Workers' Liberty

TubeLines got a nasty shock last month when the PPP Arbiter turned down its over-the-top demands for funding for the second part of its PPP contract. Blaming (mainly) TubeLines for the Jubilee line fiasco, the Arbiter ruled that the Infraco will have to settle for nearly £1.5 billion less than it wanted - a gap so yawning that it may send TubeLines the same was as Metronet. And if TubeLines follows Metronet into oblivion, that could be the ridiculous PPP gone for good.

As Tube workers and our unions fought the introduction of the PPP for five years, it is tempting for us to say "We told you so". But while it would be excellent to see TubeLines' workers back in the public sector, the outrageous PPP set-up menas that even if it is the private sector that messes up, the public sector still has to pay. The Arbiter himself is evidently no friend of workers, as he suggests cutting jobs at the ERU and making other TubeLines staff more 'flexible' by working over all three lines rather than one.

The PPP fiasco neatly sums up the New Labour disaster. It was a policy designed to prove New Labour's credentials to business, to show that it no longer cared about small matters like public services, workers or trade unions. Its spectacular collapse proves that turning away from your working-class roots does not win either credibility or popularity. Gordon Brown may not be in a hurry to learn that lesson, so we will have to make the point strongly: we need genuine working-class representation in politics.