Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in 1997, did everything it could to prevent the election of the former GLC leader
Ken
Livingstone
as the first mayor, but, despite being forced to leave the Labour Party and
run as an independent, he won a resounding victory in the 2000 mayoral elections.
Livingstone was succeeded by Boris Johnson in 2008, but his lasting legacy has been
in
transport
. As well as creating more bus routes and introducing more buses, he
successfully introduced a
congestion charge
for every vehicle entering central London
(see p.23). As a result, tra
c levels in central London have been reduced, and, although
the congestion charge hasn't solved all the city's problems, at least it showed that, with a
little vision and perseverance, something concrete can be achieved.
Livingstone was also instrumental in winning the
2012 Olympics
for London, by
emphasizing the Games' regenerative potential for a deprived area of London's East
End. For a moment, London celebrated wildly - the euphoria was all too brief. A
day after hearing the news about the Olympics, on
July 7, 2005
, London was hit by
four
suicide bombers
who killed themselves and over fifty innocent commuters in
four separate explosions: on tube trains at Aldgate, Edgware Road and King's Cross
and one on a bus in Tavistock Square. Two weeks later a similar attack was
unsuccessful after the bombers' detonators failed. Despite everyone's worst fears,
however, these two attacks proved to be isolated incidents and not the beginning
of a concerted campaign.
he
2010 election
produced no overall winner and resulted in a hung parliament for
only the second time since World War II. The Conservatives formed a coalition with
the Liberal Democrats and began the harshest series of spending cuts since 1945. In
August 2011, against a background of deepening economic hardship, London suffered
the worst
riots
since the 1980s, not just in areas such as Tottenham (where the riots
began) and Brixton, but across the capital, from Bromley to Waltham Forest.
2012 proved a great year for London, with the celebrations of the Queen's
Diamond
Jubilee
(sixty years on the throne), and a very successful and distinctive
Olympic
Games,
further boosting London's international status and the mood of the city. The
capital's economy, too, remains buoyant, despite the government's austerity measures,
but the biggest problem is
housing
. While wealthy foreigners are happy to invest in
buildings like the Shard, and luxury flat developments, affordable housing is thin on
the ground, and some imaginative thinking is going to be necessary if a full-blown
accommodation crisis is to be avoided.
2008
2010
2011
2012
Boris Johnson becomes
Mayor of London
Boris Bikes free cycle hire
scheme introduced
August riots in London
London hosts the
Olympic Games
