It must be easy being the Tory candidate for London Mayor...
... because you are never going to have to implement any of your policies.
According to Conservative Home Steve Norris is planning to run again, and is reported as saying he will scrap London's bendy buses and replace them with Routemasters.
I'm sorry but why?
1) The reason Routemasters have been phased out (apart from the fact they are old and small) is because they are inaccessible to many people with disabilities (large step up onto the bus for a start). Is Mr Norris seriously suggesting that he is willing to exclude a significant section of Londoners from the buses in order to pander to the nostalgia of middle aged schoolboys, who probably never use the buses anyway. Plus of course it would probably be unlawful under the disability discrimination act anyway.
2) How much would it cost? Love them or hate them, we have paid for the bendy buses now, and they are probably a whole lot cheaper to run than a Routemaster. For a start you only need a one man crew to run a bendy bus. I don't see why I should have to subsidise the nostalgia of a bunch of middle aged schoolboys...
3) Where in the hell are you going to find a couple of hundred Routemasters now? Are there fields of them sitting in the home counties waiting for their nations call, somehow I doubt it.
So all in all I think we can safely say that this is not a runner as a policy. But that's fine Steve isn't going to get to implement it anyway.
According to Conservative Home Steve Norris is planning to run again, and is reported as saying he will scrap London's bendy buses and replace them with Routemasters.
I'm sorry but why?
1) The reason Routemasters have been phased out (apart from the fact they are old and small) is because they are inaccessible to many people with disabilities (large step up onto the bus for a start). Is Mr Norris seriously suggesting that he is willing to exclude a significant section of Londoners from the buses in order to pander to the nostalgia of middle aged schoolboys, who probably never use the buses anyway. Plus of course it would probably be unlawful under the disability discrimination act anyway.
2) How much would it cost? Love them or hate them, we have paid for the bendy buses now, and they are probably a whole lot cheaper to run than a Routemaster. For a start you only need a one man crew to run a bendy bus. I don't see why I should have to subsidise the nostalgia of a bunch of middle aged schoolboys...
3) Where in the hell are you going to find a couple of hundred Routemasters now? Are there fields of them sitting in the home counties waiting for their nations call, somehow I doubt it.
So all in all I think we can safely say that this is not a runner as a policy. But that's fine Steve isn't going to get to implement it anyway.
posted by Bernard at 10:00 pm
1 Comments:
Personally, I'm just praying Mike Read wins the selection, if only for all the "FRANKIE SAY VOTE KEN" t-shirts that will become ubuquitous on every street corner (not that I want Ken Livingstone to win, I just really want Mike Read to lose).
:)
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