Evening Standard comment: Commuters take the brunt of strikes, again

Industrial action on the Tube and rail networks has once again caused chaos for commuters today. On the Central line, staff began a 24-hour stoppage last night, with no trains running east of Leytonstone today and significant delays on the rest of the line. Meanwhile, long-suffering Southern passengers have experienced cancellations, delays and overcrowding thanks to yet another walkout by RMT members.

The details of the Southern dispute are all too familiar, with guards unhappy over the move to a driver-only operation and the impact this will have on their roles. It is appalling that this year-long wrangle remains unresolved. No regular user of Southern has remained unaffected; and for some commuters the regular strike action has cost them their health, contact with their families and even their jobs. The RMT’s intransigence beggars belief.

On the Tube, the cause of today’s industrial unrest is arguably even more incomprehensible, the strike having been called by the unions in response to a proposal to move just eight drivers from the Central line to other parts of the Underground. The RMT and Aslef say bosses are forcing staff to travel longer distances to get to work; London Underground says it is entitled to request that employees work beyond their “home” depot as part of existing contractual arrangements. A full-on strike is a wholly disproportionate reaction by union chiefs.

Plainly, strikes have a disastrous effect on the economy. With every day lost to them the need for ministers — and the Mayor — to take a tougher line becomes clearer. Sadiq Khan promised there would be “zero strikes” on public transport if he were elected; that may sound hollow but is all the more reason for him to show mettle now.

Business rate panacea

The Chancellor has, it seems, expressed keen interest in the idea of dealing with the uproar over the rise in business rates by taxing superstores and airports more in order to cushion small high-street shops from the worst of the increase. For instance, abandoning a £10 million rates cut for Heathrow Airport and large cuts for superstores operated by big retailers would release £200 million to help small firms facing huge increases. It would be a fiscally neutral solution — that is to say it would cost the Treasury nothing — which adds to the attraction. This is an excellent idea — for now. The increase in business rates in London, amounting to some 30 per cent in some boroughs, would drive firms out of business. It would penalise small independent retailers — and lessen the diversity of our high streets — while leaving online retailers with far less to pay proportionately. It creates a disproportion between business and residential tax which is quite unsustainable. But as Anthony Hilton points out on this page, a stop-gap solution such as this is not a long-term solution. Business rates are an out-of-date way of raising tax, which do not recognise contemporary ways of life. They must be fundamentally reformed.

France in London

The rally for the French presidential candidate, Emmanuel Macron, in Westminster last night was not only the best-dressed political gathering of recent times but an acknowledgement of London as France’s sixth city, as the candidate observed. His pitch to persuade French expats to return home was based on promises to reform sclerotic French labour laws and its punitive tax system. But London’s French community already have favourable conditions for entrepreneurship to succeed: here. Brexit or no Brexit, that will still hold true. Please stay.