The ECONOMIST website has 'let slip' in the last 20 hours that Gordon Brown's now trumpeted decision to 'give the go-ahead' to the CRASSrail scam was, indeed, a scam. That Brown in effect capitulated to the City of London demand that the UK Central Govt. may the City of London significant sums. Only after that that the City of London bureaucracy staged their allegedly rare session at the "Mansion House” and agreed a contribution from them to the costs of CROSSRAIL! It is corrupted even before a single penny has been paid by the City!


Today's scheduled statement by Brown’s finance sidekick Alistair Darling is expected to contain a bit more detail on the CRASSrail funding contrivance. Whatever formulation Darling eventually peddles in his spiel, Crossrail is doomed to waste far more than even its confectors have so far been forced to admit.


There is still time to scrap it and address the real transport needs that exist in London and needs that could be far more efficiently and economically addressed with the £Billions that Brown is reportedly going to inject into it just to serve his electoral arrangements and keep the fragile and wobbly ego of Ken Livingstone tamed!


On both counts, it is going to be the disaster for London that Blair had correctly [a rare event - how historic is that!] perceived around Livingstone but incorrectly failed to stick to almost 10 years ago!