KHOODEELAAR! action focus on the CRASS role for Crossrail scam by the Guardian

1910 Hrs GMT London Sunday 19 April 2009:

KHOODEELAAR! action focus on Alan Rusbridger's LYING Guardian: CRASS role for Crossrail scam by the Guardian
Now the Guardian’s ‘transport’ correspondent Dan Milmo - whose ignorant, incompetent and prejudiced [against objective truth] peddling for Big Business Crassail has been featuring in our coverage for more than a year now - has confessed, AGAIN!

As if he had not had cause before to make the same confession.
He has confessed more starkly today than he has been found on the record of the Guardian's publications about Crossrail so far...
The confession is that he had been publishing lies for Crossrail.
True, he does not use those words. But the CORE of the ‘fact’ that he retails today confirms that that is exactly what Dan Milmo had been doing...
We have said for more than 5 years now that the ‘management of transport in London WAS out of order, that huge amounts of public money were being wasted and instead being allowed to be looted by conglomerates in the ‘profession’ of transport instead of being put to services that were in need of the money, that the ‘London Assembly’ or the ‘Greater London Assembly’ [whatever the title at the given time for the stooged body] was failing to uphold any standards of accountability as owed to the people of London by the holder of the post of mayor in the name of the people and the communities across London, that the holder of the post [ditto] was acting as IN FACT and in EFFECT as a tout for interests in the City of London and in Big Business and the Military Industrial Complex. RATHER than being actively accountable for their conduct and behaviour to the people of London. And, we have been also saying with daily evidence hourly updated at times, that THE CRASSNESS of their peddling of the crassly conceived Crossrail scam shows that... [To be continued]

_______________________________

Transferring tube upgrade to public
sector 'will save taxpayers money'
Private contractor Tube Lines rejects claim that troubled PPP
project could be abandoned
Dan Milmo
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 April 2009 15.32 BST
Article history
Taxpayers will get a better deal if the entire £30bn programme to overhaul
the tube network is carried out in-house instead of being awarded to a
public-private partnership, the head of London Underground (LU) has
claimed.
Tim O'Toole, who leaves his post at the end of the month, also warned that
the troubled PPP project could be abandoned entirely if its last remaining
contractor, Tube Lines, fails to plug a £2bn funding gap. His comments drew
an angry response from Tube Lines, which accused LU of repeating "old
arguments".
O'Toole's claim comes at a crucial period in negotiations between the
publicly owned LU and Tube Lines, which are attempting to thrash out terms
for a seven-year work programme that includes expensive projects such as
an upgrade of the Piccadilly Line. The departing tube boss challenged the
rationale behind the PPP by making a case for transferring the work to the
public sector.
Referring to the profit-making imperative behind private sector involvement
in PPP projects, he told the Guardian: "I think we can deliver it at a lower
cost because I don't have to pay a premium in the form of equity returns and
other excesses."
O'Toole added that Tube Lines believed it could deliver the work more
cheaply, and quicker, than his organisation but he warned that the
government could decide to scrap the PPP project altogether if a row over
the cost of the work programme up to 2017 is not resolved.
"It brings into question whether or not the remaining part of the PPP is
viable," O'Toole said.
The PPP programme is one of the most controversial legacies of Gordon
Brown's 10-year reign as chancellor. Introduced despite the stern opposition
of Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, it handed out 30-year
contracts to the private sector to maintain and upgrade the tube. However,
the contractor awarded two-thirds of the programme, Metronet, collapsed
two years ago and was effectively nationalised by LU with Brown's tacit
blessing.
Tube Lines, the only vestige of the PPP left, is embroiled in a row with LU
over its 2010 to 2017 programme, which it claims will cost £7.2bn but is
priced at between £5.1bn and £5.5bn, according to an independent estimate,
leaving a funding gap of up to £2.1bn. The gap is wider still if based on
figures from LU, which pays Tube Lines for the work. It claims that the
programme will cost £4.1bn.
Terry Morgan, the Tube Lines chief executive, said there was "no evidence"
that LU had saved taxpayers money by taking over Metronet. "The PPP
brought huge transparency to how much it cost to do a project. I have seen
no evidence to date that Metronet is more efficient now." Morgan added that
Tube Lines "inherited a track record of non-performance" when it took over
LU's maintenance work in 2003.
He said: "I am disappointed that these old arguments keep being used. My
concern is that by having these arguments, people with other investment
programmes get a higher priority from the government."
Tube Lines is co-owned by Bechtel, the project management specialist, and
the support services group Amey, whose parent is Ferrovial, the majority
shareholder in the airport group BAA.
Transport for London (TfL), LU's parent, has warned ministers that a recent
£40bn funding settlement is not enough to pay for the construction of the
£16bn trans-London Crossrail project and the tube upgrade. However, the
Department for Transport is adamant that no more money is available.
TfL's funding problems, highlighted by the Tube Lines dispute, have been
exacerbated by the recession, which led to a year-on-year decline in tube
passengers in January. TfL has slashed tube revenue forecasts for the
2009-10 financial year to £1.7bn, which means that turnover must rise by 9%
in order to meet the 2010-11 target of £1.84bn.
The revenue gap has stoked speculation that the mayor, Boris Johnson,
might have to implement huge fare rises. However, O'Toole said the
politically unpalatable price hikes could be avoided by "moving around"
TfL's multibillion-pound capital expenditure programme.
"You just cannot assume that there will have to be extraordinary fare
increases."

Twitter, to End POVERTY

follow me on Twitter