Moving on from Cummings going to Durham with the Dompologists

The Dompologists came out in force as soon as their hero was busted. Apparently, Dominic Cummings going to work on what should have been his first day at home for a 14-day quarantine; driving 260 miles non-stop to Durham with a child in the car while he and his wife were both possibly contagious so they could be near the person who was their only childcare option; the person who was the only childcare option apparently incapable of travelling alone to London if required; being tragically unable to ask a single friend or family member in London to drop off groceries or medication during quarantine; being unable to pay for a grocery or medication delivery service despite having a pretty good combined household income; driving his child to hospital in Durham with his wife while still possibly contagious; driving to Barnard Castle on his wife's birthday with his wife and child in the car on a 60-mile round trip to test his eyesight; not sharing the drive home with his wife even though she can drive; his wife writing a column for the Spectator about life in lockdown which omitted the salient fact that they'd buggered off to Durham; testing the capacity of a Range Rover petrol tank to its absolute running-on-fumes limits; being the parents of a four-year-old with a cast iron bladder; and retrospectively editing a blog post in April 2020 to give the impression that he warned everyone about the coronavirus last year - all mean that he didn't break any of the rules he helped to set and therefore he shouldn't resign.

Instead, a pathetic rebranding of Dominic Cummings, father of the year, erupted. It was quickly pointed out that the whole "he did what any good dad would do" line insulted everyone, especially those struggling to juggle kids and work, and all who had followed the rules since March.

So, the Dompologists started yelling: "LET'S MOVE ON AND TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANT ISSUES!".

OK. Sure. Fine by me. Let's talk about the important issues. How about we start with childcare? Seriously, I've never heard so many people who have never previously breathed a word about childcare talk so much about childcare when they leapt to Cummings' defence.

Let's talk about childcare not just for now - although that is important - but for the long-term. What can we do about (mostly) women giving up careers because childcare costs meant they were literally paying to go to work? What about incentivising employers to subsidise childcare, offer more flexible hours or working-from-home opportunities to help families? Hell, if anything good can come of this wretched virus, it might be the penny dropping for presenteeism-obsessed employers in regard to trusting staff to work from home. At the same time, though, how about recognising the need for people who work from home to have access to childcare? And what about affordable, high-quality childcare for people on low incomes? Maybe some of the Conservative MPs who smashed the red wall could raise this issue on behalf of their working class constituents?

Perhaps the craven cabinet ministers who all spinelessly tweeted embarrassing boilerplate nonsense about Cummings being a plucky little battler who was struggling with childcare could show the same concern for families up and down the country? I could introduce them to someone I know, a single father raising a severely disabled teenaged daughter while working from home. I'm sure that meeting would prove very instructive for the government front bench.

And let's talk about how shamefully outrageous the Downing Street rose garden press conference was. Why was an unelected adviser allowed to use that particular space to defend himself on live TV?

But more importantly, if the Dompologists want to talk about the big issues of the day, let's talk about how Cummings' defence blew wide open the rifts among Brexiters, and how it became painfully clear that the main reason Boris Johnson hasn't sacked him is because he is too scared to try and be prime minister without his trusty adviser.

Cummings came across as being puffed up with his own self-importance during his rose garden statement but he had a point - to Boris Johnson, he is important. Cummings was quite right to talk up his importance to the running of the country - this is the pedestal on which Johnson placed him and now he's incapable of taking him down.

We have a prime minister who is self-serving, unpleasant, cowardly, bullying and lazy. This PM gig has not panned out like he thought it would when it competed for top billing in his masturbatory fantasies at Eton. As a result, he relies heavily on Cummings, having been way too impressed by the effectiveness of the "Take back control" slogan of the Brexit campaign.

Since then, Classic Dom's simplistic slogans have been the order of the day. To be fair, "Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" was clear and effective. It was an instruction the Cummings himself found impossible to follow but it made sense. Now we have the shitshow of "Stay alert" with a government rushing to ease lockdown rules because public trust has eroded. It seems the government has figured everyone is just going to flock to the nearest park or beach anyway. Bizarre rules about allowing six people in your garden as long as nobody sits on the sunlounger or uses the toilet abound. We're being warned not to have sex with anyone outside our own households but we can let the cleaner, nanny or estate agent in, if required.

Today, we witnessed the Rees-Mogg-inspired farce of MPs queueing in a ridiculous conga line to vote in parliament, along with a drive to force all 650 MPs back into the House of Commons before it's safe to do so, all because the PM is useless without his braying fan club behind him. The pared-back parliament with limited numbers in the house and questions by Zoom exposes Johnson as an incompetent blatherer, a desperate haystack of a man, obviously out of his depth, reaching for Latin Christmas cracker jokes when he has no answers.

Dominic Cummings isn't urging the PM to take a step back and look at this mess with a cool head. He's probably delighted with the chaos - after all, we are edging towards his libertarian wet dream where everyone does the hell they want so they can all be blamed when there's a second spike in COVID-19 cases. And he is happy to continue to lead Boris Johnson down this pitiful path, regardless of whose lives it might cost, along with leading us over an irresponsible no-deal Brexit cliff for good measure. One unelected man has way too much power. That is what has emerged from the scandal over the drive to Durham. That is what is so outrageous and that is why we should stay angry.



Photo: Ninian Reid/Flickr

Uber loses its licence, London loses its grip!

Congratulations to everyone complaining about Transport for London's (TFL) decision not to renew Uber's licence. You have managed to make Londoners look like a pack of spoilt brats, demanding cut-price taxi fares as if it's a human right on par with food, water and shelter. Honestly, the way people have been carrying on, anyone would think that before Uber, Londoners simply never left their homes. Uber did not rescue London from being a bizarre city of hermits.

As ever, nuance has been the first casualty of the inevitable debate, especially in regard to the risk of sexual assault in an Uber taxi. According to a Freedom of Information request by the Sun newspaper last year, 32 of the 154 allegations of sexual assault against taxi and private hire drivers over a one-year period were against Uber drivers. That's an allegation every 11 days. TFL has raised concerns about Uber's lack of expediency in referring sexual assault allegations to the police.

This led to mindless whataboutery. "What about sexual assaults by drivers of black cabs?" is the cry that has rattled all over the internet over the last few days. Obviously, it is not OK for black cab drivers to sexually assault people either. Or for anyone to sexually assault people. It is stunning that this even needs to be said.

I have a novel idea. How about we strive for a world where nobody gets sexually assaulted in taxis? The "my preferred taxi service is less rapey than your preferred taxi service" chatter is race-to-the-bottom nonsense. 

Then there are the other scandals that led to TFL not renewing Uber's licence. Thousands of background checks on drivers have been deemed invalid, and there have been instances of drivers paying dodgy GPs for falsified medical certificates, and concerns about the possible use of Greyball software. In the US, Uber has faced allegations of Greyball software to identify when local officials were using the app and ignoring their requests for a taxi in case they were seeking to find drivers operating in areas where they were not licenced. Uber has denied using this software in the UK.

Of course, plenty of people have accused those who are supporting TFL of being anti-consumer choice. There are plenty of apps that you can use instead of Uber - Gett, Kabbee, MyTaxi, Addison Lee, Taxify, Taxiapp... People whining about a black cab monopoly don't appear know what a monopoly is or they don't seem to realise there are plenty of alternatives to taking a black cab.

