Mayoral Election gets nasty - Who do you trust Crosby or Ken?

Last night I received this email from the Ken Livingstone campaign :-

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I’m sorry for emailing you on a Saturday night. Earlier today Boris Johnson’s Campaign Director sent out an email smearing me and I wanted to make sure you saw it. They are determined to raise Londoners fares and will do absolutely anything to stop my plan to cut fares.

In the email, Tory Campaign Director Lynton Crosby said:

“Labour's chief Transport spokesperson [Maria Eagle] has let the cat out of the bag on Ken Livingstone's election promise to cut fares. She has confirmed what everybody else knows: there is no money for fare cuts without cutting £1bn worth of investment in services.”
And he writes:

“It is becoming clearer by the day that either Ken Livingstone has no intention of ever cutting fares, or he is working on a behind the scenes plan to cut £1bn of investment.”
Lynton Crosby needs to wake up and smell the coffee. If elected, I will cut fares on or by October 7th. I will resign if I have not done so by that date, and precipitate a by-election. I have never been more committed to anything in my life.

Boris Johnson’s Campaign Director has invented a plan to cut investment to scare people. It is the worst kind of politics. Tory lies.

Our fares plan is paid for out of the annual surpluses caused in no small part because the fares are so high they are bringing in more revenue than planned. It will protect investment and existing services.

The Tory-led government imposed a £2.17bn 4-year grant cut on Transport for London in the 2010 Spending Review. I have based all of my calculations for funding my Fare Deal fares cut on TfL's revised budget which takes this reduced grant into account.

My fares cut is affordable under either the existing TfL budget, or Maria Eagle's alternative.

It seems the Tories don’t understand the transport budget. It looks like they haven’t even read it.

And they don’t care about Londoners being squeezed through high fares. They want to do everything they can to keep on whacking the fares up.

I want change. If you want to join me in making real change happen, show Lynton Crosby what you think of Tory lies. Donate to our campaign here, today, and give our Fare Deal campaign a boost right now
Thank you

Ken

Ken Livingstone
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And here is the email from Lynton Crosby which prompted Kens Ire.
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Labour's chief Transport spokesperson has let the cat out of the bag on Ken Livingstone's election promise to cut fares.
She has confirmed what everybody else knows: there is no money for fare cuts without cutting £1bn worth of investment in services.
In a candid interview with the Guardian today, Maria Eagle said: "Reducing the deficit requires us to support cuts in spending that we might not have in the past. Some of this is painful."
This follows independent assessments of Ken Livingstone's election promise that confirm he could not cut fares without cutting investment.
The Channel Four Fact Check blog recently concluded that; 'If he cuts fares, TfL would expect to lose £1.12bn in income from fares – and that’s a hole he wouldn’t be able to plug without hitting the day-to-day funding for London’s transport or taking money from investment projects.'
It is becoming clearer by the day that either Ken Livingstone has no intention of ever cutting fares, or he is working on a behind the scenes plan to cut £1bn of investment. 
This would mean axing local bus routes in the suburbs, cutting bus police, stopping tube station refurbishments and delaying programmes to make the tube more frequent and less overcrowded. 
He must come clean with Londoners now. Which is it to be?

Thanks for your support,
Lynton Crosby

Campaign Director
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So who do you believe? The simple test I apply whenever I assess such claims is to look at peoples track record. Ken Livingstone, for all his faults has got a long history of commitment to affordable public transport. Those of us old enough to remember the Fairs Fare program, recall how the popularity of the scheme prompted the abolition of the GLC. As to Lynton Crosby? Well he's got a fantastic, a fantastic record of saying what is required to get the person who's campaign he's running elected.

But then who really knows