| PM urges Britons to 'pull together' David Cameron has said "your country needs you" as he urged Britons to "step up" and play their part in the national interest. bbc.co.uk |
Saudi prince says servant was injured in fall A Saudi prince accused of murdering his servant told police the dead man had fallen and banged his head after drinking, a court heard today. telegraph.co.uk |
Tube chaos hits London for a second day Passengers are led along tracks to safety on the Victoria line, a day after thousands were stranded on the Jubilee lineTube travellers in London had to be led along tracks through a tunnel for the second day in a row because of fresh disruption to services.About 400 passengers on the Victoria line were stuck near Seven Sisters station after a defective train caused rush hour delays.There were also delays on the Northern and Circle lines because of signal failures and track problems.The delays followed yesterday's power failure on the Jubilee line which stranded thousands of passengers who were led to safety along the tracks.Some passengers caught up in the latest breakdown posted messages on Twitter, including: "People stuck for 2 hours underground on Victoria line as another new train breaks down. Have to walk the tracks. This is becoming a scandal," and "Made it to the office, eventually – the Victoria line is consistently awful."The RMT union said a ban on overtime by thousands of workers in a dispute over job cuts was having an effect on services.The RMT and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) have already held two strikes and are threatening fresh walkouts next month, claiming Transport for London is planning to cut almost 2,000 jobs. Talks between the two sides will be held today at the conciliation service Acas.The RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, said: "Once again this morning the transport system in London has been reduced to chaos through a combination of mismanagement, financial cuts and a withdrawal of goodwill by tube staff who are furious at the ongoing threat to another 2,000 jobs. Those job losses would plunge travellers even deeper into the black hole of unsafe and unreliable services."The mayor, who is responsible for transport in this city, appears to have gone awol and his officials at Transport for London have now resorted to barefaced misinformation and distortion when it comes to admitting the scale of the shambles that has developed on their watch."A Transport for London spokesman said: "We apologise for the disrupted journeys that some passengers will have faced this morning, caused by a signal failure on the Circle line, a track problem on the Northern line and a defective train on the Victoria line."We apologise to customers for any inconvenience they have experienced during this morning's problems, which also demonstrate the need for ongoing investment in our tube services and infrastructure, which is of such importance to London and the wider UK economy."The RMT leadership's overtime ban was only a factor in delays on the Metropolitan line, where the RMT leadership is continuing to try to hamper routine maintenance. We have given the unions cast-iron assurances that our staffing changes are being delivered with no impact on safety, no compulsory redundancies and no pay reductions, that every station with a ticket office will retain one and that all stations will remain staffed. We will be happy to repeat these assurances to the unions' leaderships when we meet at Acas."The RMT later announced that tube maintenance staff will launch industrial action short of a strike from Tuesday 26 October after a ballot in a dispute over spending cuts.Crow said: "We have warned repeatedly that London Underground's cuts plans are playing fast and loose with safety and will turn the tube into a death trap. It is a scandal that the London mayor, Boris Johnson, and his transport officials have chosen to ignore those warnings."The anger of our members who carry out the safety-critical function of maintaining the tube fleet at the cuts being imposed from above is reflected in this massive vote for action."RMT members have been forced into a position where they have no choice but to take action on behalf of Londoners who depend daily on a safe transport system."LondonTransportTrade unionsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Sheridan 'attended porn TV club' A childhood friend of Tommy Sheridan claims he attended a club in Manchester with the former MSP. bbc.co.uk |
Boris Johnson: fares package presentation skills Boris's announcement of his new public transport fares package contrasted sharply with what happened this time last year. The package for 2010 was unveiled in style at a dedicated event at a London Underground depot in Haringey. But details - incomplete ones, as it turned out - of increased fares that will hit Londoners next January were included without fanfare in a sheaf of documents handed out at his press conference last week where he responded to the government's spending review.BBC London's Tim Donovan got to grips with the issue the following day, reporting that several tariffs will go up by considerably more than the average 6.8% that Boris spoke of. Still, as Labour's John Biggs has acknowledged, "at least he has spread the pain more evenly than in 2010." That's largely to the relative benefit of bus-users, who tend to be less well-off. But the bit of media management I most enjoyed was TfL's press release headline: "Mayor confirms 2011 fares at level signalled last year." This is true: it refers to the "assumption" in the October 2009 TfL business plan that fares would need to go up in January 2011 by an amount equal to the Retail Price Index figure for July 2010, plus two percent. July's RPI was 4.8% and, well, you can do the maths yourself. However, the assumption that had been made for the hikes that came into effect in January of this year was the July 2009 RPI plus 1%. What was the July 2009 RPI? Minus 1.4%. When asked last October to justify why this January's increases - an average of 3.9% for Tube fares and a thumping 12.7% for buses - would be so much higher then the July RPI plus 1%, it was emphasised to me that this "assumption" was, you know, just an assumption. It wasn't a pricing formula, set in stone. Not sticking to it was no big deal. Settle down.Boris JohnsonLondon politicsLondonTransportTransport policyDave Hillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |