Oh dear. Boris has just had to announce a bunch of inflation-busting fare increases for public transport in London. From January, the congestion charge will be up by 25 percent, Oyster card fares will have 20p added to them, 7-day bus passes will cost just under £3 more – and so on, and so on. To be fair, we shouldn’t be too surprised at these kinds of hikes. This is a recession, after all, and City Hall are currently struggling to deal with the black hole in the transport budget left over from the Livingstone days. Boris himself sets out a persuasive defence of the measures in today’s Evening Standard.
You wonder what on-looking Cameroons are making of it all. Many Tories that I speak to think that Boris has done a decent enough job of implementing a waste-cutting agenda, and of showing that costs can be cut without negatively impacting services.
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