Talks between deputy prime min ister John Prescott and London mayor Ken Livingstone's transport supremo Bob Kiley restarted on Monday. They had collapsed last week after Prescott went back on an earlier pledge to overhaul his PPP privatisation scheme.
New Labour is determined to push the sell-off through.
But opposition to it is so great that even the bosses' Financial Times slams the scheme. There was overwhelming support for the tube workers' one-day strike earlier this month. Now the RMT is reballoting members for strike action. Further action cannot come quickly enough. The rail unions called a public rally to oppose tube privatisation for Thursday of this week.