It should be no great surprise that in the barbaric, bureaucratic insanity of Nazi Germany, human beings, having been deprived of names in favour of numbers, were allocated individual train tickets, paid for by the State, for their single journey to the gates of hell. It is through the reduction of human beings to numbers that bureaucracy is able to function. It seems ironic, then, in this so-called ‘age of the individual’, that we should have allowed so much of our lives to have become so completely depersonalised: supermarket ‘loyalty cards’ and branded commodities (from jeans to personal stereos) are the yellow stars of today’s oppressive corporate state.

Not so ironic, however, that just as those who defend bureaucratic law (the police and army) are known by number not name, so are those who are imprisoned for breaking that law (the fact that the global crimes of the corporate shopliofters, Enron, Shell, you name them, go unpunished, will have to be the subject for a future article). In an increasingly binary world, where our every movement can be electronically tagged, the power of bureaucracy becomes ever greater. Each time you tap in your pin number you are being literally pin-pointed in time and space: personal PCs, texters and mobiles are all another way of saying ‘here I am’ to anyone interested enough to want to find out. Big Brother might not be watching you all the time, but have no doubt, if he wants to, he can do so with consummate ease.

Strange, then, that the bureaucrats at Transport for London have not as yet found a way of putting to an end the bargain of the century, better known as ‘the free bus’: Stokey’s bendy 73s. Now, there are those like myself who think it only right and proper that public transport should be free to those being packed like cattle into metal boxes to be shipped to a day of slavery in service to bosses and bureaucrats. While we’re forced to sweat it out amongst the huddled masses, those who profit through our labours enjoy the carefree luxury of tagging up Congestion Charges while dialling through to the latest paramour from the vinyl cocoon of the company car. At the same time, while grey-faced, weary workers share this week’s flu epidemic (when did you last travel by bus without being sneezed at?), vacuous, gaily coloured posters promoting unattainable, vacuous lifestyles adorn the bus’s bodywork.

So why don’t Nike, Gap or any of their corporate chums pay for the journey? They’re profiting both from advertising and through getting their workers to work on time (sometimes), so why should we be out of pocket? But that’s not really the issue. No, if our Ken wants to be taken seriously, he needs to stop being such a joker. The Congestion Charge only makes sense if at the same time comfortable and cheap public transport becomes the norm, and that just isn’t happening.

Compared to the old Routemasters, the new buses are downright claustrophobic: you might be lucky enough to get a seat but you’ll almost certainly have to share it with three armpits and a colliding rucksack, and that’s to say nothing of ‘super-size-me’ baby buggies.

If our Ken’s after cutting down on congestion in the inner city, he can’t reasonably expect those who need to get there to put up with the severe congestion suffered while travelling inside a rush-hour bendy bus. So Transport for London is losing millions through fare evasion? Tough, they deserve to. If they’re not prepared to offer a reasonably comfortable service, they can’t expect us to pay for it. But what do they do to compensate for their loss of income? It’s that old bureaucratic madness again: they whack on a twenty per cent increase (call it a congestion charge) thereby ensuring that it’s even more worth not paying for. One pound seemed very nearly reasonable, but one pound twenty’s a bad joke.

Meanwhile, to make room for the juggernaut bendys, further parking restrictions are on the cards for Church Street, thereby making deliveries to its traders even more difficult than it is already. It’s as if someone, somewhere doesn’t want the street to prosper. While the property developers wait around for the inevitable turn in fortune promised by Olympic City, those whose livelihoods are dependent upon local custom increasingly have their backs shoved against the wall. 

There’s money in muck, and sure as hell the bureaucrats and those who serve are making a fine muck of Church Street. Take the new owner of the Vortex: he’s stated that once the new Vortex opens in Dalston, he’ll be making exactly the same planning application for the Church Street property that has already been twice refused by Hackney Council. Antisocial to the core, his reasoning is that this time around he won’t meet with the same resistance. He’s probably right. 

Like Bush’s America, New Labour democracy serves the interests of corporate-led bureaucrats and their bosses: as long as the PR departments are ensuring that matters appear to be being dealt with, nothing need be done. Take the case of Stoke Newington’s polluted allotments. We had the warnings (don’t dig), the paperwork’s growing into volumes, and meanwhile the promises are fading. Remedial action was to have been taken over ‘the winter months’. Well, it doesn’t need a gardener to tell you that Springtime is here. The allotmenteers are getting itchy feet. It’s planting time, so the warnings are being largely ignored and, polluted or not, the soil’s been turned. The Council’s legal obligation to act is being realised through empty talk and burgeoning document files, but nothing concrete appears to be happening. So what should or can we the people do? Get a petition together? Organise a protest march? If the bureaucrats and their bosses needed allotments for food we’d have organic swathes from here to Canary Wharf, and never mind the Olympics. Regardless of the common good (or, indeed, common sense), Prescott will get his thousands of new houses on Green Belt countryside surrounding London, the property developers will have a field day, and meanwhile we, the people, will be expected to suffer the consequences. But within all this, is a tiny, unpolluted plot of land or a comfy bus-ride really too much to ask for? Clearly, yes. 

Just take a look at the endemic sense of political and social impotence felt by people in the street: resignation has become the norm. People get worn down by getting nowhere fighting for things they believe in. Millions of people took to the streets opposing the invasion of Iraq, but Blair simply smirked and waited. Thousands signed a petition opposing the conversion of the Vortex into luxury apartments, but the new owner just shrugged his shoulders and waited. Hundreds of people opposed the bendys, but now they’re a reality. However, im this case it’s us who have to do the waiting. The bendys are less regular because, so I am informed, ‘they hold a greater number’ and, of course, numbers don’t feel the cold.