Thread by @garius

BTW, if you're wondering what the real price attached to this current TfL settlement by the government is, then a big part of it is killing off TfL/SK's efforts to increase the social housing stock in London.

That's how vindictive this government is.

TfL Business Plans are, essentially, one of the few real things over which the Mayor of London has near-absolute control.

i.e where he gets to set policy as he likes AND wield TfL's significant budget, fund raising and market pressure to facilitate meaningful change.

Both this settlement and the one before it are really about clipping that power and forcing the DfT (for which read 'Cabinet Minister') into the TfL planning and budgeting process.

As with universities, Stonewall, museums, councils and everything else. This government is trying to use reconstruction and support as a way of preventing people from "stepping outside their lane"

That lane being defined by the government, and their own belief on what Britain is

Here, that's about making it so TfL are forced to commit to savings in "non-transport" activities, and then forcing future revenue spend to be gate-kept by the DfT as agent of government.

"Oh we like that idea but we can't approve it, we don't think that's the best use of transport spend" is something you'll hear A LOT in future about TfL (and Mayoral) policy proposals when they suggest things like area regeneration rather than, I dunno, building roads or summat.

You'll also see a lot more of Johnson's old trick of forcing TfL to commit its budget to supporting non-London projects, or projects that in any sane world would land on the DfT's budget line instead.

Boris did it with Met Line extension. DfT are doing it with Hammersmith Bridge