Now for something completely different

This Tuesday London Labour is doing something different and we hope you will join us on that morning for a new kind of campaign.The London campaign is already stepping several notches, with less than six months to go. We’ve already announced the first of our weekly campaign weekends starting this Saturday.

Tuesday marks the launch of our campaign for a fairer deal for tube, bus, rail, DLR and Tramlink passengers in the capital. Building on Ken Livingstone’s commitment at Labour conference that he will cut the fares if elected next May, we will launch our campaign for fairer fares.

Fares rise again in January, thanks to the mayor of London’s policy of increasing fares every year above inflation. The effect of that policy in just four years is that the price of a single bus fare will have risen 56 per cent under this mayor.

A zone 1-6 Travelcard is up 22 per cent. A weekly bus and tram pass is up 47% under Boris Johnson, costing £317 a year more. Ken is saying that has to stop.

Fares will rise in January but Ken will cut them before the end of the year by five per cent. He will freeze them for the whole of 2013. And he will make sure that after that they do not rise by any more than inflation.

The choice could not be clearer. The average Londoner will be £800 better off as a result. And Ken will do that because every year Boris Johnson raises more money from his steep fare rises than he says he will – so there is a surplus every year on top of what his own budgets predict. There will be no impact on investment or existing services and no risk to the transport reserves.

Across London Labour activists will be mobilised to campaign outside tube and train stations but we are also asking our supporters to take to the transport system itself and speak to passengers about their experience of soaring fares and why we need a fairer alternative. As we know from the doorstep, nothing beats direct interaction with the electorate.

So we’ll do that on the move on Tuesday morning, moving from carriage to carriage to talk about the need for a lower fares policy.

When Ken announced his fairer deal for the farepayer he first told supporters by text – the first British politician to make a policy announcement by text.

In keeping with that approach we’ll be mobilising supporters in London by text, email and twitter as well as our well-established methods of organising.

Our action day will see people from each London Assembly area joining the transport network and converging to meet up with Ken who’ll be travelling across London meeting supporters and talking to Londoners as he goes.

Not a flashmob but a Fare Ride. You can follow it all on Twitter using the hashtag #farerideIf you want to be part of something new and exciting, then you can sign up in advance here.

Or keep an eye out on the day for updates on Twitter as the morning unfolds and come and join us. In tough times like these, Londoners can’t afford a mayor who is so out of touch that he is raising transport fares, cutting police numbers and thinks it’s okay to have a second job paying £250 000 a year – an amount he calls ‘chicken feed.’ Something needs to change.

Our campaign for a fairer deal that puts money back in Londoners’ pockets and purses and into the London economy is at the heart of that. Join us on Tuesday morning.