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September 04, 2007
London Life
My daughters both live in London, as does my son. The cost of living in London is horrendous unless you are one of the overpaid "city" traders whose bonuses usually amount to the sort of numbers that would feed the population of a small African country. No wonder property is so expensive that most young people cannot afford them and are forced to remain at home living in their parents homes and seriously blighting their marital prospects. The properties these kids are supposed to have access to are now reserved for the floods of migrants Mister Blair and his cohorts always deny are causing a problem, and they are forced to the outer suburbs where prices are also rising furiously. Then there is transport to and from work - usually in central London ....
So now that "Mayor" "Red" Ken Livingstone has barred the cars - by imposing a tax on motoring - and increased the price of travel on public transport to pay for his fancy new headquarters how are these kids supposed to earn enough to live? According to Ken and Brown there isn't a problem, besides they shouldn't expect big pay packets, after all those are reserved for Labour Luvvies, politicians, civil servants and their cronies in the City. Why should nurses, teachers, fire fighters, police, not to mention the shop assistants,clerks and cleaners and the other ordinary "grunts" who actually do the work in this cesspit of a city expect any help from the "mayor"? That is now reserved for the hordes of Labour voting immigrants he has welcomed into the city and handed all the benefits and housing too. Well, my daughter suggested I quote her on this so here it is - especially as Mayor Livingstone's mismanagement of the GLA is now about to be expressed in a strike (Anyone else remember him and his cronies marching with striking dustmen in the '80's while he was head of the unlamented GLC?) and screw the workers who are forced to rely on his dirty, overcrowded and unreliable transport system.
I quote: -
Have you heard that London Underground staff are planning a 72-hour strike this week? The TFL website is telling people to get home by 5pm... am I still living in a first world country? Am I under curfew? Am I going to be able to keep my job if they hike fares again or go on strike again?!? I'm sure the London mayor would tell me to cycle into work, but I'm sure you can guess where I would tell him to stick that idea, the crocodile tear-shedding holier-than-thou central-London-ivory-tower-dwelling dictator-disguised-as-a-socialist freebie-snaffling gargoyle freak! Bah!
Need I say more?
Posted by The Gray Monk at September 4, 2007 08:49 AM
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Comments
For anyone outside of the UK: Mayor Ken apologised on behalf of all Londoners for slavery a few weeks ago and managed to summon up tears - very, very few Londoners believe that it was anything other than crocodile tears. I don't think he really proved anything to the black community other than that politicians will try anything to win more votes.
Posted by: Postulant at September 4, 2007 11:56 AM
Gordon brown has condemned the strike . The strike is as a result of the private company Metro... having gone belly up so its down to privatisation of the undergground nothing whatsoever to do with Ken Livingston
Posted by: annie at September 4, 2007 02:40 PM
Given that for years - and I worked for a firm that was involved in contracts for London Underground - the mainetnance done was kept to a minimum to "save money" on the entire underground network, the privatisation was then carried through in the hope that "market forces" would achieve a miracle. Given the contracted conditions and the legacy of neglect it would take nothing less than a major miracle and some really hefty funding to sort it all out. And the funding certainly didn't match the work required. Most of these "privatised" ventures fail - because they inherit the legacy of inadequate mainetnance and lack of investment plus the oversight of a bunch of Civil Servants who are responsible for the mess in the first place. It is convenient to blame the privatised company, but look at the record of what they are being asked to achieve and under what constraints.
Something worth remembering - and our politicians and civil servants consistently ignore - companies listed on the stock exchange are not there to put right what the civil service and the politcians get wrong, they are there to make a profit and reward their shareholders. To think otherwise is to be seriously in error. No private company exists for the public benefit, that is what the Public Services are supposed to do, but the last hundred years have seen nothing but decline in these as the Civil Service has grown out of all proportion, its costs escalating and leaching money away from the services they are supposed to provide but don't. This debacle may not be Ken Livingstone's direct fault - but he and his cronies are a major part of the problem.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at September 4, 2007 03:52 PM
My complaint against Ken Livingstone is that he seems to think we all earn enough to live within a reasonable distance of our workplaces - and has done nothing except ride on the tube a few times (to prove that he's a man of the people) and hike bus fares to make our lives easier. He is a complete fraud who's been in politics for too long to be driven by anything other than cynicism [/rant]
Posted by: Postulant at September 6, 2007 08:23 PM