Khan's capitulation gives a grim insight into life under Labour, Lord Bailey declares

The strikes were averted - literally 20 minutes before trains were due to stop - but at huge cost to Londoners.

Within hours, the Aslef union which represents 2,000 Tube drivers announced it would re-ballot its members on taking industrial action. Having agreed to a 5% pay deal just weeks ago, Aslef now wants a 12% pay rise for its members and to eat the fruit from Sadiq Khan’s ‘magic money tree’.

Other unions will soon follow. Sadiq Khan will be hoping he can find enough money to stave off any strikes until after the Mayoral election in May. He has slim hope of that.

The Mayor’s eleventh-hour intervention in the RMT strike has completely undermined the management team at Transport for London (TfL) who have been negotiating pay with the unions for months.

Having correctly insisted there was no more money for pay, TfL’s industrial relations strategy is in tatters. As my London Assembly colleague Neil Garratt told the Mayor this week: “The bat signal’s gone up from City Hall that if you want more money, threaten a strike!"

With the union’s salivating at the prospect of millions of extra pounds from Sadiq Khan, the Mayor is refusing to say where the money came from or how much exactly he has thrown at the RMT. He’s even told Aslef tube drivers they don’t need to strike to get more money saying he plans to give them more money regardless.

Sadiq Khan has sleepwalked into a crisis of his own making which didn’t need to happen.

In July, the Government’s Minimum Service Laws received Royal Assent. This gave Sadiq Khan the power to demand 40% of Tube trains run during any industrial action. Remember, Sadiq Khan is Chairman of Transport for London. He could have made this happen if he wanted to.

The Mayor demurred, afraid of taking on his union mates.

In doing so, he allowed the RMT and now other unions to hold Londoners to ransom. There have been 139 TfL strikes since Sadiq Khan became Mayor - four times the number under Boris Johnson and eight times the number under Ken Livingstone.

Time and again, Sadiq Khan has shown himself to be the Mayor for Trade Unions, not Londoners and certainly not business.

Time and again, he’s gone to the Government cap in hand claiming TfL is broke and needs more taxpayers’ money.

Under his watch, TfL has become a financial basketcase with £15bn in debt which has needed over £6bn in taxpayer bailouts since 2021.

The past week’s events have exposed Khan’s incompetence and shown us what life would be like under Labour - strikes and the constant threat of strikes, wasteful spending, higher taxes and unions calling the shots.

Londoners deserve so much better than Sadiq Khan. We all deserve so much better than Labour.