bramling
Veteran Member
What's Johnson got to do with the mayoralty any more? That must surely be a democratic decision for the people of London if not the UK generally.
There is a strong argument (maybe not so much in London where people tend to use public transport anyway) for extending free travel not just to the over 60s but to all.
This is the problem. The mayor of London was created by Blair, and (like the other mainland devolutions) I think it’s fair to say he assumed they would be likely to be Labour strongholds - remember how much of a force Labour was in Scotland at the time.
Personally I was never in favour of it at the time, as it was obviously going to lead to lots of petty meddling, though ironically Livingstone actually wasn’t too bad and at least produced constructive solutions to problems - though the way he has conducted himself latterly suggests misgivings about his suitability for office were absolutely correct, his various remarks regarding concentration camps are very odd as well as unpleasant, and raise serious questions about his character.
The difficulty is that once you give people something like an elected mayor, it’s difficult to take it away - though having said that Boris is sufficiently “out of it” in London that he could probably do it and get away with it, especially as Khan doesn’t seem to be wonderfully popular - people seem to have voted for him as the least worst option rather than any positive reason.
From a constitutional point of view I see no reason why any government could not abolish the mayor of London role if they so desired. No Parliament can bind its successor, so anything Blair created in the 90s can be undone. I suppose it might be politically necessary to let the current one finish his term, but that’s as far as I’d go.
I don't get all these political references to obsolescence on the Bakerloo Line. LUL and by extension TfL own all of the IPR for pretty much every component on that train, the only issue is that they either don't have the wherewithall to get it manufactured or willingness to hold spares from previous fleets. (See. all of the scrapped materials from previous similar fleets).
I suspect obsolescence is more of an issue on respect of the Central Line, both in terms of fleet and signalling. There’s certainly work in progress to address some of this, but I would imagine it is akin to trying to swim ashore in an outgoing tide.
A secondary issue with the Bakerloo fleet might well be depot staff familiarity. We’re already down to a position where the 72 and 73 stocks are the only old-fashioned stocks left on the network. As years go by this could well result in skills retention issues as well.