Last week saw the transport secretary Chris Grayling veto Sadiq Khan’s attempt to move more of London’s privately-managed commuter railways over to publicly-owned Transport for London, to the annoyance of Labour and Conservative MPs alike. Grayling’s claim that his motivation was to avoid “deckchair shuffling” was only slightly undermined by a memo between him and Boris Johnson, leaked to the Evening Standard, admitting his block of the move was to keep control of the rail network “out of the clutches of any future Labour Mayor”.
On the face of it, this is a manifestly short-sighted and self-defeating decision. Rail devolution is supported by passengers, London’s neighbouring counties, and the evidence, which shows a 600 per cent increase in passengers on other routes since they were transferred.
Unfortunately, this is a predictable and familiar response from our system of government, which often centralises decision-making in ministers who have little connection with the issues at hand and little accountability when things go wrong. The result is a triumph of cynical partisanship over informed and long-term decision making.
Take length of time in office. Both of the past two Mayors served for eight years, and Sadiq Khan could well do the same. Grayling is the fourth transport secretary in just six years. Ministers are here today, gone tomorrow, off to another department where past failures to deliver can be quietly forgotten. Few will ever be held to account for bad policies in the way that the mayor is by direct elections and by the London Assembly.
