London 'tube strike' causes traffic chaos

Commuters in London faced a struggle to get to work today as the latest Tube strike hit the capital.

All lines on the London Underground have been disrupted by the 24-hour stoppage, which began at 7pm yesterday.

Transport for London (TfL) said it would be running as many services as possible and has laid on extra buses and river journeys as well as delaying road works to help ease the situation.

Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association have walked out over around 800 job cuts, for mainly ticket office staff.

London's mayor Boris Johnson launched an angry attack against the unions, saying the strike was a "political attack" on the coalition Government.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said: "We need to take account of the fact that some ticket offices are now selling fewer than 10 tickets an hour. We need to liberate staff to get out on to the platforms and concourses where they can be of most use to the travelling public.

"We have come up with a way of doing this that keeps a ticket office at every station that currently possesses one, and, remarkably, given the colossal budgetary pressures we face, we are able to do this with no compulsory redundancies.

"There will be no loss of earnings, and I cannot stress enough that all stations will remain staffed at all times. This is the package which the RMT leadership now demands is taken off the table before talks can resume, while their political lackeys now pretend that I should invite Bob Crow in for beer and sandwiches in City Hall.

"That is absurd, outrageous and wrong. We cannot reward the bad behaviour of militants whose objectives are plainly nothing to do with the terms and conditions of their members, and everything to do with a political attack on the coalition government and, to a lesser extent, on City Hall."

TfL has put on more than 100 extra buses and increased capacity for more than 10,000 extra journeys on the river.

Volunteers have also been positioned at Tube, rail and bus stations to help commuters with their journeys and provide maps and other information, with people who own a bike encouraged to cycle to work.

TfL said London Underground ran a third of its normal services during a walkout last month, carrying more than a million people.

The RMT said services were already hit this weekend by an overtime ban as part of the campaign against the job cuts. Two further strikes are planned for November if the bitter dispute remains unresolved.