Protest to prevent Tube disaster

Published: 4 February 2010
Editor's Comment

IT is quite amazing how Londoners, with a patience that defies description, put up with today’s monumentally overcrowded Tube system.
Once, only rush-hour travellers experienced overcrowding. All that changed in the late 1990s.
Weekend travel has become a nightmare with many lines closed or only partially operating.
Debates are rare in the Commons. Politicians steer clear of comment – even soundbites. Is that because few travel by Tube?  
The latest warning from the private consortium Tube Lines that the Northern Line faces closure at weekends spells disaster for Camden Lock traders. About 200,000 people visit the market at weekends. Faced with a locked down line, most of them will have second thoughts about weekend shopping in Camden.
Some residents, weary of the High Street crowds, may feel relieved. But the loss of revenue for the borough as a whole should galvanise an all-party protest by the council.
Everyone who uses the line should be willing to sign up for the protest.
Powerful forces will oppose them.
Remember, the Tube system was allowed to become embroiled with enormous City interests with the support of Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, even though ex-mayor Ken Livingstone, to his credit, fought Labour policy.

NHS staff pay for City greed

SO the National Health Service will change once again, this time almost beyond recognition. Hit by a double whammy of crippling funding cuts and wide-ranging health reforms, hundreds of jobs are now under threat at the Royal Free.
It is the committed and tireless NHS staff – from the porters to the top consultants – who will end up paying the price for City greed. Over-arching the current financial crisis, are the farcically conceived private finance initiative projects that have spawned scandalous annual charges.
The government now wants to move all non-emergency treatments out of hospitals and into “community” health centres. But where is the clinical evidence supporting this trade-off?
Apart from that, medicine obviously relies heavily on diagnosis through lab analyses
or diagnostic equipment such as X-ray or CT scans.
Where will the government find the funding to pay for all this equipment, while attempting to repay its deficit?
And will the private companies queuing up to run the new centres put the patient first when funding is tight?
As ever there are more questions than straight answers.
What is for sure is that justification for these changes was the “wafer thin” mandate made at a time before the recession had locked shut the buckle of the public purse.