London grinds to a halt

Independent Argument quotes from the Lord Mayor's banquet speech given at London's Guildhall on Monday

Here in London, our status as a world financial and legal centre depends not on the domestic economy but on the goodwill of our international businesses. And that brings me to the question of transport. It is dire, and so bad that we are approaching the time when the financial pre-eminence of the City may become imperilled.

Crossrail and Thameslink 2000 are stalled; the East London line is mired in arguments. Much of the infrastructure of public transport is crumbling.

I take the Tube every day of my working life. Virtually every day I am delayed. Journey times are up to twice what they were two or three years ago. Millions of London's workers are inconvenienced. What a waste of time, what a waste of productive time, what a way to treat people.

What we are seeing here is the consequences of failures to invest 10-15 years ago. Michael Portillo's decision to cancel Crossrail (the Paddington-Liverpool St underground line taking main-line trains east-west across London) has cost London dear. And then everything stood still for years for the ridiculous ideology-driven privo-fragment-isation of the railways.

If all the money spend on accountants and lawyers during privofragmentisation had instead been invested in new trains and new tracks, London wouldn't be in half the mess it's in now.