17/04/2014 BBC London News

Welcome to BBC London News. Members of the RMT Union are to stage five

days of strike action in a long`running dispute over plans to

close ticket offices on the Underground. The first walk`out will

begin at 9pm on Monday 28th April and last two days, while a three`day

walk`out is planned to start the following week on Monday the 5th of

May. Today the mayor criticised the RMT for, in his words, taking the

nuclear option. He urged the union to call off the strike and resume

talks. Our political correspondent, Karl Mercer, has more.

Locked out again. This was London in February when the RMT staged a

two`day strike over plans to shut ticket offices across the capital.

The scenes are all too familiar. A second strike was called off to

allow time for talks between the Tube unions and London Underground.

It seems those talks have ended with the two sides no closer together.

All I can say is we are in a situation where the talks have been

a bit of a sham and their favourite word seems to be no, we are not

going to move the booking offices, we are going to close every single

one. This is stupid, isn't it? We have had 40 separate meetings and

three trade unions are still in discussion with us. We have

thousands of volunteers to leave the job on favourable terms and this is

completely unnecessary. Now Londoners face five days of strikes

in the next few weeks. The first starts at 9pm on Monday 28th April

and runs for two days. The next starts at 9pm on Monday the 5th of

May and runs for three days. There's two sides to this argument. You can

feel for them but at the same time you are thinking, the disruption it

causes to so many hard`working people. Definitely too long. I

understand why they do it but five days is too long. It was a really

tough time getting to the office the last time and I'm not looking

forward to it. You're joking, aren't you?! It's ludicrous! Shutting

ticket offices will cost around 700 jobs. London Underground says no`one

will be made redundant who doesn't want to be. The RMT says passengers

will be less safe. Middle ground looks hard to find. We are still

open to discussions with London Underground but so far they have

shown to be completely inflexible as far as we are concerned. It won't

make them popular with Londoners, it would make them popular with us.

Hard talk on both sides, which could mean tough journeys at the end of

the month. As you may have heard earlier, there

are big delays on Eurostar services in and out of London tonight. Long

queues have formed at St Pancras International as hundreds of

passengers try to get to France for the long weekend. A Eurostar

spokesman said no more trains are expected to depart from the station

this evening. Passengers are being warned that trains tomorrow will be

very full, and those not able to travel would get a full refund.

30 firearms and ammunition have been recovered in what has been described

as one of the biggest gun seizures by the Met. Assault rifles, sawn off

shotguns and a Thompson machine gun were found in the raid by the

anti`gang squad in Waltham forest. Terrorism has been ruled out. A

50`year`old man has been arrested and charged with two counts of

possession. GP leaders are warning that some of

the capital's surgeries could face closure because of cuts to their

budgets. Despite a government pledge this week for more funding to make

some surgery is more accessible, not all GPs are benefiting. And it is

feared the fork `` poorest in society will be the hardest hit.

He is pretty jolly most of the time! This mother has been coming for more

than a decade. Because of funding cuts, the surgery might not even be

here next year. I have loved living and working in this area and I have

been committed to it for 22 years. I love my patients and we have a good

relationship. I am almost speechless and almost want to cry at the

thought that that might all go. I am very worried. She says the practice

will lose almost ?220,000 a gear. This goes back to 2004, when the way

GPs were funded changed. The ones who lost out were given an annual

lump sum and it is that which will stop. NHS England says the money

will be reinvested to make all GP practices financially equal. Some

will be better off but the NHS has identified 98 practices in England

which could close. I would have thought this surgery would be a good

example for them to make sure they follow the steps because they have a

really good record on infection here. The British Medical

Association says these changes will be most painful for the city's most

deprived areas. They will have received funding historically which

supported the essential work they were doing for the community in

Tower Hamlets and that essential funding has been taken away from

them, and what will be replaced won't be enough to meet the needs of

the population that they serve. NHS England has told us it will meet

with practices to solve how they can support them. In the meantime, the

future of this surgery is very uncertain.

A memorial service has been held to mark 30 years since the murder of a

police officer who was fatally shot outside the Libyan embassy.

25`year`old Yvonne Fletcher was policing protest against Colonel

Gaddafi's regime in St James 's square when she was hit by a burst

of gunfire from a first`floor window. Colleagues who pay tribute

to her still hope her killer will be found. She was very bright, bubbly

and popular, not only amongst her colleagues but with members of the

public in Covent Garden where we used to work. That's all from me.

Have a great Easter weekend. Now the all`important bank holiday weather.

Temperatures got up to 17 in the centre of London. I don't think they

will be quite that high again in the Easter break. The weather will be

going downhill. Another fine day tomorrow with more sunshine than we

had today but a cold breeze and lower temperatures on the way.

Overnight tonight, the cloud we have overhead will melt away pushing

south towards France, so we will be left with clear skies and a chilly

start to Friday with temperatures at four or five degrees. Added to that,

quite a chilly, brisk north easterly breeze. Cloud bubbling up to the

north`east of London with sunny spells around but temperatures not

as high as they were today. Looking at 15 or 16 and it will feel

fresher. Saturday is a decent kind of day but this is how Sunday looks.

An area of low pressure parking itself across southern England, so

we will see wet itself across southern England, so

we will see wet weather over England. Have a good Easter.

One thing we can be sure about is it won't be as cold as Easter last

year, when we had seems like this, a covering of snow with icicles and

temperatures down to an Easter record of minus 12.5 Celsius. One

year and a couple of weeks on, things look very different. The

first half of the Easter weekend, a lot of dry weather and a lot of warm

and strong sunshine as well. It is the second half of the Easter

weekend when things turn more unsettled, with some rain