Mark Andrews: Perils of pedestrianisation, yobs on the buses, and the PM's 'honest discussion' on EU migration

I’ll hazard a guess that this will not be especially beneficial for the customer experience, but not much is this days. And it is obviously very sad for the staff who will find themselves looking for new jobs at a time when the economy is not exactly flying.

I wonder how many of those losing their jobs will be the very same people who pester you into ‘getting the app’ every time you go to pay a cheque in?

Well there’s a surprise. The Mayor of London’s grand plan to make Oxford Street a pedestrian-only thoroughfare has been completely ignored by the city’s feral cyclists. According to a reporter for radio station LBC, these maniacs have been whizzing through the block-paved idyll at a rate of one a minute, the ‘no cycling’ signs that Sir Sadiq Khan thought would solve the problem have seemingly been ignored. And this was only in the morning. Imagine what it will be like at night when the balaclava boys are out on the rob.

The odd thing is that while Boris Johnson gets blamed for almost everything these days, he does seem to get a free pass on what must surely be his worst legacy - turning London, and by default dozens of cities all across this fine island, into a poor approximation of 1970s Peking with his ludicrous pro-cycling policies.

Indeed, imposing unenforceable legislation seems to be in danger of becoming a national pastime. Take, for example, the Prime Minister’s pledge to crack down on louts playing loud music on buses and trains.

I don’t doubt that he means well. And he is bang on the money, in that these idiots really need sorting out. But who is going to do it? And how? With shoplifters and drug dealers brazenly committing their crimes in full view of the public, and the authorities seemingly impotent to control the swarms of law-breaking cyclists, does he really think anyone is going to sort out a few low-lives blasting MC Hammer out of their iPods?

Maybe, given the PM’s fondness for all things 1970s, he thinks the buses are still manned by conductors in peaked caps, suggestively winking at the dolly birds as they flounce up the stairs in revealing outfits.

Now if he wants to bring that back....

At least that’s a kind of nostalgia we can all get behind. Which is more than can be said for Mr Burnham’s other suggestion, that we need ‘an honest discussion’ about bringing back EU freedom of movement.

Is this guy on the wind-up? For the past 35 years we have had little else but ‘honest discussions’ about Europe, and all but a few fanatics on either side are utterly sick of hearing about it. Picking out one of the most contentious aspects of EU membership, and inviting hundreds of thousands more people into a country already creaking at the seams, is only going to pour petrol onto the tinderbox.

Look around Europe, Prime Minister. Paris on fire, Germany embracing the extreme Right. Haven’t we got enough problems of our own, without inviting our truculent neighbours to the party?