Free transfer

Cast your mind back to Hackney's staunch opposition to the Silvertown Tunnel. Staunch enough for a council motion against it in 2015, and for then-mayor Philip Glanville to write to Sadiq Khan in 2019 saying that scrapping the scheme would show “vision and moral clarity”. Eighteen months later Glanville popped up at a clean air hustings arguing for the tunnel, and was briskly explained by Hackney Labour as having been there as Khan's proxy rather than as himself. The local party, it was stressed, remained opposed. Marvellous. Tit-bits did always wonder how much of these public disagreements between local Labour and City Hall Labour were just convenient theatre. Kind of like a political Hopper fare: change from one stance to another within the hour, no penalty. Same trick, different seat. Hackney Labour now finds itself in opposition, marking the Greens' first 100 days by complaining that they haven't shouted loudly enough about the bus cuts — cuts proposed by Transport for London, whose board is chaired by one Sadiq Khan. Free transfer indeed.