LUL have come up with it’s fourth pay offer and as with the last three they are insisting that they can’t afford any more than this. And then the boy cried wolf.

Since April we climbed from a “fair and affordable” 4% to “fair and affordable” 5% but they know that the unions aren’t going to accept anything less than RPI so from past experience we won’t reach 5.5% till October and then the real negotiations can start.

LUL are still clinging to a five year deal but have now added the carrot of RPI + 0.5% for the last year while the intermediate ones will be +0.25% but as we’ve never agreed anything longer than 3 years (and that after over a year of talks) there’s very little chance of that happening.

They do the usual hand-wringing about how “three out of four UK workers being hit by a pay freeze” but failing to mention that train drivers at other companies are getting at least inflation rises this year, specifically two TfL subsidiaries, or that the Tube is carrying more passengers than ever before.