First the buses, now the tubes - the TfL guerilla Ken Legacy Promotion Campaign is moving ever onward. We’re getting more answers to the question ‘what happens if Boris wins and TfL’s figures were *right*?’.
Transport for London (TfL) has welcomed the announcement that crime on the Underground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) have gone down by 11 per cent this year with robberies on the network cut by more than 50 per cent.
Continued investment in safety and security on the Tube network have helped to deliver the cut in recorded crime, shown by statistics released by the British Transport Police (BTP) today.
There have also been reductions in pick pocketing, criminal damage, violent crime and public disorder offences in the past year.
In other words, despite the campaigns of the Boris camp during the election and all the scaremongering, there was already a good crime-busting strategy going on on London’s public transport, and he’s now having to swallow this. I think some examination of the campaign’s claims and those of various Tory commentators is required now, to see how wildly inaccurate they are. These figures aren’t just good, they’re superb, and you don’t get that unless you’ve put the time, money and people on the job. Great work all round.
Naturally our man’s PR team are careful to avoid any mention of the dreaded K-word:
The Mayor said: ‘The reported cut in crime on the Tube and Docklands Light Railway is very encouraging, and is a trend that I fully intend to build upon as Mayor.
‘Unfortunately many Londoners do not feel as safe as they should do when using the network, which is why we have made tackling transport crime one of our number one priorities.
Tell you what, Boris. Why not bite the bullet and realise that it’s perception of crime, not actual crime that is the problem. Why not forget the spin doctors and campaign fearmongering and accept that you’ve inherited a great situation and all it requires from you is to keep up the good work, and spend the time telling your suburban voters that tube travel is a safe, low crime way of getting around. A word of thanks to the people who made it happen, from Livingstone downwards would be a good move, too. You know, the people your campaign called ‘cronies’ and spent years denigrating. That would be the gentlemanly thing to do.
Incidentally, how many ‘number one priorities’ does Boris have? One per Deputy Mayor, perhaps? As far as the Tube is concerned the number one priority is delivering the system out of PPP hell and bringing it up to 21st century standards. Metronet came out of administration yesterday, so why not crack on with that, old chap.
Tags: 2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
[...] previous Mayor, which rather contrasts with the complete lack of mention of the previous Mayor when announcing the continuing reduction in crime figures last week. Not quite British fair play, [...]
[...] while Boris might have enjoyed playing on this in appointing multiple ‘deputies’ to address his multiple ‘number one priorities’, but he’s not going to enjoy it when it makes alleged scandals seem that bit closer to his own [...]