Comments on: Boris breaks another promise

By: AdamBienkov

AdamBienkov — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:54:42 +0000

Cjcjc – we will have to wait and see but the worry is that this will be the case in smaller suburban stations.

If you take out 800 staff then it’s inevitable really. The fact that more CCTV is being brought in suggests this as well.

By: damon

damon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:26:00 +0000

This is what we need on the Underground.

http://beijingolympicsblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/chinese-armed-police.jpg

By: Blanco

Blanco — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:02:17 +0000

@cjcjc

Will this be followed by an appeal to bring back gun ownership to “deal with trouble”?

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:01:02 +0000

The stations are not going to be entirely unmanned are they?

I would also be interested to know the last time someone came out of a ticket office to deal with trouble…

By: damon

damon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:36:17 +0000

In Germany they have some pretty tough looking security staff who travel about on the S and U Bahns. Sometimes even with dogs. You certainly don’t want to mess with them.
http://www.tz-online.de/bilder/2009/02/09/70388/1078638813-u_bahn_475px.9.jpg

I doubt they’d be allowed in Britain.

”Muggers paradise?” Is that really Bob Crow’s concern? Still, you’d think it’s a good thing just for someone to be around to keep an eye on things.

By: Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:05:06 +0000

Ian - my view is that the scaling back of ticket offices is inevitable. More and more people use Oyster cards and there are, as you suggest, better ways of spending the money. However, Boris can't have it both ways. He campaigned on protecting ticket offices. It was a big part of his transport manifesto and he was keen to attach himself to the campaign to protect them. In fact he made almost exactly the same arguments that the RMT are making now.

By: IanVisits

IanVisits — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:47:00 +0000

There seems to be a slight level of hypocrisy from the RMT though on this issue.

They claim that CCTVs wont prevent crime, which is technically correct as it simply displaces it to a different location – just as having a member of staff sitting behind a sheet of glass in a ticket office wont prevent crime – just move it to a different location.

However, when was the last time anyone saw a member of tube staff pro-actively get involved in preventing a crime occurring?

I have on rather too many occasions over the years seem people leaping over ticket barriers and the like – only for the staff to either totally ignore what happened or if trying to deal with someone refusing to actually touch them or restrain them.

If the tube staff had a long honourable tradition of actually dealing with crime as it happened, then there would be some justification in keeping them in their ticket offices – but as it is, they are just overpaid CCTV systems.

In that situation, why spend money on an expensive system, when a much cheaper and equally effective alternative exists?

By: Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:47:20 +0000

RT @libcon: Boris breaks another promise http://bit.ly/bmw8eB

By: Tamarisk Kay

Tamarisk Kay — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:24:36 +0000

I like talking to anactual person! RT @libcon: Boris breaks another promise http://bit.ly/bmw8eB

By: Joshua Fenton-Glynn

Joshua Fenton-Glynn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:14:33 +0000

Boris cuts transport staff against manifesto promis while labour bring in high speed rail http://tinyurl.com/yagp87g #toryrailfail

By: Liberal Conspiracy

Liberal Conspiracy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:01:29 +0000

Boris breaks another promise http://bit.ly/bmw8eB