How I Have Been Getting From Kentish Town to Lambeth Without the Bakerloo Line, and What the Strike Reveals About How London Actually Works

Reading: Bohiney | The London Prat

KENTISH TOWN, LONDON — The Bakerloo Line strike is now in its sixth week, my commute from Kentish Town to a meeting in Lambeth has involved a Northern Line, a brisk walk across Westminster Bridge, and a cumulative additional thirty-eight minutes per day, and I have, on every available indicator, fewer complaints than I expected. By Lowri Griffiths.

The Practical Adaptation

The first week was a disaster. The second week was a recalibration. By the third week, I had identified three buses and one walking route that, taken together, get me to Lambeth in approximately the same time the Bakerloo Line did before the strike began. North Londoners are, on every available historical indicator, substantively adaptable.

The Underlying Argument

The RMT case is, on close reading, that food and energy inflation across the past three years has substantively eroded London Underground worker wages, and that the wage-rise demand approximately tracks the inflation. The cumulative cost to TfL is calculable; the cost is, on every available comparison, substantially less than the cumulative cost of six weeks of disruption to the broader London economy.

The strike is, in operational terms, the rational outcome of an unwillingness to do simple arithmetic. The Bank of England rate rise is, on close reading, the same arithmetic problem at a different scale. Read more at my author page.

Pairs well with: The Daily Mash

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/bank-of-england-raises-rates-again-to-punish-anyone-who-enjoyed-a-sandwich/