[A-List] UK state: London mayoral election

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

The dirt is beginning to fly...


Mayor Livingstone takes a £260 taxi ride back from Labour Party
conference
By Cahal Milmo
The Independent, 02 October 2002

He may not have a chauffeur and prefer to take the Tube to work but Ken
Livingstone last night found himself embroiled in allegations of
unnecessary luxury travel after a £260 taxi ride from Blackpool to
London.

The cab fare was run up by the London mayor in the early hours of
yesterday when he took a hire car home from the Labour Party conference
after hosting a reception.

He arrived at his destination in Cricklewood, north-west London, shortly
after 3am, following a 234-mile journey lasting four hours. The bill was
paid by the Greater London Authority. It was the second time in a month
that Mr Livingstone has called on the services of a Blackpool taxi firm,
Premier Cabs, to shuttle him back from Lancashire to attend meetings in
the capital.

After a reception at the Trades Union Congress conference last month, he
travelled with several aides back to London. The GLA pointed out that
the shared cost amounted to considerably less than the combined price of
a return rail fare to Blackpool for all concerned - at £110 each.

But officials confirmed the latest journey, which followed the GLA
reception at Blackpool's Hilton hotel, was made alone by Mr Livingstone,
who spent £2,000 on taxis last year.

Critics of the early-hours dash from Lancashire in a people carrier
asked why the mayor had not chosen instead to catch the 5.17am train
from Blackpool, which would have arrived in London at 9.08am.

John Biggs, the Labour chairman of the Assembly's transport committee,
said: "I think Ken has to explain why he felt the need to use a taxi."

The mayor, who left Blackpool at 11pm, had been anxious to be in London
to deal with the concerns of Londoners about the Tube strike, due to
start from 8pm last night. A spokesman said: "He has a fairly heavy
schedule and he needed to be in town for first thing this morning."

-----

Tube fares hike adds to strike woes
By Arifa Akbar
The Independent, 02 October 2002

London Underground travellers, forced to contend with today's Tube
strike are facing the prospect of price rises at three times the rate of
inflation.

Some journeys will go up by 5 per cent, although the average rise, due
to take effect from 5 January, will be 1.55 per cent. The impact of the
increase will be felt most heavily by those who buy single or return
daily tickets from outside zone one into the centre of the capital,
Transport for London (TfL) said yesterday.

Today's strike, the second in two weeks, saw services grind to a halt
across the network. Commuters trains into the capital were packed from
early on, and operating companies warned that trains would run late,
because of the large numbers of passengers.

The only trains running on the Tube were a handful operating between
Victoria and Kings Cross and the network will not retuirn to normal
until tomorow morning, even though the strike ends at 8pm.

Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union and Aslef are
protesting against an imposed 3 per cent pay rise and have warned of
further strikes.

Under the fares rise, a single journey from zone two into zone one will
rise from £1.90 to £2.00 - an increase of 5.3 per cent, while a
ticket from zone three to zone one will go up by 4.5 per cent. Zone-one
weekly Travelcard users will face a 1.9 per cent increase, seeing the
cost of their ticket rise by 30p to £16.50. The fares have been
approved by London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, who is also the chairman of
TfL.

A TfL spokesman said the 5 per cent price hike arose partly from ticket
machines' inability to accept small coins. "If we increase fares, they
have to go up by at least 10p as the ticket machines do not accept 5p
pieces. It is true to say that one form of journey will rise by more
than 5 per cent, but some fares don't rise at all.

"The average rise is in line with inflation. The Mayor has always said
that he intends that Tube fare rises will be pegged broadly in line with
inflation," said the spokesman.