PM roadshow bid to sell PPP

Tony Blair and Stephen Byers are to take part in a series of "roadshow" meetings in London next month in a desperate bid to sell the part-privatisation of the Tube to cynical Labour Party members, it was claimed today.

The proposed meetings also led to an immediate clash with transport commissioner Bob Kiley who is today writing to Mr Byers demanding that if the meetings do go ahead he wants a place on the platform to say why he considers the public private partnership (PPP) to be "fundamentally unsafe".

Newspaper report s claimed that Mr Blair is determined to push ahead with PPP and that the scheme will pass both financial and safety criteria. Stories that the Government is about to back down are untrue, it was said.