So, Sadiq Khan has made his first big transport announcement, one hour Hopper bus ticket.
Now, even though I live 400 miles away, I know fine that this is not be an original idea from the new London Mayor. Someone has been campaigning for this since 2009. Who could that possibly be?
Step forward Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon. The photo was taken in 2009 in tandem with this article in the Standard and the policy was in the 2012 Lib Dem London manifesto.
Boris blithely dismissed it in the same way Cameron dismissed the raising of the tax threshold policy, saying it was too complicated and costly.
His successor saw the sense in it and used Caroline’s idea in his manifesto.
Caroline suggested that the new Mayor might like to take on another good idea of hers:
The Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for a One Hour Bus Ticket for the best part of a decade in London. I welcome our policy being adopted by London’s new mayor and hope that he will go further and also implement our policy for half price travel for journeys on the transport network before 7;30 am.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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7 Comments
A slightly tangental point: after hearing Cameron’s response to Tim Farron’s question in PMQs today, I’m almost tempted to re-apply for membership of the LibDems: almost, but not quite.
The Speaker said that Tory backbenchers appear not to like Tim, but he must be heard.
Cameron’s reply was “robust”.
Why not quite, Nick?
When one sees the massed ranks of braying Tories at PMQ’s it makes one wonder how naive it was to ever think you could enter into a productive Coalition with them. They are carnivores and DC is certainly Flashman.
Tim, in fact, did quite well yesterday and also scored a few brownie points with Labour – but I remember the last Lib Dem leader saying that he simply looked at the ceiling and got his prepared question out over the din as fast as he could.
@ Caron My campaigning days ended in 2011. Just now, i cannot work up any enthusiasm for any political party.
@ David Raw. Your first sentence could be incorporated into a longer answer to Caron’s question, if I could muster the motivation to write one. Cameron has perfected the art of attacking the questioner and not answering the question, thus turning PMQs into a meaningless ritual.
This concept was in use in Dijon some years ago.
Well done Tim Farron.
Maybe Cameron should be provided with bread rolls, given that every Wednesday he is determined to turn the House of Commons into a house of ill repute .