Despite intensive lobbying by your local Labour councillors and GLA representative Val Shawcross and thousands of signatures on a petition asking for the line that links Clapham directly to Victoria Boris is threatening to cut the service to Victoria instead of improving the service as Labour councillors have demanded from just two trains an hour to at least four.

Clapham residents know all too well the nightmare of travelling during peak hours, being unable to get on overcrowded tubes bound for the centre of London. 

The tragic loss of the South London Line will only make matters worse and it is madness that this Conservative Mayor refuses to listen to local concerns.

Boris has awarded TFL bosses 17 million pounds in bonuses which is an insult to ordinary Clapham commuters who are being forced to pay increased fares for a poorer service.

The mayor hiked up fares for those without season tickets – commonly people from low income backgrounds – late last year, with the hit being delivered from the start of this year.

A full run down of the prices, borrowed from a summary on Liberal Conspiracy, is below: 

 -A single bus journey by Oyster up 20% to £1.20

- A weekly oyster bus pass up 20% to £16.60

- Six-zone peak single Tube fare by Oyster up 10.5% to £4.20

- A five-zone off-peak single Tube fare (outside zone 1) up 18.2% to £1.30

- Most Oyster pay-as-you-go Tube fares up by 20p per trip.

- Overall tube fares will rise 3.9% and overall bus fares up by 12.7%.

This is obviously not good for anyone, especially as the mayor continues to take the approach of cutting key services, like policing, while jetting off to Europe to beg for super rich hedge fund bosses to be let off from more scrutiny. Or, as he has done today, whining about those poor old bankers and their desire to leave the country (dont suppose they need any help packing?)

Surprisingly, Clapham Tories haven’t uttered a word about these rises and their impact on residents – nothing on their Parliamentary candidate’s website for Vauxhall or on that of the Lambeth Tories.

How about helping to find out what they think by contacting them asking for their view on whether they back yet more of Boris’ far rises – you can contact their candidate here and your local Tory candidates here. Let us know your feedback by contacting your Labour councillors as well on this page.

We believe that hitting people hard, especially those on low incomes, is not what Clapham needs. These prices could have been avoided had the mayor not already mismanaged the capital’s budget. The question is, do Clapham Tories back their Mayor’s fare rises?

The PM talks about the sort of cynicism and slash n burn public spending cuts being espoused by an incredibly gleeful Conservative party, pointing out that neither are necessary as we pull out of the global recession. When the Tories talk about austerity, they are really talking about unfairness.    

Of course, the ramifications of the recession are definitely not behind us yet and as we’ve said on this blog, 2010 is going to be tough, though less difficult than the past 12 months, thanks in part to the government’s intervention in the economy – something Cameron and Georgie Osborne would not have done. Every major nation is still stabilising its economy.  But what we don’t need to do is adopt the firebombing tactics of the Tories – currently being road tested by our Mayor in London in the transport and police fields. It is possible with sensible management to get things moving again, as weve shown by getting extra cash for local primary school places. And in any case, do we really want more scribbled, frothing notes calling for mass sackings as once delivered by Maggie?

Still whatever you make of Brown’s podcast, all the best for your New Year’s eve – if you’re going out then View London has a list of what is on in Clapham, while if you’re taking the probably less headache inducing course of staying in, here is a full listing of tonight’s TV treats  – all the best whatever you are planning.

 Now, hands up if you know what it was. A competent environmental policy? An end to his proposed firebombing of London’s transport budget? The odd straight answer to the cronyism stories flying around city hall? A parade of dancing Panda’s for anyone who can figure out how to make his runway in the sea idea work?

Nope, instead his consultation around London’s budget announced that the number of police officers on London streets is to decrease across the capital by 455 over the next three years. As always, when he was asked about this plan by a member of the London Assembly – recounted on Tory Troll – he went into the bumbling clown mode and acted as if he had never actually seen the proposal before.

Unfortunately this underlines the problem with London Tories as a whole – they shout from the roof tops that they intend to ring fence key services, like money for rape centres for example, but when it comes down to the crunch, these fences appear to be about as secure as William Shatner’s hairpiece.

 So as we enter election year it’s important to remember what your local Tories are offering – fewer buses, closures to tube ticket stations, cuts to services for the vulnerable and fewer policemen are your streets.

And what a week he had. Disagreeing with Cameron on Europe, delivering one of those incomprehensible speeches that make your head hurt and putting in an entry for farcical interview of the year on Newsnight. It is hardly surprising that our mayor apparently received a fruity text from someone in Cameron’s inner circle that gave him some colourful advice on where he might want to put his opinions.

But beneath the fun of the Boris carnival, there was an incredibly serious announcement that could have ramifications for everyone in Clapham – sweeping transport cuts of up to £5 billion in the next three years. To be fair, Boris didn’t try and hide this, indeed he made a virtue of it, but what he didn’t do was outline real substantive ways in which this budget pole axing is going to be achieved.  He also didn’t feel the need to mention that he has already had a bonfire of transport commitments in the past year that has reduced the scope and employment capabilities of London transport to the tune of nearly £3.6 billion.

Apparently these new savings are going to come out of that mystical, catch all political solution of efficiency savings – as if restricting the number of pens employees are allowed to have on their desk is somehow going to conjure up a pile of fat readies.  The details that have crept out are scant, a pay freeze on some employees and cuts to IT and human resources departments.  Whether or not these figures will add up without the need for yet more sweeping cuts to transport infrastructure – despite Boris’ promises to the contrary – we will have to see, especially as this  mayor has a bit of a problem when it comes to marrying financial issues with the truth.

Earlier this year he went back on a pledge to fund rape support centres, shaving £500,000 off their promised budget, and this week reversed his policy on the low emission zone, blaming Europe, as if no one in the Mayor’s office had thought to have a bit of look at the law before Boris opened his substantial mouth on the subject.

What Boris also didn’t outline was the very real human cost of making these kind of cuts.  If programmes are cancelled, services slashed and departments binned it means less or no work for engineers, technicians, labourers, clerks, building firms, the haulage industry, as well as the IT and human resources employees who Boris already has his eyes on. There is a wave of unemployment that hits hard working people – and their families - in both the public and private sector. And perversely it also results in more costs for us, the taxpayer, as we have to shell out more unemployment benefits and pick up the inevitable costs of social breakdown, such as crime.

This is not to say Labour is blind to the tough financial problems facing the country. But we have to be clear and honest with everyone about where the axe is going to fall and who is going to be underneath it. It wasn’t easy for the Chancellor to freeze the pay of top level government employees this week, but at least he is asking people on big incomes – judges, senior civil servants – to take a bit less next year rather than hitting ordinary people. As we have proven in Lambeth, where we have turned a Liberal/Tory deficit into a surplus, it is possible to sort financial problems out without destroying public services – but only if you’re upfront and talk to people on the ground.

So if and when the Tories turn up on your doorstep in Clapham, how about asking them exactly what they want to cut and how many people will be getting their P45s as a result? You will almost certainly get a bit of a blank expression, because Lambeth Tories like all Tories don’t seem to get the real, practical cost of what they are proposing.