BBC on LBC: Boris Baits Clegg on the London Broadcasting Corporation

Seems like Boris Johnson wasn’t too impressed by yesterday’s story about a minister jumping in the car for a 100 metre journey. He has weighed in with a phone call to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s radio phone-in, urging politicians to use public transport. Seems only fair that they do, given that they make some of the key decisions that affect the rest of us – same goes for the health service, education etc.

And despite the absence of a Boris transport policy for London (see the post on London Reconnections  for 10^th December 2012),  he does use his bike to get around. And black cabs (expensive public transport) – he once beat me to a taxi at Canary Wharf. (photos: 24heuresactu.com and mirror.co.uk)

The Great Rail Fares Robbery

Splendid poster featuring Prime Minister David Cameron, deputy Nick Clegg and Chancellor George Osborne, “Wanted” for the Great Rail Fares Robbery. It’s part of a protest against big increases in train fares being run by rail union the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, backed by the Campaign for Better Transport and Climate Rush which warns that fares will jump by 25% over the next four years unless the current formula for above-inflation increases is changed. The increases begin in January 2012, with rises expected to average 8%. The TSSA has given examples of how annual season tickets will increase by 2015 under the current formula, including Swindon to London, from £7,024 now to £9,009 (a rise of almost £2,000; Norwich to London, £6,540 to £8,388 (£1,848); Canterbury to London, £4,328 to £5,551 (£1,223); Guildford to London, £2,916 to £3,740 (£824) and Manchester to Liverpool, £2,536 to £3,253 (£717). None of which is an argument for owning a car, which still works out more expensive if you do the maths properly. But it definitely adds to the general view that “owning and running a car is cheaper than public transport,” when, often, it isn’t.

Eyjafjallajokull, Nick Clegg and the Brighton Marathon

Question: what is the connection between a plume of volcanic ash from Iceland, last week’s leader’s debate on tv, and the Brighton Marathon? Answer: they are all dislocations, and they all show us glimpses of a different world. This dislocated world means we can answer the question, “what if z had happened instead of y?” Historians call this a “counterfactual,” a way of asking “what if.”

For example, what would Britain be like now if William the Conqueror had lost the Battle of Hastings. Or if Hitler had successfully invaded the UK? (the subject of Robert Harris’s book Fatherland). So last week has given us three glimpses of a different world: first, Iceland’s unintentional revenge on the world economy (they took our cash and gave us ash) has shown what things might be like if ubiquitous jet travel had not happened: the consequences not just for holidays and business travel, but also for global just-in-time supply chains, from exotic fruit and veg. in your supermarket to bone marrow for transplants.

Secondly, Nick Clegg’s tv appearance on the first UK leader’s debate may or may not turn out to be a general election game changer, but it showed that there is another set of possibilities outside the duopoly that has run British policy during our lifetimes, and which the Labour and Conservative politicians just don’t seem to get – they need to wise up to the fact that it’s not about Clegg’s ability to look straight down the barrel of the tv camera, it’s about having some policies that aren’t part of the same old same old. And the Brighton Marathon? The closure of many roads in Brighton and Hove to accommodate 8,000 or so runners and the 80,000 spectators who turned out in the sunshine, showed that there can be another way of sharing out our city. Cars rule the roost most of the time, but the Brighton Marathon showed us the possibility of another future: a glimpse of a different world.