Evening Standard comment: The politics of a London fares hike war

London should not have to fund the cost of the rivalry between George Osborne and Boris Johnson
8 January 2014
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The Chancellor’s latest snub to the Mayor over travelcard fare rises is bad news for London’s transport budget — and highlights the rivalry between the two Tory politicians. George Osborne caught Boris Johnson off balance last month when his Autumn Statement trimmed the increase in regulated rail fares: the Chancellor reduced the planned hike this month to an inflation average of 3.1 per cent, rather than inflation plus one per cent.

But the Mayor had the same week announced a 4.1 per cent increase in travelcard costs, which he was forced to rescind as a result — thereby delaying the TfL January fares increase by several weeks. Mr Johnson appealed to the Treasury for money to plug this hole: the Treasury now appears to have refused his request.

The immediate effect will be that the Mayor will have to find the £14 million-a-year cost of the cut elsewhere. The risk with any such cost-cutting is that it has a knock-on impact on investment in the network. Last week brought a blow to the upgrade of the sub-surface lines (Circle, District, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City): contractor Bombardier finally admitted, after more than two-and-a-half years, that it could not make its train control system work on the lines. The contract is being re-tendered, a process which risks setting back the 2018 timetable for completion (TfL denies this). The latest hole in the Mayor’s budget is small compared with the whole £354 million contract — but it doesn’t help.

The issue does not help Mr Johnson politically either. The Chancellor’s reputation has made a recovery over the past six months as the economy has strengthened. It is hard not to view this tussle as a slap-down of Mr Osborne’s main likely rival to succeed David Cameron. But whether due to rivalry or simple miscommunication, London should not have to fund the cost of this rivalry: the Treasury should fund the cost to TfL of the lower fares increase, as it does for train operators.

Whose human rights?

The case of Keno Forbes, a notorious drug-dealer, is the kind of decision that brings the Human Rights Act into disrepute. Forbes, a Jamaican, was jailed for three years in 2011 and banned from Islington for his crack dealing. In theory, any foreign national jailed for more than 12 months should be automatically deported on release. But Forbes, like a number of foreign drug-dealers, has successful appealed against deportation via the Human Rights Act 1998 on the grounds that him being sent home would contravene his right to a family life here (article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights).

These sorts of shameless appeals by serious criminals are not what the framers of the ECHR had in mind when they drew the convention up in the early 1950s, in the shadow of war and totalitarian regimes. Forbes disregarded his family’s needs for years by dealing drugs and getting sent to jail. For a criminal like him to be able to exploit the law makes the courts look foolish, and will only fuel calls from the Tory Right to scrap the Human Rights Act. Men like Forbes deserve neither British rights nor residency.

Bafta hopefuls

The Bafta awards often point the way towards March’s Oscars. While there are not many British or British-directed films in the running, those that feature in today’s nominations are indeed strong, including Gravity, 12 Years a Slave (directed by Londoner Steve McQueen) and Philomena. It’s a fine crop of films from a British film industry that still punches above its weight.

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