Begging on the Tube
LONDON Underground is to be congratu- lated on its mastery of the Beggars'-Sore Technique (writes my railway correspondent, IX Gricer). In Whitehall, this is how the spending departments wheedle money. They exhibit hideous deformities and wave their suppurating stumps in the Treasury's face, to shame it into paying up. Now its escalators have served the Tube's purpose. They are so deformed and diseased, it asserts, that it has had to close four stations in the name of safety. Wincing, the Treasury digs into its pocket for £65 million and Lord Macdonald, minister for transport, drops it in the beg- gar's tin. No use, now, to blame the Tube for blowing all its money on a new line intended to capture the non-existent traffic flow between Bermondsey and West Ham, by way of the Dome. It seemed an exciting idea at the time, but excited or embarrassed minis- ters are never likely to make good invest- ment decisions. At Budget-time next year London Underground will assert that safety must be paramount, and shut the network.
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