With heavy scrutiny on the British government's Rwanda policy hitting the headlines over the past couple of weeks, Conservatives in Westminster will feel like they're under a microscope.
Luckily, the Mayor of London has stepped in to help by giving people something else to baulk at. This week, we heard again that Sadiq Khan is considering introducing 'dynamic pricing' for journeys on the London Underground.
Seb Dance, Khan's deputy mayor for transport, was asked at a London Assembly meeting on Tuesday about introducing dynamic fares. Dance replied: "It's a decision for the Mayor, but it's also on the advice of Transport for London (TfL) as well as my own."
Now, unless you're a Taylor Swift fan – which, admittedly, I am not – you probably won't know what 'dynamic pricing' means. To save you, Googling it - like I had to - dynamic pricing means the price increases with demand. This usually means that fees are lower the earlier you pay for something. It's a system used at events with limited capacity, like Taylor Swift concerts, although I'm not sure how she'd even fill my back garden.
Sadiq Khan's proposal to introduce a dynamic pricing system to London's Tubes is completely bonkers. How can he look at Transport for London's problems and think that was the correct solution?
Firstly, this completely undermines the best thing about the Tube. You should be able to hop on and off whichever way you please. If you want to travel from Westminster out into the sticks of Watford, you can, or if you're going to do a one-stop-hop, you can.
The beauty of the Tube is that you can choose what route works best for you in the spur of the moment. This is made especially attractive by the fact that fares are capped daily within certain zones. So you can travel around Zone 1 all day – the most central zone – and it won't cost much more than a fiver. The Tube is the pinnacle of flexible public transport.
If Sadiq Khan is to introduce dynamic pricing, you'll face a conundrum. If you want to save the most money, you need to book journeys ahead of time. Paying on the day could easily be exorbitant.
But pre-booking doesn't work on the Tube. It might work on National Rail train services, but that's because they're usually long-distance, so there's usually only one or two trains that fit your schedule. When you have lines spiralling everywhere like spaghetti and trains coming in every two minutes, trying to figure out what time to book things will give you a headache.
Because pre-booking is almost impossible, nobody will do it. This means people will effectively pay higher Tube fares, which is not a good look for a Labour Mayor during a cost of living crisis.
Let's not forget that the UK's rail services are also in complete disarray. There have been more strikes in the past two years than at my local bowling alley. So, even if you work out how to book your Tube, your local Arthur Scargill won't be driving it since he'll be on the picket line. That frustrates passengers and puts unsurmountable weight onto apparently outdated IT systems when millions of angry Londoners claim Delay Repay compensation.
Perhaps the final nail in Khan's coffin over this pricing saga is TfL's enormous debt. It is like a child repeatedly wasting their pocket money on sweets and having the cheek to go back to the bank of mum and dad to ask for more. Just this week, the government forked out another £250 million for TfL upgrades. But even this didn't make Mr Khan happy because it was only half of what he wanted.
The problem with this constant financial despair is that dynamic pricing will only worsen everything. If you use the Tube daily, adding all this complexity will drive you to alternative transport – a bus, a car, a bicycle, or even your shoes. Who would use the Tube if its primary benefit of flexibility is gone?
It's sad because I love the Tube. It's a brilliant form of mass public transport that avoids shouting at incompetent drivers on London's mad roads. But if Sadiq Khan introduces this plainly absurd pricing system, TfL will be even less popular than Taylor Swift is with me. It could well become a thing of the past.
Image: Chris Sampson
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