Thursday, October 12, 2006

November's Londoner

The latest edition of The Londoner, Livingstone's propaganda sheet, has hit the streets. For anyone too busy to read it, the headlines include:

Crime Rate Cut in the Capital by Local police Teams (front page)

Cash Fare Rises Mean Oyster is London's Cheapest Ticket

Million Pound C-Charge Debt Makes US Diplomats Britain's Worst Payers

Free Travel will Help Young Londoners Fulfil their Potential

Modern designed buses and flexible shifts mean there's never been a better time to be a female bus driver

Thousands to attend climate change event in the capital

Crime still falling in London as confidence in the Met grows

Should people pay more to drive 'Chelsea tractors' ?

Larger zone will cut congestion and mean less pollution and fewer accidents (Centre page spread)

Don't rush to flush if it's just a pee (Advert - yes really)

Make room for cyclists (Another advert)

Tomorrow's post will come from the real world...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Roger, Your readers might like to know how the £3 million a year Londoner is funded.

TfL has to give the Mayor £1.5 million a year. This is £1.5 million they can't spend on road safety improvements.

The LDA, who should be investing in London's economy, have to give the Mayor £500K. They do not admit to this but hide it in their programme budgets.

The Met, who really should be paying policemen, have to give the Mayor £250K.

Even the Mayor has not got the brass neck to tax the London Fire Brigade thank God.

So the Mayor only spends about £600-700K a year out of his own budgets to tell us all how great he is! How smelly is that?

By the way, for comparison, the biggest spenders on advertising at the last general election were the Conservatives who spent £7.2 million across all of England, see Electoral Commission website. They do this once every four years. Livingstone is spending £3 million a year on the Londoner alone.

Neil Reddin said...

Incredible.

Forgive the plug, but I've blogged about it on www.selblog.org.

Roger - On the issue of the US diplomats not paying their "C-charge", have we got details of the debts of other countries' embassies? I seem to remember a few years back a story about some Arab and African embassies being less than prompt with paying their parking tickets.

Roger Evans said...

Phil - In fact Livingstone did demand money from the Fire Authority. This board has a large number of local councillors and Labour have lost their majority recently, so the Mayor's request was thrown out. But don't worry, because the govt plans to give the Mayor power to appoint some 'independents' ie cronies, so there will be no more dissent.

Neil - great take on this at Selblog.org, so the plug is forgiven. Many other countries fail to pay the C Charge but they aren't lefty hate icons.

Martin - I'll ask them to send you a copy. Quite often I don't get one posted at home but I struggle by without. There are plenty lying around in the City Hall foyer if you're passing.

Anonymous said...

Roger,

Very interested to hear that the Mayor has been trying to tax the London Fire Brigade to subsidise his own trumpet blowing. Do tell: How much did they ask for?