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All regime change must start with a phase of revelation, when the files of the old government are opened, the official chateaux are shown on TV and the full horror of what went on is revealed to the public. For London, that began yesterday, with an interim "forensic audit" of Ken Livingstone's City Hall reporting that more than 60 projects funded by the London Development Agency are under investigation.
When, next month, the full report comes out, and the GLA's new cost-cutting chief executive, Tim Parker, starts work, we will see that second essential revolutionary moment: the part when selected victims are led out to the firing squad. It will be politically correct London's equivalent of the credit crunch and, with any luck, it will be goodbye to the groundbreaking cycling-for-the-blind initiatives, farewell to the gay Bengali workplace sustainability forums.
OK, I made those two up but I make no apology for expecting big changes. Our unemployment and child poverty rates are the highest in Britain. Literally within sight of the City, Europe's greatest concentration of wealth, is Tower Hamlets, where almost 60 per cent of the population is economically inactive. But the LDA has squandered fortunes on vanity projects while making no significant progress on its core mission, of bringing jobs and opportunity to excluded Londoners.
In other areas, there has been achievement but at a cost surpassing all reason. Bus use under Ken rose by 45 per cent - yet subsidy rose by more than 1,000 per cent. So waste was a defining characteristic of the Livingstone mayoralty, and there are plenty of kittens that will have to be drowned. But it has to be done in the right way.
To avoid the inevitable charge that Boris is dismantling the public services, the utter worthlessness of the projects that need to be culled must be made very clear. TfL is, for instance, proposing to spend £ 40 million on two so-called "transit" schemes in east and south-east London. These turn out to be nothing more than new bus routes, running almost entirely on existing roads, indistinguishable in every meaningful way from the buses that already run there.
Above all, and in keeping with the new Cameronite orthodoxy, the savings Johnson makes should on no account be used to cut tax. The proportion of GLA income derived from the council tax is small. The amount Boris could give back to council taxpayers would be almost too small for people to notice.
Most of the GLA's funding comes from central government. So Johnson needs to be extremely careful that his cuts do not simply give Whitehall the excuse to claw back his grant.
The GLA should, and will need to, allocate every penny of the cash it saves for things that really are worth spending money on. Crossrail is going to be incredibly expensive. Youth programmes and anti-crime projects will have to be paid for. And the economic slowdown can only increase the need for an effective LDA.
Boris, in other words, should slash. But he shouldn't burn.
Reader views (7)
With regards to column in the evening standard on the 9/6/08, you ridicule the idea of cycling for the blind initiatives. I understand that you were trying to make a ‘hilarious’ remark attacking the PC gone mad world but I’m afraid you slipped up. Cycling for the blind is real, it is well established and for the people involved it is a large part of their life.
I feel sad that you can’t step out of your own life even just for a moment and begin to imagine what opportunities cycling offers a blind person. Can’t your imagination grasp the idea that perhaps a blind person could get all the fun of cycling on the rear seat of a tandem? That perhaps in a visually biased world this kind activity offers exercise, speed, exhilaration and escape.
Please Andrew think before you type!
- Tom Moulton, London, 13/06/2008 13:03
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As a news reporter turned columnist, Andrew should know the golden rule: always check your facts.
To describe the transit schemes in east and south-east London as "nothing more than new bus routes, running almost entirely on existing roads, indistinguishable in every meaningful way from the buses that already run there" shows that you have NOT done so.
Let me put you straight on the Greenwich Waterfront Transit which will connect Thamesmead and Woolwich with North Greenwich.
Most of this route is on new bus lanes or bus ways, with junctions at which buses will have priority. It is a much-needed improvement to the transport network in our part of London.
Meet me in West Thamesmead - a growing commuter neighbourhood - at 8am any day next week and I will demonstrate to you exactly why the GWT is essential, not a vanity project. But be warned: you will probably be standing up on crowded buses and waiting at bus stops for the best part of an hour. So wear comfortable shoes!
- Ken Welsby, London, UK, 11/06/2008 16:08
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Andrew,
If you care so much about London's poor, why have neither you nor your employer given serious coverage to 50,000 low income Londoners getting their half-price bus travel removed from August? Just a one line mention on 28th May. Are these amongst the kittens you so look forward to drowning?
- Rob, London UK, 11/06/2008 09:15
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There is a difference between funding the odd initiative providing it is reviewed and creating great funding quango fountains that employ dozens of people forever without anyone questioning their role. Give me two gay blind cycling Bengali workplace initiatives rather than one bloated directionless LDA.
- Nick, London, 10/06/2008 16:59
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Actually, if you look at the people Boris has employed, it won't just be the cycling-for-the-blind initiatives to go. Ian Clement, now Boris' deputy Mayor for local govt and one time leader of Bexley Council, cut swathes of essential services in Bexley. Meals on Wheels for disabled pensioners unable to leave their homes, to take the most recent example...
So expect some burning too.
- Doug, London, UK, 10/06/2008 11:37
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The problem is Andrew, that when the cuts come it isn't gay Bengali cyclists, but ordinary people who feel the chop. This was no more clearly shown than by Boris's decision to scrap half price fares for people on income support. You're fooling yourself if you think that Tim Parker has been employed for any other reason than to find ever more clever ways to cut services and then cut rates
- Adam, London, 10/06/2008 10:50
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You've made up cycling for the blind but during crackpot Ken's first reign at City Hall there was a blind graphic designer on the staff, with specially adapted keyboard. Info from another County Hall staffer.
- Prospero, farningham, 09/06/2008 15:15
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