The London Mayoral Campaign has truly started

This morning on the way to the tube, a couple of people were trying to thrust some leaflets at me. The leaflets were from the Ken Livingstone Mayoral campaign.

It was a good choice by Ken's team to run the leaflets today, on a day when tube fares are going up by 6%, as the leaflets re-iterated Ken's promise to reduce fares by 7%.

The question is where is Ken going to get the money from? It's an old political question, but all the more potent now that we have less money to play with. I don't believe the Livingstone campaign has really answered this yet, the money they have mentioned has already been spent by Transport for London, according to Mayor Boris.

The current Mayor has restricted some programmes so that the council tax precept for the Greater London Authority has remained flat for the last three years - a great help at the present time. I think that if Ken is elected, fares will go down for one year only, then shoot-up to pay for a deficit in the GLA's finances, along with a hike in the council tax precept.

I don't believe politicians promising something for nothing, so Ken has much more to do.

Squiffy.