London faces second day of strike misery February 5, 2014 A SECOND day of strike action on the Tube is set to bring further travel woe to commuters today, as part of a union dispute with Transport for London that business groups have slammed. Around a third of all Tube services ran yesterday, with eight of the 11 lines operating for most of the day. [...]
Boris and Bob Crow talk for the first time in five years… but the Tube strike’s still on February 4, 2014 Bob Crow’s having a busy morning. The head of the RMT union is at City Hall with his counterpart at the TSSA to try and confront Boris Johnson and his transport staff about the looming Tube strike. The mayor, meanwhile, was in the middle of his regular phone-in show on LBC – so Crow phoned [...]
TfL to use its own Olympic volunteers to staff stations during strikes January 23, 2014 Transport for London has found a new benefit to the Olympic legacy – it is drafting in trained volunteers from its back offices to man the stations as “ambassadors” during next month’s strikes. Around 1,000 TfL staff, from accountants to former drivers, have offered to lend a hand to passengers during the RMT walkouts on [...]
Down the Tubes: Boris mucks in amid transport meltdown February 5, 2014 (Laura Lean/City A.M.) Boris Johnson has had an interesting commute in on the Northern Line this morning as the Tube strike over ticket office closures causes huge disruption across the network. The Mayor spoke to commuters and Tube staff working at London Bridge – as well as some of the TfL staff volunteering at stations in [...]
Last-ditch talks as commuters face Tube strike February 3, 2014 UNION officials and Tube bosses will meet today for last-ditch talks to avoid a crippling two-day strike on the Underground this week. Transport for London has warned that all Tube lines will face disruption starting at around 9.30pm tomorrow if the two sides fail to agree a truce. Talks will resume today at the dispute [...]
The 5 best ways commuters are beating today’s tube strikes February 5, 2014 With delayed services, and stations so crowded that they've had to be closed (and we can see why) many have decided to experiment with new ways to get to work. If you don't fancy using our guide to navigating the tube strikes, then here are some more innovative options. On your bike While this option [...]
Why a Yes vote in Scotland would mean chaos in Westminster February 6, 2014 THE penny is beginning to drop in boardrooms across the City. It is all too possible, though still not the most likely outcome, that the Scottish electorate will decide to vote to leave the UK. The polls still show a large lead for the No side, albeit one that is shrinking. Large numbers of voters [...]
Tube strike survival guide February 3, 2014 LONDON is bracing itself for the worst – forget the storms, this evening a Tube strike is going on. But instead of ducking for cover and barricading ourselves in, most of us will have to face the maelstrom head on as we battle to get to work (relatively on time) and back again. There’s still a [...]
The boffins have proved it: Commuting makes you miserable February 12, 2014 Who’d be a commuter? Escalating train fares, Tube strikes, people sneezing without covering their noses. My soul’s getting heavy just thinking about it. And now even the boffins at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are weighing in, performing a complex “regression analysis” – a way of comparing lots of different variables, in this case [...]
The British productivity disease: How to cure it April 16, 2014 THIS week has brought more bright economic news – with falling inflation and unemployment paving the way for rising real wages. Yet while the UK is now the fastest growing developed economy, the productivity of its workforce languishes a fifth below the G7 average. What can be done to cure this British disease? US economist [...]