And if you have the Uber app, you obviously have a smartphone so if all else fails, you can use your damn life skills to simply Google licenced minicab companies in the area and make a phonecall. Retro, I know. On top of all this, London has one of the world's best public transport systems - every time I travel anywhere, I come home with a renewed appreciation of the tube and red buses.

Indeed, even the narrative that Uber is a benevolent company for the people is a myth. This is a company that has indulged in price gouging during terror attacks. It is a business model that is designed to reduce consumer choice by undercutting other taxi companies into oblivion or merely replacing one monopoly with another, as has been the experience in Sydney. Anyone wringing their hands over potentially 40,000 Uber drivers being out of work is being ridiculous - Uber's modus operandi will result in drivers from other companies losing their jobs.

On top of all that, many Uber drivers work for the app to supplement their income from other low-paid jobs. According to Uber's own research,  almost 40% of their drivers have another job. This means that there are a lot of drivers out there for whom one job is not enough to pay the bills, particularly in London. And if you don't care about the low wage culture that has swept through Britain's labour market, consider that many Uber drivers will be driving people around after knocking off from another job. Are you happy to be driven home by a driver from a company where there is a very high chance that he or she will be completely knackered behind the wheel?

If Uber is taken off the roads next month, plenty of their drivers will be able to find work with other taxi companies. The demand is there in a city the size of London. According to today's news, Uber could make concessions in regard to TFL's demands for improved safety and better working conditions for drivers in order to get its licence renewed. This strikes me as a far more sensible use of their time over the next few weeks than challenging the decision - that would truly put the livelihoods of drivers in limbo.  

My hunch is that Uber will stay on the road - and if it does so with improved safety procedures for passengers and better conditions for drivers, that is a win for everyone. And then Londoners can find something else to whine about, because we always do.  

Photography by Thierry Manac'h'/Flickr

It's OK to be a bit scared

I'm not scared. This week, some loser in a Hyundai senselessly murdered four innocent people about a mile from where I work but I'm not scared. Sad, yes. Appalled, yes. Sickened, yes. But not scared. I simply don't see the point in being scared, I don't see what being scared will achieve. 

But this does not make me a superior London resident. Some people here are scared and that's OK too. 

Amid the usual bluster about how we won't be cowed, about how we got through the hideous era of IRA terrorism and the Blitz, this week's awful events, and others like it, have spooked some people. Not everyone is walking around London singing jaunty wartime ditties and behaving like a "Keep Calm And Carry On" poster that has come to life.

The people who are scared are not massive racists or inane bigots. They are not idiots who freak out because a mosque has been built in their borough or change tube carriages because a woman in a hijab has got on board.

They are people who are simply scared because none of us know when terrorism will strike again. Will it impact on us? Will we lose friends or family members? What if some twat kills our kids? 

And that is why terrorism is effective - it is all about the grotesque element of surprise. 

The people who died in London this week were not expecting an inadequate dickhead would kill them. Equally, people do not expect to be killed when they go to a concert in Paris, have a boozy holiday in Bali, pop out for a coffee in Sydney's business district, go to work in New York, do their job as an MP in Yorkshire or any number of things for which death should never be the penalty.

It might be true that cancer or heart disease or the pollution of London is more likely to claim our lives than a terrorist but fear is not always rational. Hell, I am scared of entering a public toilet and discovering it is a pull-chain loo. My rational brain tells me the toilet probably won't hurt me but, after one such toilet in Turkey juddered away from the wall when I pulled the chain, my fearful brain tells me I should hold on until I can find a low-level loo with a button or lever.

Within hours of the attack, it was indeed business as usual in London. That is the way it should be. Last night as I was on my way to the tube after work, a Spanish couple asked me for directions to the Houses of Parliament so they could pay their respects. It was a properly moving London moment and I hope my directions made sense to them. 

If anyone is scared, they deserve compassion and reassurance, not scorn. If anyone marks themselves as safe on Facebook, they are simply using a modern form of communication to reassure others who might be worried. Now is not the time to tell people how to react to a tragic event. We all react to tragic events in our own ways. You only need to look at the varied faces of people at any given funeral to work that out.

Predictably, Daesh has claimed responsibility for this week's fuckery even though they probably had no idea who the murderous thug was before the news broke on Wednesday. They don't need to know him personally because anyone with an internet connection can be disgracefully inspired by the acts and warped messages of Daesh. 

I'm not going to name the terrorist. He does not deserve the attention or the posthumous fame. He was last seen by us all as a bloated, middle-aged turd dying on a road. He is not a hero or a martyr. He is nothing. Instead, we should remember PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes and Kurt Cochran. We should honour the paramedics, the police, the doctors and nurses who ran towards the incident from a nearby hospital to help, and, yes, we should honour the journalists who were on the scene reporting responsibly.

And if you're still a bit scared, that's OK. We've got your back, we are with you.

George Osborne insults us all

George Osborne's appointment as editor of the London Evening Standard while refusing to stand down as a member of parliament is ridiculous, offensive, corrupt and insulting. It has already been said over the last couple of days that it is impossible to be an effective MP and newspaper editor at the same time. They are both demanding full-time jobs and the people served by both jobs deserve so much more than a part-timer. It has already been said that doing these two jobs represents a massive conflict of interest. His appointment demeans the role of an MP as well as the role of a newspaper editor.

Of course there are inane apologists for this steaming truckload of bullshit.  

"But he'll just be a figurehead editor!"

Great. Super. Wonderful. So he'll be on an inflated salary to waft in and out of the office when he can be arsed, doing the bits of the job that amuse him, while the rest of the Evening Standard staff have to do the real work? Will he be there for boring parts of the editor's job? For the negotiations with the sales team that require decisions about balancing revenue with editorial credibility? For refereeing a dispute over the style guide? For the inevitable staff member who appears at the editor's desk in tears?

As well as propping up the notion that only the privileged get the top British media jobs, Osborne's appointment reinforces the myth that journalism is an easy job that anyone can do. 

"It's all about his great connections!"

When he first aspired to be a journalist many moons ago, his rampant privilege and connections could not get him entry-level positions on The Times or The Economist. He did a freelance stint writing the Peterborough diary for the Telegraph. This means anyone who has done a competent enough job on more than one publication has more experience as a journalist than George Osborne. And in a city the size of London with its large media market, there are plenty of well-connected journalists with genuine runs on the board. 

It should not be beyond the wit of Evgeny Lebedev to find someone who has a full contacts book and the ability to run the daily news conference without having to refer to Journalism For Dummies or surreptitiously Google "what is the splash?" on his phone.

"But Boris Johnson did a great job as a journalist!"

Yeah, that'd be Boris Johnson, the same irresponsible spoiled flake of a journalist who got a bit bored trying to report accurately on the European parliament so he started simply making shit up instead. He is largely responsible for starting the "bonkers Brussels" myths that so many leave voters fell for in the EU referendum. He wrote stories about the EU declaring snails as fish, and EU directives to standardise the smell of manure, ban prawn cocktail crisps and standardise condom sizes. This nonsense was published unchecked and people believed it. Boris Johnson was a purveyor of fake news. 

"But Michael Gove is a Times columnist!"

Yeah, that'd be Michael Gove, the man responsible for an embarrassingly sycophantic interview with Donald Trump that was about as hard-hitting as a headbutt from a sea-monkey.

And perhaps most inane of all...

"Oh, it is just delicious that George Osborne can make mischief by trolling Theresa May in the pages of the Evening Standard!"

This is not what a newspaper is for. No newspaper should exist for a self-serving editor, particularly one who already has plenty of opportunities to publicly air his views, to settle scores, to use it for his own personal vendettas. This is not the same as holding the government to account. It is all about George Osborne's ego. It is about him being arrogant enough to assume he can do some newspaper editing in the morning and a spot of parliament in the afternoon and do justice to both jobs.

There is no way George Osborne can do a credible job of editing a newspaper for London. It was bad enough reading the Evening Standard on the commute home when Boris Johnson was mayor. The level of arse-kissing was off the chain. I honestly don't know what Boris would have had to do to be criticised by the Evening Standard in that grim era. Deep-fry a few live kittens outside Buckingham Palace,  perhaps? Then the paper backed Zac Goldsmith even as the wheels fell off his mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan won the election convincingly and ever since, the coverage of his time in City Hall has been very fair and balanced.

Whether fair and balanced coverage of City Hall will continue when Osborne takes the reins remains to be seen. But it is impossible for him to be an objective editor overseeing the stories that affect Londoners when he has been responsible for votes in parliament that affect Londoners. He is a mess of conflicting ideologies and competing priorities.

He is arrogant enough to think he can remain as MP for Tatton, in England's north-west while editing a London paper. George Osborne has been the mouthpiece for the largely vacuous Tory policy of creating a "Northern powerhouse", of developing the north of England and moving away from a London-centric economy. This is at odds with the unabashedly pro-London stance of the Evening Standard. Can readers expect to be urged to leave the capital for the north? 

He voted for the Health and Social Care Act 2012, an act which led to the creation of Clinical Commissioning Groups, which are putting health services and, in some areas, entire hospitals under threat in London. Will he ensure the government is held to account in the coming months and years if and when London loses essential health services?

Despite being pro-remain, he voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of EU citizens lawfully resident in the UK post-Brexit, despite London being a city that will be seriously depleted in multiple professions if we cannot guarantee the rights of EU citizens to stay on here after the negotiations to leave the EU are complete. Osborne can claim all he likes that he is offering resistance to a hard Brexit but on this issue, he is on the same page as Theresa May. There were two votes on the same issue last year and he was absent for both, hardly the actions of a man committed to wanting the best for London. Yet he is set to edit a paper in a largely pro-remain city where plenty of readers will be uncertain of their own fate or that of friends, lovers, colleagues and neighbours.

He has voted consistently for a reduction in spending on welfare and for a reduction in housing benefit for council tenants with a spare bedroom (the so-called bedroom tax). Unsurprisingly, these laws have done nothing to alleviate poverty in London or address the shortage of affordable housing in the capital, particularly for workers in essential services and low-income earners. 

Will he as editor of the Evening Standard be able to look such tough issues squarely in the eye and ensure they are covered properly? Or will be simply play-act at editing a newspaper, leave the hard work to the rest of the staff and return each night to one of his lovely, warm houses, secure in the knowledge that there will be people on the streets of London using copies of the Evening Standard as bedlinen? 

Photography: duncan c/Flickr

Charity and the cult of the personality

Today, #kidscompany and Boris Johnson were trending at the same time on Twitter. It was quite the coincidence because both stories that led to the social media noise illustrated precisely why the cult of the personality continues to make idiots of us all. We may look back with the privileged superiority of 20/20 vision in hindsight at how people fell under the spell of Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin but we are not necessarily any smarter in 2015.

Boris Johnson was in the news because he rugby-tackled a 10-year-old boy. Everyone reported this with the usual "Oh,  isn't Boris hilarious!" tone. It's another Boris distraction from his appalling record as Mayor of London and his ineffectiveness as an MP. He does this on purpose, because he knows it's what people will talk about instead of anything serious.

But falling for the cult of the personality isn't limited to the BoJo fan club. The #kidscompany Twitter trend centred on the terrible story that is the collapse of the Kids Company charity. Kids Company was founded in 1996 by British-Iranian psychotherapist, Camila Batmanghelidjh.

Batmanghelidjh was lauded across the political spectrum. Celebrities, such as the members of Coldplay and JK Rowling, donated generously to the charity that started as a youth drop-in centre in London's Camberwell neighbourhood and grew until it had therapy centres, alternative education facilities and a presence in 40 schools in London and Bristol, as well as a performing arts programme in Liverpool.

And, crucially, David Cameron hailed her as a heroine, as part of his "Big Society" concept. Remember that? That thing in which we are all meant to be in together? That one.

Kids Company received £30m of taxpayers' money. Three million of this was meant to be spent on restructuring an organisation that had grown perhaps too fast with ego and ambition overtaking reality. Instead, it was mostly spent on overdue staff wages and, if we're lucky, the government might be able to recoup £1.8m. When a government has to prop up a charity that is attempting to provide vital social services, we have a serious problem.

When Camila Batmanghelidjh became a public figure, she was very quickly known for her brightly coloured caftans and turbans. She was charismatic, she was passionate, she was patronisingly described as "larger than life", which we all know is code for "overweight but makes up for it with personality".

And it seems that her dizzying presence blinded people to a lot of things. There is an ongoing police investigation into sexual assault. Today, we had the unedifying spectacle of the Commons committee hearing into the inner workings of Kids Company. The committee heard that despite claiming to care for 36,000 clients, there were only records for 1,699 people. There were questions about handing out cash to vulnerable minors and whether that really is the best way to deal with the complex issues that go along with social and economic disadvantage. After this day of testimony, it would appear that Kids Company was poorly run with no real strategy for solving social and economic problems at their root causes or for how the charity should expand.

Just because Kids Company is a charity, that should not make it immune from scrutiny. If anything should be scrutinised, it's charities because people who donate have the right to know how their money will be used. It is a huge responsibility.

The elephant in the room is that the government saw fit to give £30m of our money to one charity without a whole lot in the way of due diligence. The very notion that £30m of public money can be thrown at a charity to try and solve complex problems in three different cities is ridiculous.

While tweeters waste bandwidth giggling at Batmangelidjh's weight and outfits and at Boris tackling a child, not enough people are talking about how few answers the government has for elevating people out of poverty.



Photography by George Hodan

The myth of strike-busting driverless tubes

As soon as #tubestrike starts trending on Twitter, the calls for the London Underground network to switch to driverless trains reach fever pitch. People carry on as if the network can switch to driverless trains in a matter of moments and that it will instantly end tube strikes.

Regardless of your views on London tube strikes, it is important to know that switching to driverless trains can't happen overnight and it won't necessarily stop strikes, even if we woke up tomorrow to find the switch had somehow magically happened.

There are 11 London tube lines, as well as the Overground and the already-driverless Docklands Light Rail (or DLR, but more on that in a moment...). In February 2014, when Mayor of London Boris Johnson, approved plans for driverless trains. But not even Boris would have such a rush of blood to the head that he'd sign off on a project that would be unfeasible on a practical level and astronomically expensive.

Boris signed off on procurement for 100 driverless trains for the Piccadilly Line. Just the Piccadilly Line. This is the start of a project that will cover only four of the network's lines between now and 2034 and it will cost £10 billion.

Every month, my bank account takes a direct hit thanks to Boris' love of raising public transport fares, but not even he would hike fares to the point where the upgrades and new trains required for a driverless tube could be implemented in lightning-fast time.

To implement driverless trains across infrastructure that is more than 100 years old in many parts is not a small or cheap undertaking.

On top of this, there ain't no whinger like the average London underground passenger. Especially when lines are closed for essential engineering work. Apparently, there are people out there who would rather travel on a poorly maintained railway system all the time instead of sucking it up and dealing with the occasional replacement bus service while travelling on a safe, well-maintained service the rest of the time.

And the average London underground whinger would complain at a rate last seen at Fawlty Towers if entire lines were closed for months at a time to do the upgrades required for driverless trains. Transport For London (TFL) needs to strike a balance between getting work done and minimising inconvenience for paying passengers.

Not that any of this stopped Richard Holloway, a Conservative councillor for the London borough of Westminster, from setting up an ill-informed and predictably briefly popular petition on change.org. The petition calls on Boris Johnson to "begin operating completely driverless trains on the entire London underground as soon as possible."

I tweeted Richard to ask him about this and he said that the Paris Metro went driverless over a period of five years. "Are we going to let the French beat us?" he asked without a trace of irony, given the French culture of strikes, and despite the fact it's not 1793.

Facts are pesky for Richard - the Paris Metro has not yet gone entirely driverless. I have no idea where he got his five-year figure from - Paris opened its first driverless line in 1998, a second in 2012 and a third is due by 2020. So that means two out of the 14 Paris Metro lines have gone driverless in the last 17 years.

When I asked Richard for costings, he tweeted a link to a BBC news story. I pointed out that this is not a costings document and he asked me if I frequent change.org and ask every petition for a full breakdown of costs for their proposal? Of course I don't. Most petitions on change.org are started by people who are not elected representatives. But if you are an elected representative publicly putting forward a proposal, you are effectively making a policy statement and it is entirely reasonable to be expected to provide costings. Especially when public money is involved.

Richard clearly didn't want to discuss this matter any further and asked if I'd demanded costings on a petition about the UK providing medical care to migrants at Calais.

He had no real answers to my questions and today, he is still on Twitter banging on about driverless trains as a panacea for all strikes. Such as the DLR, I suppose?

But the DLR - the line that is always cited as an example for how the tube should be by the "LET'S GO DRIVERLESS TOMORROW!" brigade - is not entirely without staff nor is it strike-free.

The DLR has more than 500 people on staff, such as cleaners, security staff, station staff and train captains. The captains move around the carriages while the trains are in motion and they have to manually operate the train if something goes wrong. If the rest of the tube network, went "driverless", the tube drivers would be the first people to be offered these train captain jobs - they are already trained to deal with a range of mechanical problems so they'd be obvious candidates.

And, sorry to break it you, Richard, but DLR staff have gone on strike. In May this year, DLR cleaning and security staff went on strike. If there are working people involved in an endeavour and striking has not been outlawed, strikes will probably still happen.

Get mad about tube strikes if you like. That is your right. But don't kid yourself that driverless trains can happen overnight or would be an instant strike-buster.



Photography by Svetlana Tikhonova

Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, a buffoon for each side of the pond

Could Donald Trump and Boris Johnson be the same person? Evil clown twins separated at birth perhaps? Whatever the case, they are two sides of the same awful coin and if we end up with President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson in five years time, two nations will be ruled by two spiteful, fiscally irresponsible men who are not nearly as funny as they want you to believe.

Superficially, both men are known for amusing hair. But in the pantheon of comedy, the hair on these two men is about as funny as burning orphans. Trump's flammable nylon skull pet and Johnson's deliberately unkempt head of straw serve as distractions from their real agendas, from them being properly scrutinised for the policies, for what they really stand for.

Both enjoy playing up their clownish personae. If you really think Boris Johnson's stammering, eye-popping schtick and his constant use of swallow-the-thesaurus words is spontaneous and genuine, you've been fooled. As you giggle while his head lolls about like a bladder on a stick, he wants you to think of him as a loveable buffoon. He loves it if you to think he is "good comedy value" because he'd rather you didn't question him on his abject failure to be the eco-friendly Tory mayor we were apparently all crying out for, on ever-increasing public transport fares, on the contractually dubious white elephant that is the Emirates cable car, on his vanity projects, on the money has has wasted on useless buses, on gluing pollution to roads, on trying to convince us his airport idea was a good one, on his complete failure to be present for TFL-union night tube negotiations despite happily plastering "Mayor of London" on TFL propaganda posters...

Likewise, Trump knows full well the internet contains more jokes about his hair, his orange face, his marriages and his tacky ostentation than any real scrutiny about policy. This week, he was placed under scrutiny by Megyn Kelly - I am no fan of Fox News but she did well at the debate this week. Trump's response to her perfectly reasonable questioning was to make a grotesque menstruation analogy. He knew the outrage would dominate the news cycle. His apologists won't care that he is a sexist and once the news cycle moves on, any policy-related questions Kelly asked will be largely forgotten.

Johnson and Trump use these idiot personae as distractions and we let ourselves get distracted. They are both as fiscally sensible as a spoilt teenager let loose with Daddy's credit card but that doesn't seem to stop people from hoping they achieve the highest office in their respective countries.

Both men love a vanity project. Trump Tower stands as a phallic edifice to Donald Trump's supposed throbbing, masculine success. He puts his name on everything he touches. Likewise, Boris Johnson loves that London has Boris bikes, Boris buses (even though they are crap) and he is most likely tickled that people still refer to his dead-in-the-water Thames Estuary airport idea as "Boris Island". And while bikes, daft buses and a failed airport idea seem lame in comparison to Trump's tower, plane and golf courses, it means that we all refer to Mr Johnson as "Boris". As if he is a man of the people, one of us, the kind of chap we'd go down the pub with for a night of top banter.

Both men have advocated policies that would not be out of place under the Stasi's awful regime. Trump is mad about a great big damn wall to keep Mexicans out while Johnson would simply love to see the secondhand German water cannon available for use on the streets of London. Kudos to Home Secretary, Theresa May, for not letting Johnson have his toys, even though he already wasted our money on them. Zero respect to Johnson for his complete lack of grace in the face of what he sees as a personal disappointment, as the act of a colleague who is out to get him, to stop the BoJo juggernaut.

If you seriously think either one of these men would be a good president/prime minister, you have been conned.

Enough with MPs wanting to be London mayors already!

Being the Mayor of London is a big job. It is not just a ceremonial role where you get to throw on some robes and gold chains and open village fairs. It is a huge responsibility. Apart from New York City, London is pretty much the only major city in the world where people from other countries know who the mayor is, especially since the deliberately dishevelled showpony that is Boris Johnson has been in the job. As a result, he has a huge following from people who don't even live in the UK and certainly don't have to live with the consequences of his ridiculousness.

Now Boris is both an MP and the Mayor so he can do two jobs badly instead of just the one. Being an MP is also a big job and a huge responsibility. So why the hell do people keep thinking they can do both jobs and do them properly?

When Boris leaves his post as mayor next year, there will be a vacancy and sitting MPs keep sticking their heads over the parapet to declare they're running for the top London job. We have Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP for Richmond Park, Diane Abbot, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham all with hats in the ring. Additionally, Gareth Thomas, Labour MP for Harrow West, and Justine Greening, Conservative MP for Putney, are considered as potential candidates.

It has to stop. To try and be Mayor of London and an effective MP at the same time is to show no respect to the people you represent.

MPs cop a lot of flak and it is often well-deserved, especially when greedy snouts keep finding their way into troughs at our expense. But it is a demanding job, even if you are a humble backbencher, and there are plenty of MPs of all political shades who work hard and are genuinely trying to serve the people they represent. If you don't believe me, check out the excellent BBC documentary Inside The Commons.

