Phil 'Maths Wizard' Taylor - The Brains Behind Andrew Gilligan?

It's no surprise to find Phil Taylor at the bottom of an Evening Standard Ken-savaging piece nominally on the subject of transport.  After all, every nasty Thatcherite in London must have been asked to step up and have a swing by now (why *are* they so nasty?  Every time I read something by one of these clowns it's like being choked in foul smelling soot coughed up from the chimney of a Third World dioxin plant.  I feel the need to wash afterwards. Really, the Nasty Party never went away, did it).

Cough.

Anyway, the Tory Troll, I'm glad to say, links to us in their critique of Taylor's contribution to an Evening Standard hack job, rightly pointing out that relying on data analysis from a man who couldn't get the Oyster bus fare right isn't great journalism.  However, this is Andrew Gilligan, whom one must not criticise because other journalists like him and he's won awards and he nearly got Blair the sack.  Crap.  If the bugger had done his job properly in 2003 we might have been spared four years of Tony Blair, so I've got no sympathy, particularly as he seems intent on foisting, without any regard for how much of a mess he'd make of it, a ruthlessly ambitious but totally inexperienced right wing Tory on my city, purely out of spite.  Selfish twat.

In this case, Gilligan's well-through-the-bottom-of-the-barrel article quotes an anonymous (but clearly congestion charge hating) economist as saying the charge has brought in £938m, while Taylor says £1.2bn.  Eh?  Which is it?  He claims that it was supposed to earn £200m a year (£214m, actually, from TfL board minutes), implying that it doesn't, but also says that Capita's (excessive) take of 60%+ (42% according to TfL) is £130m, which implies the charge brings in about, er, £200m a year (in 2004/5, net revenues were £90m, according to TfL's annual report, and the Fifth Annual Impacts document reports £124m, £101m spent on buses, all legally ringfenced for public transport and reportable to the Secretary of State at four year intervals).

It's interesting that the two vehement opponents quoted are anonymous and a Tory councillor of an extreme Thatcherite persuasion who inevitably doesn't understand transport systems, but does understand how to pick a few items of data and construct an argument backwards that fits his world view.  Why is it surprising that the money has 'gone', by the way?  TfL are quite adamant that spending the profit on public transport was the point anyway, so they're doing what they said they'd do.  They're also quite clear that raising revenue is the sixth most important thing on the list of congestion charge benefits, after reducing congestion, improving bus services, improving journey time reliability for car drivers, making distributing goods and services more efficient and reducing vehicle emissions.

The giveaway is that there's no actual attempt to challenge TfL's figures, which if they were so obviously wrong that even a Tory could spot it, should surely be fairly easy, particularly given the legal reporting requirements?

The one quote from someone who might be expected to know something about it without actually being biased is, unsurprisingly, in favour of congestion charging as a concept, because it reduces congestion by encouraging modal shift.  The clue's in the name, guys.  The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating, which is that fewer cars drive into central London, bus use is up and road deaths are quite remarkably reduced.

There are other figures in the article that don't agree with other measures elsewhere - fraud on bendy buses is now 'nearly 10%, £6m' whereas the other sources I've read said '8%, £8m', which implies bendy bus revenue should be either under £60m or £100m, which is a substantial discrepency.  Elsewhere he mentions court cases about Croydon Tramlink's PFI contract, without mentioning that it was a bad (Tory, subsequently backed by New Labour) deal that has now been terminated and brought under proper integrated TfL control, saving millions and allowing improvements for passengers without having to fart around giving the private sector their cut.  Nor does he mention Westminster Council's court case against the congestion charge.  Blaming Ken for trying to stop Metronet is just bizarre, since the Conservatives opposed PPP at the time and gave Livingstone warm applause at their conference for opposing it.  Its subsequent collapse and the consequent delays to Tube improvements prove that Ken was right all along, which is the cue for the Tories to pretend they'd never agreed with Ken in the first place.  A rare sight of rats joining a sunken ship there.

The article then degenerates into a series of meaningless statistics intended to give the impression that the city adminstration is costing a fortune without mentioning that it's actually doing a lot more, too.  I get the impression Gilligan can knock this stuff out in his sleep.  Award-winning my arse.

Bollocks to him.  If you want good journalism go to bloggers.  Here are three.  If you don't like them I have others.  Unlike Associated Newspapers, they don't have highly lucrative contracts with Transport for London to distribute crappy freesheets at Tube stations coming up for renewal in 2 years time.