Co-conspirators outside the capital will no doubt have been irritated to see Sky News lead their morning bulletins with news of a tube strike. Just two lines are running today, and plenty of bus services are cancelled, as a staff walkout has seen services grind to a halt thanks to the RMT. Sadiq Khan, who is never responsible for any bad news in London just the nice stuff, is blaming the government for “deliberately provoking” Mick Lynch. Which sounds a lot like victim blaming…

Regardless of whose fault the strikes are, it further undermines Sadiq’s election promise in 2016 that under his watch there would be “zero” strikes.

“As mayor, what I’d do is roll up my sleeves and make sure that I’m talking to everyone who runs public transport to make sure there are zero days of strikes”

At the time he added that Ken Livingstone’s 16 strikes were “too many”, and the 35 strikes during Boris’s eight years were a “disgrace” and a “sign of failure.” By the end of this week Sadiq will have presided over 95 strikes…

Per annum that strike rate breaks down as 2 for Livingstone, 4.375 for Boris and 15.1 for Sadiq. The Tory number crunchers at City Hall calculate 110 days have been disrupted by strikes under the current Mayor – over 2,000 hours-worth. In March this year, Sadiq said he was speaking to trade unions to persuade them to avoid further actions. Since then alone there have been 39 strikes. There’s a failure to keep promises, and then there’s Sadiq…