And what is really sad is that among the MPs who have declared they want to be the Mayor of London, there are some genuinely talented people, in particular Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith. I can imagine both Khan and Goldsmith being better mayors for London than Boris Johnson.

But I don't want to see any of them as Mayor of London if it means they won't be able to devote as much time as they should to their roles as MP. And being a good MP, even if you are a London-based one, means you're not going to have time to take the helm of a city as huge, complex, diverse and challenging as the nation's capital. Nobody votes for a part-time MP any more than they vote for a part-time mayor.

And, frankly, while I'm at it, I've had it with the party politics focus on the job of Mayor of London. Hell, party politics at any level of local government can get messy and it can easily turn local councils into training grounds for ambitious wannabe MPs. This should not be the purpose of local government.

The media has to shoulder a lot of the blame for the party politicisation of the London mayoral elections. Every time it is portrayed as Labour versus Tory, red versus blue. As if the mayor can only ever be from one of two parties. And people are daft enough to view it as a two-horse race and vote for one of the two heads they see on every front page rather than carefully thinking about who might actually be the best person to run the capital.

In the last London mayoral election, it would have been magnificent if Siobhan Benita won. Imagine that. An independent mayor of London. A mayor who is not beholden to the policies of any of the major parties. A mayor who might actually have made decisions based on what was best for London and for Londoners. A mayor who is not distracted by the demands of being an MP. A mayor with no ambitions to be in the House of Commons or to be Prime Minister.

Will Londoners be bold enough to vote in a way that could set a great example for local government across the whole country? Or will it be another election of more of the same, regardless of the result?

20 ways to not be a dick in 2015

Happy new year! Here are a few tips on how to not be a dick in 2015. You're welcome.

1. Do not mistake UKIP for the party of free speech. They will only publicly defend your right to free speech if you agree with them or say something racist, sexist or homophobic because that means you have the "courage" to say what we are all really thinking. Apparently. This is also a party that is desperate for its members to stay off social media lest someone says something stupid.

2. On the same token, UKIP members can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Indeed, anyone can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Always remember that you have the freedom to ignore anything someone says that you find stupid. If you are seeking to silence someone, ask yourself whether this is because you feel threatened by what they are saying.

3. If you succeed in getting something banned that you don't like, do not act all surprised if something you do like also gets banned.

4. If you walk down the street with your face in your phone, do not get all indignant if you walk into someone. It is not their fault.

5. Before you blame immigrants for any problems with the NHS, bear in mind that the real cost pressures are coming from rancid PFI deals and the astronomical costs of administering the tender process for contracts.

6. If you whine about "BBC lefty bias", you will sound like a weapons grade bellend.

7. Vaccinate your kids.

8. Do not interrogate women without children about why they don't have children or when they might have children. It is none of your business.

9. If you are an MP, consider not giving yourself another massive pay rise this year. You also might like to consider paying for all manner of stuff yourself. Such as meals. And home maintenance.

10. Londoners! Unless it is the last tube of the night, there is no need to run for it or barge open the doors with an enormous bag of shopping just as they are beeping closed. There will be another train.

11. Refrain from eating oranges or mandarins on public transport. It's gross.

12. I am sure your children are adorable. They will be even more adorable if they do not ride scooters in supermarkets with narrow aisles and will be more likely to celebrate another birthday if they don't ride said scooters at speed on busy high streets. This and point number seven comprise the full extent of my parenting advice.

13. If you live somewhere like Dubai, a pet husky is a stupid idea.

14. The Duchess of Cambridge is not amazing. If you think she is amazing, you are too easily amazed.

15. Do not get all your news from one source. This will turn you into a moronic caricature.

16. I know it's an embarrassment of embarrassments rather than an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the talent of many MPs or potential MPs in Britain but it is still smart to vote. You never know. Your vote may even make a difference, especially if your MP has a tiny majority.

17. Don't whine about the death of the high street if you never actually use the shops on the high street.

18. Detoxing is a myth. We detox every day by doing a poo. But there is no money to be made in telling people this. Eat well, everything in moderation, et cetera et cetera. Boring but effective.

19. Similarly, if you don't eat sugar/gluten/meat/whatever food is declared lethal this week, that is your choice. But don't bore me with your sanctimony. I will continue to eat all of the above in varying quantities.

20. If another person's sex life is consensual, mind your own business. They probably don't want you to join in.

The BoJo juggernaut rolls on...

Last week's news from the No Shit, Sherlock files concerned Boris Johnson announcing that he plans to run for election as an MP next year. Previously, Boris said had the best job in the world as Mayor of London. Previously, Boris said he had no intention to run as an MP in the 2015 elections. Previously, in his past life as an MP, he was an inconsequential Shadow Minister for the Arts before being sacked from the front bench after lying about an affair with Petronella Wyatt.

Personally, I don't care who Boris sleeps with. None of my damn business. But if Boris intends to complete his term as Mayor of London and be an MP at the same time (presuming he is a shoo-in for a safe Tory seat), it is my business. And it is the business of everyone who lives in London as well as the people who live in his future constituency which, at the time of writing, could be Uxbridge.

Quite simply, he cannot do both jobs properly. He is not doing the job of Mayor of London properly.

If the people of Uxbridge elect him as their MP and only then realise he is a self-serving career politician, they only have themselves to blame. If people in Uxbridge discover this time next year that they cannot get an appointment with him to discuss local issues, why the hell would they be at all surprised? Just as Labour parachutes candidates from elsewhere into safe seats in the north of England, it is equally lazy politics (and lazy voting...) for the Conservatives to drop Boris into Uxbridge or similar.

He is, according to David Cameron, a "star player" and, as such, Boris Johnson MP will no doubt be expecting a cabinet position if the Conservatives win next year. And that should worry everyone in Britain.

Boris's track record as Mayor of London has been awful - he has presided over increased tube and bus fares, the wasteful Emirates Airline cable car that provides public transport for a handful of people on any given day and involved a seriously dodgy contract that should have been anathema to anyone who supports either free trade or free speech (but it's OK because he apparently didn't know about the finer details of the contract when it was signed), increased homelessness (but it's OK because he thought the anti-homeless person spikes were stupid...), stupid buses that are a fare evader's delight, a failed plan to glue pollution to the roads, the imposition of the Congestion Charge on hybrid cars, the exemption of affluent parts of London from the Congestion Charge, a mindless crusade against all diesel-powered cars that ignores the latest cleaner diesel technology from leading automakers such as BMW and Volkswagen, and the purchase of a secondhand water cannon that Theresa May has not yet let him use...

Still, we really must forget about all that waffle and piffle, as Boris might say when he is being oh-so-hilarious (in the same way that a booming yeast infection is hilarious...).  He does like to trumpet London's continuing economic success as something he has done and of which he is very proud indeed.

Except that London is too big to fail. It will always be here, attracting higher average salaries, higher house prices than the rest of the country, ambitious people, creativity and innovation - and people desperate for a break or even a basic wage. The capital is a giant economic force and not even Boris can bugger that up entirely.

And that is, in a nutshell, why the rest of Britain should fear Boris in the House of Commons. If he is elected and the Conservatives win the next election and Boris ends up, inevitably, in the cabinet, he will not do a damn thing to try and rectify one of the biggest social and economic challenges facing Britain - the obsession with London at the expense of regional development and job creation beyond the M25.

