While the rest of the country just escaped a rail strike, Londoners again are enduring 24 hours of Tube lines either closed or part-suspended. The shutters were up at stations across the capital, with pickets of varying sizes outside, and commuters in a noticeably quieter city once more breathing in and squeezing aboard buses, or working from home if they could.
The stoppage is the latest in a series of strikes by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union in a pensions and station job cuts dispute with Transport for London.
TfL said that by Thursday afternoon, Underground passenger numbers were at just 10 per cent of normal demand.
The RMT is now also balloting for further industrial action into the winter.It comes as nurses at NHS employers across the UK, who are members of the Royal College of Nursing, voted to strike over pay and working conditions.
At the same time, record NHS waiting lists for routine hospital treatment have been revealed, with over seven million people nationally stuck in the post-Covid backlog, nearly one million of them in London.
The Leader’s joined for analysis with Evening Standard transport editor Ross Lydall and health reporter Daniel Keane.
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