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Is there any truth in this Telegraph headline about a £72k salary for tube drivers?

I'd say the most likely thing is that a Union has claimed that they don't earn enougth, and that the Telegraph has inserted an alleged 72k salary that they pulled out of thin air or someone's backside, or is some kind of edge figure.

Or, bluntly, perhaps the Telegraph is deliberately stirring again, just as (for example) they did when they used the height of the electricity pylons which take a cable across the Thames Estuary to imply a height for what was coming across East Anglia - which were a fraction of the number they implied.

What is the median salary for a tube driver? Or the starting salary? Is either of those 72k

I don't know a 2025 number, but the Daily Telegraph have trained me to have a healthy contempt for anything they claim until confirmed by a reliable source.

I'm open to comment from anyone who actually knows the numbers.

Two seconds of googling later:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tube-strike-tfl-driver-salaries-how-much-b2823015.html

According to the TfL, the average Tube driver has a starting salary of £71,160.

So it’s actually worse than the Telegraph suggests, given this is the average starting salary.

It's beginning to look as though Putin's "drone test" may have backfired (so to speak).

All it has done has pushed the Europeans closer to Ukraine and Trump closer to Europe which I suspect wasn't the aim but could have been foreseeable by any kind of analysis.

I can only think Putin was emboldened by his closeness to China and North Korea at the military parade last week and perhaps some of Kim or Xi's advisers suggested this as a ploy to sow discord in Europe and with the US.

Putin will only be concerned by hard actions performed by the west as a result of today's madness. He will believe that his political and social interference in the west will be able to undo any 'closeness' that results. If we only react with words, then it's a win for him. At least in his mind.

@KevinASchofield
BREAKING: Bridget Phillipson easily gets more than 80 nominations to put her into the next round of the Labour deputy leadership election.

Lucy Powell just 3 short with 22 hours to go

Totals:

Phillipson - 116
Powell - 77
Bell Ribeiro-Addy - 15
Barker - 14
Thornberry - 13

Easy to call it. Just like the Liz Truss election, Useless Lucy gets into next phase the Unions and Labour Members will place a tiara of Deputy Leadership on her head.
Though they will have to watch out for the dandruff.

Did you see Phillipson speaking at the TUC? She has it in the bag.

Doesn’t matter what she said or how she said it, the one with zero personality is the Starmer candidate and this is “a balls to you and your reshuffle Starmer” election for the vast majority of Union and Party Members.

This is a betting site, and I’m calling it already in the bag for useless Lucy.

Powell is the one with personality?

It’s a close call, but Phillipson is one unique kind of personality vacuum.

@KevinASchofield
BREAKING: Bridget Phillipson easily gets more than 80 nominations to put her into the next round of the Labour deputy leadership election.

Lucy Powell just 3 short with 22 hours to go

Totals:

Phillipson - 116
Powell - 77
Bell Ribeiro-Addy - 15
Barker - 14
Thornberry - 13

Easy to call it. Just like the Liz Truss election, Useless Lucy gets into next phase the Unions and Labour Members will place a tiara of Deputy Leadership on her head.
Though they will have to watch out for the dandruff.

Did you see Phillipson speaking at the TUC? She has it in the bag.

Doesn’t matter what she said or how she said it, the one with zero personality is the Starmer candidate and this is “a balls to you and your reshuffle Starmer” election for the vast majority of Union and Party Members.

This is a betting site, and I’m calling it already in the bag for useless Lucy.

Powell is the one with personality?

On Mandaygate, it boils down to the old old question.

What did he know and when did he know it?

In Mandelson's case, it could be argued that schmoozing terrible people is the job description of an ambassador to America, particularly a Trumpian America. But the latest round of revelations goes beyond that, surely.

As for Starmer, if he knew this and appointed Mandy anyway, that also ought to be fatal. Whatever happened to the old "is there anything else you haven't mentioned that would bring shame and disgrace on us all if it emerged" question? It would have saved everyone so much bother over the last decade or so.

(I know... politics is precision-configured to appeal to reckless thrill seekers who assume they don't have to follow the rules... But Sheesh.)

If Starmer didn't know about Mandelson's Epstein back story that was a dereliction of duty, because we all knew.

The only leader to emerge with any credit today was is Ed Davey. He asked the best question and didn't look sickly smug (Badenoch) or slippery and weak (Starmer). It's difficult not to feel the world is fiddling while Rome burns and there's bugger all any of our leaders are able to do about it.

Nonsense

For once it is widely accepted Badenoch had her best outing and won 6-0

You've been smashing it out of the park too BigG.

If Starmer falls, your reporting on PB won't go unrewarded.

BigG wobbles his lip but would vote for a pigs bladder on a stick if it had a blue rosette.

That is very unpleasant and unnecessary

Giftgate
Rayner
Mandelson

So this is what the grown ups being in charge looks like.

One term latest.

Starmer’s departure might actually be a huge boon to Labour. I mean, yes, there’s not really anyone else particularly inspiring on the front bench, but a new leader would be able to get rid of Reeves and try and draw a line under all the lawyerly two tier stuff. Not saying it would work, mind.

Would be very funny if Starmer was PM for less time than Rishi.

Who would replace Starmer? Rayner was his main rival.

Streeting probably is now amongst the PLP but is a Starmer loyalist

If Starmer falls over EpsteinGate then there better be vast stocks of popcorn in the warehouses.

We gonna need them.

If Starmer goes it will be the fifth sub-30 month PM in a row.
And I expect if he goes he would be replaced by David Lammy until a leadership election takes place, who would be the sixth.
I don't put Starmer's chance of resigning over this at greater than 25% though

Lammy as PM... the thought is just too hideous to contemplate.

Phillipson : 1.62
Powell : 2.64

So Phillipson is Healey and Powell is Benn. A battle for the soul of the party. I'll vote Phillipson, I think. I'm long of her for next leader at 28.

Labour has no soul, it's the home of robot lawyers and accountants

C'mon, what about us champagne socialists?

This place is madder than GBNews today. Apparently it is all over for Starmer on here.

Remarkably the same posters assuming Starmer is finished because Mandelson knew Epstein were defending Boris Johnson to the hilt.

I said last week Rayner would have to go.

I am not so sure Mandelson falls on his sword. Certainly not before Trump's visit. Sacking Mandelson over Epstein would be a snub to Trump. Although Harry Cole did say that Mandy's problem is he remained friends with Trump after his conviction. Trump of course turned out to be an FBI informant, who dobbed Epstein in the moment he found Epstein had a dodgy relationship with underage girls.

I don’t think it’s over for Starmer but I do think this is particularly dangerous for the government from an optics standpoint at the very least and with more to come (and don’t take my word for it - take Mandelson’s) the drip drip is going to become very uncomfortable. And it is entirely possible it turns into a question of Starmer’s judgement - then these things have a habit of snowballing.

I think Mandelson is a goner, because despite any awkward situation arising in the US the pressure domestically will start to reach boiling point. Starmer can’t have another moment like he did at PMQs today - it was a terrible look and the worst he has ever performed in the House by some margin.