24hourlondon

"Well," said Ken Livingstone, in that world-weary nasal whine you either love or hate. "In the rest of the world they have two sets of tracks, so you can use one and fix the other. But it didn't occur to the Victorians, so we're screwed." I was asking about Boris Johnson's pledge to get the Tube running for an hour longer on Friday and Saturday nights and why, in his opinion, it hasn't been possible to do it? "It's not unique, is it? Almost everything Boris promised hasn't happened. He went into that election not expecting to win and having no knowledge of local government. It was only after the event that he realised things were a lot more difficult than he thought. It'll be Brian Paddick this time around, saying 'We'll keep theTubes open later'," he said, referring to the forthcoming London mayoral election campaign. Last week I spoke to the mayor, Boris Johnson's office about his election promise and he...

When Boris Johnson stood to be mayor of London in 2008 his transport manifesto, called Getting Londoners Moving , included this on page five. "I want the Tube to open for one hour later on Friday and Saturday nights, so Londoners can get home safely." A modest proposal, you would have thought. Especially since this is precisely what happens in Paris, where the Metro usually shuts at 1.15am but stays open until 2.15am on Fridays and Saturdays. If a country notorious for the strength of its unions can negotiate such an arrangement in its capital, you would have thought that our C an Do mayor would have no trouble - especially since his election victory rested largely upon the votes of outer London, which has the most to gain by longer Tube hours. And yet - judging by the fact that it hasn't happened - he has had trouble. By way of limbering up on the subject, I contacted Transport for London to ask them in general terms about the justification for shutting the Tu...