Last party on the Circle Line

Im a driver.

Sorry, just woke up and wasnt thinking properly!

Its been said before, but its always the minority that spoil it for the masses. If theres one thing that'll be inevitable, its that the masses will have more and more restrictions placed on them to punish or deter the few. Very bad indeed.

I was at Baker Street when they closed it. The Whitechapel train on platform 5 was being held there due to the incident referred to earlier at Euston Square. There were losds of police, and by this time it was getting out of control. One idiot actually climbed onto the roof of the train. There were police dogs barking, just chaos. They then decided to evacuate the station, which took a good 30 minutes.

This is IMO not the fault of LU or Boris. It is down to the idiots on the trains on the night.

From my observations and from talking to a couple of T/O's, it definitely wasn't well managed last night. One driver at Baker Street was initially refusing to move his train, because he fellt there was an unsafe situation. After some to-ing and fro-ing, he was eventually told to get on with it. This ended up being the train that had all the problems at Euston Square.

On reflection whilst LU would have been hard put to stop people drinking on trains, after all it wasn't against the rules until today. They did have an adequate warning of this event (or events). They knew the date, time (21:00) and location (Circle Line, preferably Liverpool Street) so this was hardly an 'impromptu' flash mob type of assembly, or secret Greenpeace/Friends of the Earth surprise 'action'. Therefore was LU's vaunted "Special Events Team" mobilised? Were all revenue staff rostered late turn in zone 1 last night to assist? Were extra cleaners brought in? Was all BTP leave cancelled? Those revellers I saw early on were good natured with party hats, streamers etc and it's a shame, but utterly predictable, that whenever large numbers of people gather in this country the few spoil it for the many - think New Year's Eve, Notting Hill Carnival, International football matches and 'grudge' English FA ones. No doubt LU bosses will be on the TV saying how irresponsible the organisers were for disrupting ordinary people yet when the same thing happens in W11 the event is deemed a success when there are "only" 45 arrests, 3 stabbings and 1 murder "which may have been unconnected". It's no good "keeping politics out" of the debate since politics is everywhere and we are only writing in this thread because Boris decided on a quick bit of headline-grabbing without any thought to the consequences. Does it all really matter? Well yes it does because as from today, yet another LU by-law will go unenforced, another visible subtle signal being sent out that the Underground environment is basically unsupervised and that you *can* get away with anti-social behaviour because LU staff and fellow passengers are too intimidated to challenge you. LU's 'guidelines' to staff should be leaked to the Standard as they show just how seriously they intend to deal with the mayor's policy. For my own part I found Embankment station closed and the District and Circle Lines suspended, had to walk to Holborn for the Central Line whereupon that train non-stopped Liverpool Street. To finish - unenforceable laws are bad laws as they increase the perception and fear of crime. I bet Ken's laughing all the way to his wine glass... Now...where's my bottle-opener?

Mayor's Office - 'Right, time to make a start on those election promises we made. I know, I know! Let's ban alcohol on public transport. We'll do it from midnight on 31st May.'
Sensible Person - 'But if we announce it like that we'll simply make an occasion out of it.'
Mayor's Office - 'So?'
Sensible Person - 'So people will doubtless go out and 'celebrate' the occasion and that means loads of alcohol and loads of potential for problems.'
Mayor's Office - 'And?'
Sensible Person - 'And if we do it on May 31st, that's a Saturday night and we are simply asking for trouble. Let's just bring it in, as of say, Tuesday lunchtime, and that's that. People don't have to be given notice to not consume alcohol on the fraction of each leisure day they spend on public transport, it's not like it's going to severely handicap their lifestyles or travel plans. They won't have to make special arrangements, get baby sitters in or take a replacement bus service.'
Mayor's Office - 'No no no. When the smoking ban was introduced, people didn't go down the Tube station especially to smoke a packet of fags on the platform.'
Sensible Person - 'But that was then and this is now. Have you seen how much alcohol related detritus gets taken off the trains by the cleaners each day?'
Mayor's Office - 'Don't be silly, I don't use public transport.'

I know, I know. Too much time on my hands.

Depends on the effects on the injured party. Simply anything from a graze to a black eye is common assault. Multiple bruising, cuts or temporary loss of senses is ABH, if it was an injury requiring longer treatment GBH. Potentially one punch in the face could result murder / manslaughter.

Amen to that, I could not agree more!

If anyone should be blamed it is the government, that is the long and the short of it. I see that it is now looking to pass even more laws against underage drinking and will aim to hold parents and teachers responsible for children's behaviour. Well that puts parents and teachers between a rock and a hard place because the government withdrew corporal punishment from schools and withdrew the right of parents to chastise their children. To add insult to injury the present government is reducing custodial sentences for many offences and even letting prisoners out early when it should be doing the opposite.
It is the government's fault that there is little or no respect by many for others and their property.
Unfortunately most of the rest of us, myself included, just don't want to know because we know we are flogging a dead horse, the louts all know that they are untouchable and we are living in a lawless society running more out of control each day.

I certainly don't think that LU staff should be policemen but they should expect passengers to act in accordance with the laws and byelaws and if not then trains should be held until the BTP, CP or MP can attend. If the service suffers so what, the health & safety of passengers and staff is the prime directive over and above providing a public transport service and the sooner LU management and the government understand that the better it will be for all Londoners

RT, I totally agree with what you've written.

As a guess those who caused a massive wide spread riot in Central London weren't the untouchable thugs we read about.

They were, from observation, mostly middle class white late teen early 20 somethings.

Probably the sort of people that went home, woke up with a massive hang over, drank some herbal tea and read the Sunday Guardian and then will be travelling on the tube Monday morning complaining about the service.

The breathtaking arrogance of people who think they can run rampage, rip doors of trains, jump on the roof of trains, pour their pints of beer over a staff member and punch them in the face, smash windows on trains and then make a claim that is was some politcal statement

I sincerley hope the BTP pull every minute of CCTV and publish the pictures of the offenders in the Metro/ ES.

Why? They're not the ones doing the drinking, picking fights on trains or spewing up everywhere.

See never even knew what the paper was called

Just browsing the BBC website and nearly everybody filmed fills my assumption pretty accurately.

The "best" way IMHO for staff to handle this is to make sure that all calls are logged with BTP when somebody refuses to stop drinking or abuses a member of staff. Then to complete the internal paperwork.

I know exactly what 21146 is saying, but if somebody has committed a crime and is still on the train, then sorry that train remains where it is until the BTP arrive. Don't care what LU want to say in a memo.

I wouldnt think you get many drunks in your cabin mate, unless its the Missus?

Err, GBH... Especially when two teeth are knocked out...

I speak from experience.