On 25 Apr, 18:54, James Farrar wrote:

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:45:06 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T

wrote:
The Guardian story suggests that the Mayor has in essence won over
central government. My question is thus a simple one - if Boris
Johnson is elected next week instead of Ken Livingstone, would
government ministers be at all keen to go ahead with a plan that
allows TfL to takeover - or at least have a substantial role to play
in the running of - the South London Metro routes, which would
effectively hand him an early victory, one which was basically the
result of Ken Livingstone's long-term game plan, or would they just
pull the plug on it all?

If they did, Johnson (and Cameron, in all probability) would
absolutely slaughter them in the press for blatant party political
point-scoring.

I hope they wouldn't, but they are politicians.


First off, I have no inside information. But if I painted this whole
scheme as a done deal, then I'm sorry, because that's certainly not
the message I intended to convey - I don't think it is a done deal at
all yet (unlike the DfT funding ELLX phase 2) , and I get the
impression that progressing this scheme from theory into reality is
dependent upon the DfT and ministers continuing to give it a
sympathetic hearing, bearing in mind there are substantial forces of
opposition to it within both the railway industry and indeed with the
DfT itself.

It appears more to be a work-in-progress, and one that I am somewhat
sceptical about Boris Johnson - should he become Mayor - (a) properly
recognising the importance thereof and being willing to whole-
heartedly take up, argue for and progress, and (b) whether he would
actually get a sympathetic hearing from central government were he to
do so. This is one of Ken Livingstone's pet projects, and is part of
his long-term game plan to exert greater London influence over the
rail network in the capital for the benefit of Londoners. I'm far from
convinced that Boris would be able to continue this shift, not least
because I'm far from convinced that he recognises how important it is.