But regional development isn't sexy. The next election will not be won or lost on some random regional development policy from any of the major parties. And, for Boris, the concerns of the people of Uxbridge probably won't be sexy either. If they vote for him and the result is yet another clown in the house, they'll get the MP they deserve - but the rest of the country will have to put up with his ridiculousness too.

On the upside, it might stop people who don't live in London from saying they love Boris because he is "good comedy value", but that's not much consolation for the possible consequences of terminally gullible and lazy giving this wasteful man yet another ill-deserved opportunity.


Photography: Steve Linster 

Mind The Gap. Part Two: Still lame

Old Street, where agglomeration happens...

After last week's disappointingly thin first episode of Mind The Gap: London vs The Rest, I naively had high hopes for the second episode. Maybe there'd be more analysis, less kissing of Boris Johnson's arse and perhaps some interesting ideas about how the British economy does not need to rely quite so heavily on the capital. Hell, was I wrong!

Instead, we got to see Evan Davis (and more of Evan Davis than I really needed to see in tight lycra shorts) as he messed about on a bike at a velodrome in Manchester, we had the word "agglomeration" beaten into our heads until we lapsed into a collective coma, there were a couple of women whining in the street where Ringo Starr used to live, and we had the example of one cute village as a model for anywhere north of Watford.

Certainly, it is good that Manchester is managing to thrive with a vibrant cultural scene, drawcard facilities such as the training centre for cyclists and a hub for media businesses (that'd be the agglomeration Davis is unquestioningly evangelical about). But Davis seemed to then reduce the rest of "the north" into a homogenous blur that was never going to compete with the might of London.

Bizarrely, Davis mourned the demise of ports in the north of England, blaming the rise and rise of air travel. It is indeed true that most of us jump on a plane rather than sail for months when we take a holiday or travel for work. But in the previous episode, he gleefully skipped around the enormous new DP World port in London without challenging anything in relation to its Dubai Government ownership and generally proclaimed it as a good thing. So there is still a need for ports. There are still plenty of things that need to be transported to and from Britain by ship. And many cities of the north used to have busy ports and the related infrastructure so why was that not continuously developed and updated? Britain is not a big place - it is not an impossible transport challenge to get goods from, say, Liverpool to London any more than it is to get goods from London to Liverpool.

Liverpool was reduced by Davis to the street where Ringo Starr lived until the age of four. The street is a depressing row of terraced houses, mostly abandoned, save for Ringo's old house where Beatles fans inexplicably go to write on the boarded-up window and a few residents who'd like the street demolished to make way for new houses. It was unclear from (yet another) lame interview whether the pro-demolition women owned the houses or not or who was meant to pay for the demolition and rebuilding.

Ironically, disused places such as this row of terraces could be used for agglomeration, which seems to be Davis's favourite thing. He waxed lyrical about London's Old Street, where IT/wannabe Silicone Valley types are prone to hanging out together, setting up IT start-ups and the like. Why not encourage businesses to get the hell out of London and set up shop elsewhere if there is no real need for them to operate specifically from the capital? Tax breaks for businesses that decentralise, perhaps? Hell, it is the very technology the agglomerating Old Streeters are so fond of that makes it easy for businesses to get out of Dodge City and still communicate with the rest of the world.

Then there was a pointless segue to a funky but failed arts centre in Bromwich. All that did was disprove the adage "If you build it, they will come." Sometimes you've got to build something people actually want to use. Crazy, I know...

And then Hebden Bridge, the charming little town favoured by well-heeled professionals who work in cities like Leeds and Manchester but would rather live elsewhere, was put forward as an example of how it could be. Davis said that while places like Leeds and Manchester are hubs, somewhere like Hebden Bridge is a spoke, a desirable place to live with a buzzing economy of quaint small businesses all of its own. Which is fine if you can afford the property as well as the season ticket for the train, but it's not the panacea for the north.

Davis completely ignored the north-east and the potential of places such as Newcastle and Durham, and Scotland didn't really rate a mention. Examination of what an independent Scotland would mean for the rest of the British economy was clearly not in the remit for this one, which is a shame because that would have been a chance for some interesting analysis. Equally, there was no discussion of how to revive manufacturing, how to finally reverse the damage done by inevitable but poorly managed coal mine closures, and no mention of the importance of high education standards in creating strong economies.

But none of that would be as fun as pissing about in a velodrome or having a chuckle with Boris Johnson. In short, Mind The Gap was a massive let-down.

Is Mind The Gap: London vs The Rest the lamest thing on TV this week?

Look at me, there I am, loving London...

First, a disclaimer: I bloody love London. I have loved London since I first lived in the UK as a three-year-old, I loved it when I made return visits and I love living here now. I love the noise, the chaos, the people-watching, the museums and galleries, and I even love the weather. But Britain does not and should not begin and end with one city. I, for one, would happily work in another part of the country. Indeed, I almost ended up as a lecturer at Sunderland University.

While London's economy goes from strength to strength, the rest of the country is lagging behind, aside from a few notable pockets of affluence outside the capital. The effects of the decline of manufacturing and industry in the north continue to be felt until this day and politicians with clear, meaningful policies and ideas on how to develop the regions are sadly lacking. In Germany, for example, the economy is not just Berlin - places such as Munich, Stuttgart, Bonn, Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Bremen are all doing well in a way that many cities outside of London are not.

So with that in mind, Mind The Gap: London vs The Rest should have been a powerful two-part TV series, a challenge to government, to businesses and indeed to the millions of us who cling stubbornly to London to think about the rest of the country, to be aware that Britain does not end with the M25.

The first episode was completely lame. A fawning blow job to the capital. Evan Davis, an economist, proved to be an interviewer who was about as hard-hitting as a knitted hammer. Even when he did express concerns about the implications of London getting too big and succeeding at the expense of the rest of the country, his attitude seemed to be one of "Oh well, it might be a bit crap elsewhere but it'll be fine because London just can't fail!". Up to a point, Davis is right. London probably is too big to fail. But that should not have stopped him from challenging the status quo. He had ample opportunity to do so in a series of interviews but he just didn't manage this.

Unsurprisingly, his interview in the Shard with Boris Johnson was especially embarrassing. BoJo's dubious charms worked their floppy haired magic on Davis. Only a starstruck interviewer would let the Mayor of London get away with explaining why everything will be all right with a nonsensical jam-on-Ryvita analogy. Boris bumbled his way through an explanation that was along the lines of "London isn't sucking the jam (as a metaphor for money) out of the rest of Britain, London is helping the jam spread across the entire Ryvita (as a metaphor for the rest of Britain) because the jam will spread more evenly the more you pile on." It seems to be a food-based corruption of the theory of trickle-down economics and it went unchallenged by Davis.

Davis also had golden opportunities to ask serious questions about foreign investment and how much it actually benefits London and, in turn, the rest of the country, how much it benefits foreign investors (who, let's be honest, don't invest here for the good of their health...) and why we're not getting the same investment within Britain by British companies. At London Gateway port, you could not miss the DP World signs. There was even one on Davis' high-vis vest. There was talk about how this project creates jobs and maintains London's status as a port city, but no questions about the ethics of a partnership with a Dubai Government-owned company, what Dubai gets out of this, and whether taxes are being paid to HMRC. But Davis got to load a container with a big Chinese crane so that's OK then.

