Tom Anderson wrote:


Which part of LU did he privatise? I take it you're not referring to the
PPP, which he fought tooth and nail.

A number of people on the left (the very hard left, this is) see the
closure of the ELL and its incorporate into a privately operated London
Overground as a privatisation. I don't, particularly, because it's a
good idea and you have to set it against the fact that greater public
control applies on the rest of LO, the creation of which is hardly a
right-wing act.

Boris Johnson has an unashamedly right-wing agenda. Ken Livingstone
had a conveniently-acquired right-wing agenda, occasionally regressing
when his conscience got the better of him.

I'm not sure Boris' agenda matters here. For instance, his Routemaster
spiel is mostly lifted from a 2005 report edited by the genuine right
wing ideologue Dean Godson, who has the distinction of being sacked from
the Telegraph for being too pro-Israel (and doesn't seem to be a
particular expert on transport issues). Boris evidently came along
substantially after this crowd were already thinking of how to win in
2008 and he's now surrounded himself with an unpleasant clique of them.
It's therefore unsurprising that extending a deal with Chavez and co.
isn't to their taste, but doubling bus and tram fares for the poor is
apparently perfectly OK (as, presumably, is fuelling buses from Saudi
oil or even paying Venezuela market rate for it). It's a shame they had
to lie about the reasons, however.

In comparison Livingstone (whose ideology, such as it is, is personal)
is at heart a pragmatist who'll take any kind of public/private control
as long as it works (cf. nationalising East Thames Buses, leasing class
378s privately, outsourcing DLR and congestion charge operation,
bringing Silverlink Metro under Tfl...). Given this record, the fact
that he opposed PPP seems likely to be based on practical grounds (he
considered it wouldn't work) rather than ideological ones. Ironically
there are more than a few Tories who actually quite like the idea of PPP.

Establishing a tax on car use to pay for buses, not kowtowing to the
Americans when they refused to pay it, setting up the first civil
partnership scheme in the UK, and (re)starting an anti-racism music
festival don't seem particularly right-wing to me.

Quite.

Tom