16 April, 2008

Boris' bus "gaffe"

Some of the media are trying to make a big thing over Boris saying that a new fleet of modern routemasters would cost about £100 million. Boris was "caught" on film and posted on Youtube. This, they say, is much higher than the £8 million first announced and more in line with Livingstone's claims.

Rubbish!

Livingstone originally claimed that conductors on these buses would cost £110 million. Boris never claimed that he could replace a whole fleet of buses for £8 million, Livingstone has earmarked a budget for new buses and the new routemaster will be bought within that budget.

Buses are not conductors.

2 comments:

Geoff said...

James, it just shows how desperate they are getting. Go Boris!

Jimmy said...

Ken said that conductors would cost £48m, see http://www.londonforken.co.uk/?p=64which I pointed to last time you discussed this issue.
Boris was not providing the £8m for just putting conductors on normal buses, he want to buy hundreds of brand new routemasters for them, it is a single policy and must be costed as such.

If he was only providing the £8m figure for condustors, not only was he wrong, but he was also deliberately misleading Londoners. It is a good job we have more spin doctors in City Hall than bus conductors to correct such innacruacies from mayoral candidates.