Similarly, when Davis interviewed Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin, CEO of SP Setia Berhard, the Malaysian consortium that is developing the prime Battersea Power Station site, they had a giggle when he was asked if he was interested in building housing in other parts of Britain. He wasn't asked why he didn't want to invest in, say, Manchester, a place with a growing media industry and education sector, an international airport, good transport to other parts of Britain and a thriving cultural scene. Surely that would be an opportunity to not only create jobs outside of London but be ahead of other foreign property investors in spotting a new up-and-comer?

But given SP Setia Berhard paid £400 million for the Battersea site, more than 800 flats have already been sold for £675 million, prices start at £388,000 for a studio, and details are sketchy on how many flats have been bought by foreign owners, it's pretty clear places outside of London are not going to attract this large-scale level of investment, foreign or otherwise, any time soon. It was just a chance to marvel at overpriced studios, along with the tour through an enormous £40 million Mayfair apartment that came with its own hideous, gold bespoke crockery. It was property porn with no analysis.

And then there was his depressing schlep through Elephant and Castle's currently deserted Heygate Estate, where people who owned ex-council properties were forced out with not enough money to buy somewhere comparable, and where a redevelopment probably won't do a damn thing to solve London's housing crisis. His interview with a woman from the local authority was, again, weak and came across like an advertisement for the development. There'll be places for kids to play and cafes and stuff. No talk of how many more people this will bring into an already crammed part of London, no talk of things like the schools and hospitals that will be required, and no talk of why London's property market is so completely obsessed by the crowded and expensive inner city areas Zones One and Two. Three-bed flats at the Heygate redevelopment are now being advertised to overseas buyers before the demolition of the old estate is finished. The price? £700,000. It's another Battersea Power Station. There had to be a better way to improve this part of London but we'll never know.

I can relate to the "If you're tired of London, you're tired of life" adage. But even if you are not a homelessness or unemployment statistic, if you are on an endless waiting list for a council flat, if you cannot see yourself ever owning your own place, if you fear you will be an eternal renter in the land where mortgages are a badge of honour and people treat home ownership as a get-rich-quick-scheme rather than somewhere to live, it can be a tiresome city indeed. The first episode of Mind The Gap briefly visited Yorkshire for some fresh air and talked a bit about the Tour de France. It would appear that the second episode will focus on areas outside of London. But the first episode was a massive disappointment. There were so many missed opportunities to ask hard questions and do a bit of analysis beyond the whizzy map graphics.

 Episode One was a largely uncritical advert for London. Here's hoping for something meatier in the second episode. Christ knows, someone needs to make the issue of regional development sexy and interesting to the wider population because right now, our political leaders sure as hell can't manage it.

A fine day for a London tube strike

The media coverage of today's London tube strike has been predictably awful and light on facts. This morning, Eamonn Holmes had his best furrowed-brow-of-deep-concern on as Sky News showed allegedly "shocking" images of people queued outside tube stations seemingly baffled about a strike for which we have had plenty of notice and thus plenty of time to sort out alternative arrangements. The whining on Twitter has gone predictably nuclear and there are so many red herrings flying about, it is no wonder people don't seem to understand what the strike is actually about. So here are some helpful points.

1. It is not a strike about driver salaries. Regardless of whether you think tube drivers are overpaid or not, this is not what this strike is about. Stop blathering on about driver salaries. Please.

2. It is a strike about the plan to close all ticket offices on the London Underground and the loss of 953 jobs, which TFL plans to manage as a programme of voluntary redundancies.

3. Yes, more than 400 TFL staff have applied to take voluntary redundancies. Good for them. That doesn't change the fact that there will be less staff and no ticket offices.

4. The claim that everything will be OK because staff will be redeployed to platforms and thus the tube will be safer is laughable. Firstly, as Boris Johnson likes to remind us, crime is down on the London Underground. This is great news but taking staff away from the ticket hall level of tube stations will not improve passenger safety. Incidents sometimes happen in London tube stations at the ticket hall level. Most nights after work, I walk to Oval tube station and it is because it is a well-lit, staffed station that I feel safe. The Oval station staff are friendly, helpful and busy.

5.  If a staff member is dealing with an incident on a platform and then something happens at the ticket hall level that also requires the attention of a staff member, that person cannot be in two places at once. Or the staff member on the platform may be blissfully unaware of an incident in the ticket hall and not do anything to help. Especially late at night when many tube stations are much quieter than at rush hour, this is not a prospect that any passenger should feel comfortable about.

6. Last night, it was announced that a tube station was temporarily unable to offer wheelchair access because of staff shortages. This means that nobody would have been on hand to assist with placing a ramp to ensure any passengers in wheelchairs could safely get off the train. Why would anyone be OK with staff cuts that would make it harder for people in wheelchairs to get around London (not to mention the elderly, parents with buggies, anyone who has to take heavy luggage on the tube...)? Again, see point five about station staff not being able to be in two places at once...

7. Yes, the overwhelming majority of tube passengers use Oyster cards and many take advantage of auto top-up so they never have to go near either a ticket window or a ticket machine. However, many people still obtain their first Oyster card from tube stations, sometimes ticket machines break down, sometimes people have trouble with the ticket machines for many reasons, sometimes Oyster cards are faulty, sometimes people make mistakes on ticket machines and need a refund, sometimes people have trouble with ticket machines because of eyesight  problems, sometimes people have trouble with ticket machines because of language and literacy issues, sometimes kids use ticket machines and get confused, sometimes someone is taking so long at a ticket machine it is quicker to see a member of staff... And so on and so forth. There are many reasons why a human being is required even when there are ticket machines.

8. Ticket hall staff provide a great service for tourists to London, whether from abroad or from other parts of the UK. The ticket machines may be straightforward enough for most people but there are plenty of times when a confused visitor needs some friendly advice on getting around this fine city. It's all well and good for smug Londoners who have memorised the entire tube map to crap on about how they never need to speak to a member of TFL staff. I urge these people to visit any tube station near any major London tourist attraction or any interchange station and observe TFL staff helping visitors. This is good for London's reputation as a tourist destination.

9. Staff-free ticket halls are a magnet for fare evasion (much like the daft hot-in-summer-cold-in-winter buses Boris Johnson has spent £350,000 each on...). What is a major contributing factor in fares going up? Oh yes, that's right. Fare evasion.

10. Boris has said that because of the 40% RMT member turnout and 49% TSSA member turnout for the strike ballot, it is invalid. Rather like the mere 38% voter turnout at the last mayoral election, eh, BoJo?

11. And while we're talking about the unions, yes, Bob Crow is a walking caricature of the old school union man in his duffle coat and flat cap. And Boris Johnson is a walking caricature of a posh, eccentric bumbler. So what?

12. Yes, Bob Crow is on a salary of £145,000 a year. Again, so what? Unions often pay people well, which means they are not hypocrites when it comes to making demands for higher salaries for their members. If you are not a RMT member, you are not paying Bob Crow's salary so why whine about it? But if you are a British taxpayer, you are helping pay the £1 million salary of new RBS CEO Ross McEwan. And if you shop at Tesco or you're a British taxpayer, you have been making your contribution to Tesco CEO Philip Clark's £6.9 million salary. (For what it's worth, if I was Bob Crow, I'd move out of the council house, but that's a moot point.).

13. My nearest tube station is at the end of a line. The staff at the ticket hall level are kept very busy with confused passengers who have fallen asleep, especially late at night, and need advice on how to get home. If you don't spend much time at the end of a tube line, you'd be surprised how often this happens (and yes, sometimes it is drunk people, sometimes it is just the tired and overworked.) If someone has missed the last train heading in the opposite direction and they are unfamiliar with the area's night buses, some advice from a friendly human is usually warmly welcomed. Baffled tourists have also washed up at my local tube station and need help to find their intended destination.

