London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

London isn’t working – and it isn’t moving either

London isn’t working – and it isn’t moving either

London Mayor Sadiq Khan claims that he wants London to get back to work, yet he has done little or nothing to encourage this to happen, says Paul Finch
I voted for Sadiq Khan, both as my former constituency MP and when he stood as a candidate to be Mayor of London. So what follows is not generic criticism from a political critic, but a plea from a Londoner who would like the mayor to ensure that this great capital remains just that.

Currently, the experience of travelling in what is supposed to be a ‘world city’ is evidence that it is anything but: instead a messy amalgam of failed ideas, operational incompetence and political indifference.

Last month, in what was a symbolic moment, Tower Bridge became stuck, having opened to allow a ‘tall ship’ through but then jamming. The police, invariably absent when traffic problems occur in the capital, on this occasion eventually arrived on the scene, providing useless advice to roader users that they should ‘seek alternative routes’.

To Londoners such as myself, especially those who dare to live south of the Thames, this advice was par for the course. The moment you drive west of Tower Bridge you incur a £15 road tax penalty (sorry, ‘Congestion Charge’).

If you reverse your journey, you negotiate the nightmare of crossing the river via the Rotherhithe Tunnel, hopefully not when the police are conducting one of their helpful traffic checks on the other side, thereby extending the crossing time by 15 minutes (as happened to me).

If you just keep going, bear in mind that the £15 penalty now operates at the weekends as Mayor Khan’s contribution to making life easier during the pandemic.

To cross the river is no simple matter. You cannot turn left from the Embankment onto Westminster Bridge. Vauxhall Bridge is closed to most traffic because of roadworks.

You cannot turn left onto Chelsea Bridge. Wandsworth bridge is half-closed for roadworks; Hammersmith Bridge is closed (as usual) for ‘strengthening’.

Almost needless to say, there are no extant plans for replacement/relief bridges in central London, though there are terribly exciting plans to illuminate those that exist – a good example of decadent design trumping good old engineering principles which explain why we have bridges and tunnels in the first place.

Bring back Brunel, you might say.

London has lost the habit of bridge-building. The last new crossing, the Millennium Bridge, was a private initiative and contributed nothing to relieve traffic congestion. It is hard to think of a new London bridge carrying vehicles, built in the 20th century and still operative.

Public policy appears to be that bridges are bad – unless they are for pedestrians and cyclists. But if you hate the idea of bridges for cars, it is a short step to hating any bridge: hence the abandonment of the Rotherhithe Park-to-Canary Wharf idea and, further west, the proposal to link Vauxhall and Pimlico.

It goes without saying that there is no extant proposal being supported to building a relief crossing, given the repeat closures of Hammersmith Bridge, which again unduly penalise Londoners living south of the Thames.

Mayor Khan hails from Tooting, so must be well aware of the grotesque inequity of London Underground provision for people like him and me, with only about 10 per cent of stations south of the river. We need bridges and we need transport policies that work for all, not just the lucky transpontine majority.

The mayor claims that he wants London to get back to work, yet he has done little or nothing to encourage this to happen. On the contrary, the message is that not only should we be wary of using public transport, but that we should fear the £15 penalty charge for travelling about in our own city by other means, weekends included.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×