‘Problems on Tube? Ah, um, crumbs, it’s honestly not my fault!’

LONDON Mayor Boris Johnson was harangued by Tube passengers furious about the sketchy weekend service on the Jubilee Line on Friday – but defiantly insisted: “It’s not my fault.”
He faced down anger over weekend closures which has left season ticket-holders feeling like they get a five-day service for a seven-day price.
Mr Johnson said his hands were tied by contracts signed before he took office at City Hall last May.
He was touring West Hampstead at the invitation of Conservative ­parliamentary candidate Chris Philp.
He said he supported Mr Philp’s campaign to introduce heavier punishments for supermarket vans who clog up West End Lane despite getting hit with parking tickets.
But Mr Johnson’s main task was to placate residents about the running of the Jubilee Line, the burning issue in West Hampstead and a topic which the Liberal Democrats have been using to attack the Tories in the run-up to this year’s elections. Some Lib Dems even turned up at the West Hampstead station – the visit was well publicised in advance – to complain about the weekend disruption.
Mr Johnson, who arrived on his trademark bicycle, admitted he was concerned that the upgrade to the Jubilee Line was yet to be completed. It was meant to be finished by the end of last year but Mr Johnson now says he can’t provide an exact date when the project will be completed.
Addressing coffee drinkers packed inside the Moments Espresso Bar, he insisted that the delays were down to contracts signed with Tube Lines, the consortium charged with upgrading the underground network, by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone.
Speaking from a seat at the back of the café, he said: “I understand your pain. All I can say is that it is absolutely vital that we make sure that we keep up the investment in London’s transport infrastructure. You can cut the budgets of TfL, you can get rid of ludicrous, communist freesheet newspapers but you can’t cut investment to London’s infrastructure. I’m thinking of Crossrail. I’m thinking of the Jubilee Line. I know how inconvenient it is at the moment but that Jubilee Line, when it is completed, will have a 30 per cent increase in its capacity.”
He was asked whether season ticket-holders would get a refund for the days when the line was out of action and served only by bus replacements. Mr Johnson said he would look at it.
Mr Philp, who is standing against Labour MP Glenda Jackson, Lib Dem Ed Fordham and Green Beatrix Campbell in the new Hampstead and Kilburn seat, said: “I asked Boris to come to West Hampstead so he could meet local people and discuss some of the transport issues.”
He added: “I asked Boris to do three things: levy massive fines on Tube Lines, put pressure on them to hurry up and make sure that we do not have all our underground and overground lines closed simultaneously. Boris agreed to take action on these points.”
But Lib Dem councillor James King claimed Mr Johnson crossed West End Lane to avoid their protests.
“It’s time the Tory Mayor took some responsibility for this mess,” he said. “NW6 residents and traders are really being hit hard and TfL need to ­listen and act.”

In a froth? Mayor turns on charm at coffee house

THE Tories will tell you it was a remarkable occasion, an example of a politician putting himself on the line, facing the public and coming out on top.
Here was Boris Johnson almost clambering over people to get to the final cushioned sofa in the Moments Espresso Bar, and from there using it as a makeshift stage from which to deliver his famous Coffee House Address of January 2010.
They hope in years to come this apparent act of spontaneity will live long in the memory. That those who managed to squeeze inside the café will now forever be in his thrall, knocked out by his ability to face unscripted questions from all-comers.
Of course, Boris Johnson’s famous Coffee House Address of January 2010 wasn’t entirely spontaneous. The coffee drinkers weren’t stooges, there weren’t clap-boards demanding applauses and, of course, there was no autocue.
But there was certainly a short conflab among Tory ties before he took to his feet. And, over that final slurp of white coffee, did Chris Philp run down a wish-list of things he would love Boris to slip into his speech? Only a bat-eared eavesdropper could say for sure.
As it was, Boris’s Coffee House Address was pretty much the kind of speech he can make on any day in London, a recital of how he claims he has soothed the running of City Hall.
Never mind your discomfort over the Jubilee Line, that’s not my fault, now listen to me on how I’ve cut unnecessary spending. Oh yes, and the buses are safer. The patter is clever. There were a couple of jokes, however, that were meant to sound improvised but left cynics believing that he’d scrambled artfully for the same words in some other café in some other street.
That said, when you see it unfold up close up you can see how his impish choreography will have impressed last year.
Not many top-ranked politicians put themselves up in front of crowds of voters and say, “Come on, ask me anything”. He even answered one about whether he would ever challenge fellow old Etonian David Cameron. And there will be those seeing him in the flesh for the first time, who will be forgiven for thinking his performance was devoted to them.
This was music hall, stage-craving Boris in full swing, ending like he’d produced two hours of stand-up at the Palladium with a big: “Thank you West Hampstead.”
RICHARD OSLEY