Gordon Must Quash Treasury Attempts To Cut Crossrail

摘要

If you visit my office you may well have your coffee served in a very special mug. It was a gift from business group London First, which has been a long-term campaigner for Crossrail, and is decorated with a copy of one of those Evening Standard screamer boards bearing the immortal words 'Crossrail victory - Brown go ahead'.It dates from 5 October last year when the capital's only newspaper announced 'a major victory for London'. That day, our new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said quite explicitly that 'Crossrail will now proceed'.The Standard, London First, then-mayor Ken Livingstone, who had worked tirelessly to promote the scheme, and a great many other long-term supporters were delighted. This was the announcement they had been waiting for for at least a decade. After all, even before it was elected, the then Labour opposition had pledged itself to revive a scheme inexplicably abandoned bytheToriesin 1995.Both administrations had managed to clock up nearly ￡ 1bn on planning and research between them without a single rail being laid. After almost 20 years of frustration it looked as if a scheme almost everyone wanted and successive leaders from John Major to Gordon Brown told us they approved of had finally been given the green light.