your money you have an account of the first Boris Johnson victory of 2008, as well as the re-election that took place this year.

Included are some memos from Boris to his team in 2007 explaining why he wanted to be Mayor. Boris wrote:

"I want to be the mayor who CHAMPIONS AMBITION, and that means helping young kids cheat the dreadful fate of being sucked into a gang. This is where I think I can make the biggest difference to London, and I want as many policies as possible aimed at the INEQUALITY OF AMBITION. I have had a very privileged and very lucky life - and I want kids across London to have the kind of chances I have had. I will use sport, and art, and whatever powers I have over education and skills to help achieve this. That is the chief objective of my mayoralty."

In the same document, Boris said of the incumbent Ken Livingstone:

"He is no longer sticking up for the little guy against the system. He is the system. He has morphed into the ruling class like the pigs in Animal Farm. He sits like Smaug on the great heap of GOLD he has accumulated from the FINES (why don't we have a poster of a giant newt coiled avariciously around our dosh) - contrast my more generous regime, which will give people more time to pay and will be less brutal and fascistic and dictatorial."

Labour's u-turn on Boris Bikes

Next year sees an important expansion of Boris Bikes in the capital. Docking Stations for them will appear across Wandsworth, and in my borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. There will also be more of them in Lambeth and in Kensington and Chelsea.

My borough has already had an early start with some Boris Bikes available near Westfield in Shepherd's Bush. But next year they will become a familiar site on the streets across Hammersmith and Fulham. From May there will 60-70 docking stations in our borough each with spaces for a minimum of 25 bicycles.

This is fantastic news for cyclists - who will find it easier to get around, save money, and keep fit. But it is also good news for everyone else. It means less pollution and an easing of traffic congestion and crowding on the buses and tubes.

This is a transport scheme that will be available 24/7 for residents and other people within our borough. It is also an affordable way to travel with annual membership costing just 12p a day. That is important when people are considering whether to take a low paid job, given the cost of commuting.

Boris hopes to have more cable cars crossing the Thames

They have only just opened, but the cable car rides across the River Thames, between the O2 in Greenwich and the Royal Docks, are already proving a great success. The construction carries 2,500 passengers an hour - equivalent to the numbers using the Blackwall Tunnel. Most of the cost has been raised in sponsorship of £36 million from Emirates Airline. At this month's Mayor's Question Time at the London Assembly there have already been calls for more crossings.

Kit Malthouse says:

"It is a very pleasant and in fact social way to travel and it strikes me there are other parts of the city that could benefit, not just from a river crossing but from some kind of cable car connection, whether you can take it down the A2 to Bromley Town Centre or indeed, extend the network across and into Canary Wharf. I was struck by, as you say, once you are at the top, the geography of London laid out before you and there is a possibility of extending the network in the future."

Roger Evans said:   

"Could I add my voice to that of Kit Malthouse and ask if you will consider extending the cable car in future, not least to my own constituency in Havering where it would make a very fine way of travelling to view the Rainham Nature Reserve when people want to go and watch a bit of wildlife."

Why is Boris spending £8 million of our money to promote ugly buildings?

When you read that architects are "award winning" it is a pretty reliable sign that their output will be hideous and show more regard for winning an award than for the plight of the poor suckers expected to live and work in the monstrosities they have created. So it is depressing that the Mayor of London Boris Johnson announces that he is spending £8 million of our money on a scheme that will surely result in new homes in the capital being uglier than they would otherwise have been.

The ploy is to give modernist architects control of the design for self build homes, and projects under the community right to build initiative. There could be all sorts of good ways to encourage these schemes. The worst possible option, and the one chosen, is a subsidy for those who opt for ugly design.

The press release says:

The Mayor, who has already introduced a design guide for new homes as part of his London Plan, has enlisted the help of leading London architects and designers who have offered to help successful
applicants refine their ideas into projects which will improve the capital’s neighbourhoods and make them better places to live, work and invest in.

Ben Derbyshire, managing director of awarding winning architects HTA; Peter Murray, architect and chairman of New London Architecture; David Birkbeck, chief executive Design for Homes and Tamsie Thomson, director at the Royal Institute of British Architects, are all lending their expertise to the initiative, helping successful bidders to bring their ideas to fruition through specialist design review sessions.

Boris: Government "not moving fast enough" on strike ballots minimum threshold

A key objective for Boris Johnson's second term as Mayor of London must be breaking the stranghold of the union militants over the tube network in London.

At a recent Mayor's Question Time session with the London Assembly he indicated his impatience at the delay of the Government to bring in a reform that would help:

Tony Arbour (AM): In the light of Londoners’ recent endorsement of your policies, will you redouble your efforts to persuade the Government to introduce legislation to ensure that a strike ballot requires 50% + 1 of eligible voters to support it in order for any subsequent strike to be valid?

Boris Johnson (Mayor of London):  Yes, Tony, I will continue to press this case. I have to say that it is not something that the Government, I think, is moving fast enough on, but it is a powerful case.

Tony Arbour (AM):  Do you not think that your hand has been very considerably strengthened by your victory when this was clearly one of the issues in London, that when you go to Ministers, particularly the Conservative Members of the Coalition, you will be able to say to them that you speak with the support of more than 1 million voters in London, who do expect Conservatives to keep their promises?

Boris announces new team

The Evening Standard reports on the new team chosen by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

It says:

Kit Malthouse, who ran previously ran policing for the Mayor, will help implement the campaign pledge to create 200,000 jobs. The heavy-hitter, who has a professional background in finance, will get to work regenerating struggling parts of the capital. The other key appointment is Stephen Greenhalgh  as deputy mayor for policing. He will run the Office for Crime and Policing during the Olympics and the financially tricky months which will follow, when pressure will be on to cut police numbers.

Eddie Lister continues as the chief-of-staff and deputy mayor for planning, while two other first-term veterans — Munira Mirza and Richard Blakeway — will have beefed-up roles covering education and culture, and housing. It brings to seven the number of deputies assisting Mr Johnson, including one at transport and a new statutory deputy following the ousting of Tory Richard Barnes in last week’s Assembly elections.

London still has a Labour majority. How can this change?

Nobody who spent more than an hour or two canvassing for Boris Johnson can have failed to spot those who still regard themselves as Labour supporters.  London still has more people who regard themselves as Labour supporters rather than Conservatives, despite the win for Boris.

But at least the "Labour for Boris" section of the London electorate have shown they are willing to vote Conservative under certain circumstances. Even a small lead for the Conservatives in London at the next election would make a useful contribution to the handful of extra seats needed for an overall majority in the House of Commons. I suspect that in seats such as mine (which will be Hammersmith and Acton under the new boundaries) it would be a Conservative gain if the votes for Boris and Livingstone were replicated at the General Election. The ward breakdown of the Mayor of London vote will make interesting reading.

Increasing the number of ethnic minority votes is important. Lord Ashcroft's report gives a few useful tips. "Putting people in boxes in the name of diversity," is resented. Also language can be misinterpreted. Attacks on "multiculturalism" by David Cameron and others has been taken to mean support for racial segregation. Of course it means the opposite, that there should be integration. Conservatives have the right policy but the wrong language. The attack should be on "racial separatism."