14. The chaos on many platforms today, frankly, isn't much different to the daily chaos at plenty of busy tube stations when there is no strike on. Am getting flashbacks to the time I had to wait for seven trains at Stockwell in rush hour before I could get on board (and I don't even take up much room). London is always a busy city. A lot of the whining today is pitiful. Some people are carrying on as if it's the Blitz. And some people have reported problems on their journey today not because of the strike but merely because of fellow passengers being idiots. This is usually the case on any given day travelling on the tube. Today is not the apocalypse. Harden up, people.

15. The 7/7 terror attacks were a vile, awful, inexcusable event. It was a murderous assault on the transport network we take for granted. But Londoners kept on going, most people refused to be scared off using the tube and it remains a busy, popular service that does an amazing job of moving millions of people every day through the capital. Among the heroes of 7/7 were TFL staff who worked with emergency services and ordinary Londoners in the face of an unthinkably despicable event and played an important part in getting London moving again. No good person ever wants 7/7 to happen again but what is inevitable is that on a network of the scale of the London Underground, sometimes things go badly wrong. Life can be unpredictable. And when unpredictable things happen on the tube, TFL staff are the first people everyone turns to for help and information. With 953 front-line staff gone, this will be compromised.   

16. Sometimes a little human interaction beats the hell out of being ruled by machine overlords.



Image courtesy of TFLⒸ

South-west London and the amazing shrinking hospitals...

It has already cost more than £2 million and the costs are set to continue before the people like me who live in south-west London will find out just how badly our hospitals (for we do pay for these hospitals, they are ours) will be neutered.

"It" is the tragically misnamed "Better Service, Better Value" consultation has been given the task of saving more than £300 million across hospitals in this growing part of the capital. Given that more than £2 million has been spent "consulting", they are already behind the eight-ball.

Three options have been put forward involving closing assorted parts of hospitals, downgrading some Accident and Emergency departments to urgent care centres (how "urgent care" differs from the care required at an A&E department is unclear), closing some maternity units, slashing the odd renal unit and, hey,  surely we need fewer intensive care departments in a city this big...

If even one of these hospitals loses its A&E or maternity department, there will be an inevitable knock-on effect for the hospitals that still have these vital units. St Helier, the hospital nearest to my house, looks most likely to lose both these departments as well as the renal unit and intensive care. This hospital regularly accepts patients for A&E and maternity when the often excellent but frequently overstretched St George's Hospital in Tooting cannot cope. More than £200 million had been set aside by successive governments for a much-needed upgrade to St Helier but now that funding is under a cloud.

On top of all this, there are no costings on how much will need to be spent to upgrade the hospitals that don't lose vital departments so the whole process seems set to foist a gigantic exercise in false economy on our lives.

This all comes hot on the heels of the scandalous downgrading of Lewisham Hospital, in London's south-east - an area not too far removed from the swathe of the south-west which is now under threat.

The public is constantly being told that no decision has been made yet on the three options. And all three options are awful. It is fine for me to yell and scream that I want St Helier to remain as it is. But that means that another hospital in the area will lose services and St Helier would be overburdened.

So there is the truly nasty part - while we try and defend our local hospitals in our little corners of south-west London, this has the horrible effect of pitting communities against each other.

So, a fourth option needs to be put forward involving largely retaining the status quo. But there are only three options on the table. And here is the kicker: the BSBV committee is meant to put four options forward.

And there is another kicker. There is meant to be a three-month public consultation process that does not run over the summer holiday period. But the process is slated to run over the summer holiday period.

So what now? It is imperative that all of us who have been fighting to keep our hospitals in south-west London unmolested united and push for a fourth option to be put on the table and for the public consultation period to be moved back to September.

If neither of these two things happen, then it would not be unreasonable for the local authorities to call for a judicial review. But judicial reviews are expensive. And this is not a time when any local authorities are keen to put up council tax in order to fund a judicial review.

The question that everyone in south-west London needs to ask themselves is would they be prepared to pay a little bit more council tax in the short term to fund a judicial review? The kneejerk answer most people would give to this question is most likely a resounding no. And if that is the case, if everyone stands by and lets this happen, if the people of south-west London do not fight together to preserve their health services, the outcome could be fatal.





Photo courtesy of Michaela Kobyakov

The Rant Mistress! Now guest-blogging for MoronWatch!

I am delighted to report that I have started guest-blogging for MoronWatch. Follow MoronWatch on Twitter - @moronwatch - and thrill to the spectacle of conversations with some of the most stupid people on the planet.

Click here and you can read my debut post for MoronWatch, in which I offer a few reasons as to why Boris Johnson is not hilarious, is not a national treasure and shouldn't be the mayor of London. I focused on his pathetic environmental record, which largely consists of wasted money, giving rich people but not hybrid cars a Congestion Charge exemption, offering a grand plan that won't come into effect for another seven years, increasing public transport fares, oh, and some bikes.

In the interests of not taking up too much room on a blog onto which I was graciously invited, I didn't even touch on his abysmal record and asinine policies on housing, the expensive white elephant that is the loss-making Emirates cable car, neglect of south-east London, a cancelled bridge and a cancelled DLR extension.

I have already been called a "guest fuckwit" as a result of this post and a Boris Johnson fan girl has trolled me on Twitter. What fun!

Make no bones about it! Richard III is political.

Richard III has been dead for 528 years but he is still causing havoc long after it was rumoured that he had his own nephews murdered. The discovery of his remains under a car park in Leicester has resulted in a truly pathetic argument over where he should be buried.

Thousands of people have signed an e-petition calling for his remains to be buried in York Minster because he was the last king of the doomed House of York. Another petition is fighting for a Leicester burial. Meanwhile BBC TV presenter and art historian Dan Cruickshank and historians Andrew Roberts and Dr Suzannah Lipscomb have called for Richard III to be accorded a state funeral in London's Westminster Abbey, because this is only fitting for a head of state apparently.

Others still have stuck their heads over the parapet to call for a burial in Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, where his parents and older brother Edmund are buried in the church. And another suggests Windor where he can be laid to rest with his predessor, elder brother Edward.

The waters are further muddied by some calling for Richard III to have a Catholic funeral services because that's what he would have wanted, being a pre-Reformation monarch and all.

Meanwhile, I have found myself in the rare and alarming position of agreeing with Dr David Starkey. He said: "I think there is a very good reason why Richard found himself in a car park in Leicester. He was a disastrous monarch who destroyed his own royal house."

Yep. He was a bit of a berk and probably a tyrannical and murderous one at that. But the brouhaha over where to bury a scoliosis-afflicted king who died on a battlefield, with a hole in his head and a stabbed arse, shines a light on another issue that goes beyond centuries-overdue funeral arrangements.

In short, can we leave London out of this one? Seriously. Bury him in Leicester. It is where he died in a battle of historical importance. The University of Leicester has devoted enormous efforts, combining the disciplines of history and science, to identify the remains.

Let Leicester have this one. So what if this decision is largely motivated by bringing tourism to Leicester? It's good to share the love and money with places apart from the capital. There will always be plenty of reasons for tourists to visit London. Besides, there are already 17 dead monarchs whose graves you can gawp at in Westminster Abbey.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com