London's Transport & Mayoral Campaign

The campaign for London Mayor is getting into full swing now and yesterday Ken Livingstone announced his plans for the Tube.

Interesting proposals and a challenge. The thing that most Londoners are aware of is one thing, which the "headline grabbing" leaflet from Boris Johnson shows. London's Transport is a mess. It's fine for tourists and people who use it occasionally but if you have to rely on it every day it really is a pain in the butt.

As much as people think I love the Tube, I don't. I find it interesting and I find the people on it interesting & funny. But if I had a job which meant I didn't have to use the Tube again, with other things being equal, I would take it like a shot.


I must thank Pete from The Londoneer for taking a picture of the leaflet. He said: "I went to the Stonewall-organised Mayoral Hustings at the NFT on the Southbank on Saturday, and I thought you might be interested in a piece of Boris's election material which has an interesting take on the Tube map."

It's very interesting. What to me was even more interesting is what Pete said about Boris at the hustings. "Boris, was much larger than life, but other than bendy buses and cycle routes he doesn't seem to have a handle on any other issues - some of his comments had the whole audience writhing with embarrassment at times. And when he prompted laughter, it was entirely 'at him' rather than 'with him'. I feel for him, poor man. Completely and utterly out of his depth ...."

One of the better things about Ken Livingstone is that he does use public transport & the Tube when I don't think he needs to (ie he's got the money to taxi more). He doesn't just use it for spin doctoring but travels on it pretty much like everyone else.


There's been a number of sightings of him from me and other readers of this blog. Therefore he's aware of all the delays, overcrowding, break downs, crime, (expense - not so much as expense is relative to what you earn), heat, confusion, bad communication and all the other stuff that goes to make daily Tube commuting such a pleasure.

Views and comments as usual, much appreciated!

Having problems deciding who to vote for? VoteMatch can help

I came across a fab little tool yesterday - mainly because they added my blog to their blogroll - thanks guys! Here's how they describe the site:

Vote Match is a short quiz that voters can fill in to match their views with the views of the election candidates. In the interests of minimising any unintended biases, the tool is intended to be as transparent as possible:

Candidates and parties will be asked to provide their own answers based on their own published policy.

Users can include and/or exclude parties and candidates from the survey as they see fit and add extra weight to those issues which they consider to be important.

The website does not simply give you an answer - it shows you how the results are calculated.

Vote Match is not about telling people how to vote and we do not support any political party. Rather, it is about encouraging voters to consider which issues are important and informing them about where the parties and candidates stand.

VoteMatch has been used by over 25,000 people since it's launch on March 28th. I've just completed it - it took me two minutes to do and no surprises that Boris Johnson came last for me. The Green Party & Ken Livingstone were pretty much neck & neck. Give it a try yourself & see what comes out.