:00:14. > :00:19.Welcome to BBC London News. Members of the RMT Union are to stage five
:00:20. > :00:22.days of strike action in a long`running dispute over plans to
:00:23. > :00:26.close ticket offices on the Underground. The first walk`out will
:00:27. > :00:29.begin at 9pm on Monday 28th April and last two days, while a three`day
:00:30. > :00:34.walk`out is planned to start the following week on Monday the 5th of
:00:35. > :00:39.May. Today the mayor criticised the RMT for, in his words, taking the
:00:40. > :00:43.nuclear option. He urged the union to call off the strike and resume
:00:44. > :00:50.talks. Our political correspondent, Karl Mercer, has more.
:00:51. > :00:53.Locked out again. This was London in February when the RMT staged a
:00:54. > :00:58.two`day strike over plans to shut ticket offices across the capital.
:00:59. > :01:01.The scenes are all too familiar. A second strike was called off to
:01:02. > :01:07.allow time for talks between the Tube unions and London Underground.
:01:08. > :01:15.It seems those talks have ended with the two sides no closer together.
:01:16. > :01:18.All I can say is we are in a situation where the talks have been
:01:19. > :01:23.a bit of a sham and their favourite word seems to be no, we are not
:01:24. > :01:30.going to move the booking offices, we are going to close every single
:01:31. > :01:33.one. This is stupid, isn't it? We have had 40 separate meetings and
:01:34. > :01:39.three trade unions are still in discussion with us. We have
:01:40. > :01:42.thousands of volunteers to leave the job on favourable terms and this is
:01:43. > :01:47.completely unnecessary. Now Londoners face five days of strikes
:01:48. > :01:52.in the next few weeks. The first starts at 9pm on Monday 28th April
:01:53. > :01:56.and runs for two days. The next starts at 9pm on Monday the 5th of
:01:57. > :02:02.May and runs for three days. There's two sides to this argument. You can
:02:03. > :02:07.feel for them but at the same time you are thinking, the disruption it
:02:08. > :02:11.causes to so many hard`working people. Definitely too long. I
:02:12. > :02:16.understand why they do it but five days is too long. It was a really
:02:17. > :02:21.tough time getting to the office the last time and I'm not looking
:02:22. > :02:23.forward to it. You're joking, aren't you?! It's ludicrous! Shutting
:02:24. > :02:26.ticket offices will cost around 700 jobs. London Underground says no`one
:02:27. > :02:30.will be made redundant who doesn't want to be. The RMT says passengers
:02:31. > :02:37.will be less safe. Middle ground looks hard to find. We are still
:02:38. > :02:41.open to discussions with London Underground but so far they have
:02:42. > :02:47.shown to be completely inflexible as far as we are concerned. It won't
:02:48. > :02:51.make them popular with Londoners, it would make them popular with us.
:02:52. > :02:55.Hard talk on both sides, which could mean tough journeys at the end of
:02:56. > :02:58.the month. As you may have heard earlier, there
:02:59. > :03:02.are big delays on Eurostar services in and out of London tonight. Long
:03:03. > :03:05.queues have formed at St Pancras International as hundreds of
:03:06. > :03:08.passengers try to get to France for the long weekend. A Eurostar
:03:09. > :03:11.spokesman said no more trains are expected to depart from the station
:03:12. > :03:14.this evening. Passengers are being warned that trains tomorrow will be
:03:15. > :03:23.very full, and those not able to travel would get a full refund.
:03:24. > :03:27.30 firearms and ammunition have been recovered in what has been described
:03:28. > :03:32.as one of the biggest gun seizures by the Met. Assault rifles, sawn off
:03:33. > :03:36.shotguns and a Thompson machine gun were found in the raid by the
:03:37. > :03:39.anti`gang squad in Waltham forest. Terrorism has been ruled out. A
:03:40. > :03:43.50`year`old man has been arrested and charged with two counts of
:03:44. > :03:49.possession. GP leaders are warning that some of
:03:50. > :03:53.the capital's surgeries could face closure because of cuts to their
:03:54. > :03:57.budgets. Despite a government pledge this week for more funding to make
:03:58. > :04:02.some surgery is more accessible, not all GPs are benefiting. And it is
:04:03. > :04:11.feared the fork `` poorest in society will be the hardest hit.
:04:12. > :04:15.He is pretty jolly most of the time! This mother has been coming for more
:04:16. > :04:23.than a decade. Because of funding cuts, the surgery might not even be
:04:24. > :04:27.here next year. I have loved living and working in this area and I have
:04:28. > :04:32.been committed to it for 22 years. I love my patients and we have a good
:04:33. > :04:37.relationship. I am almost speechless and almost want to cry at the
:04:38. > :04:42.thought that that might all go. I am very worried. She says the practice
:04:43. > :04:47.will lose almost ?220,000 a gear. This goes back to 2004, when the way
:04:48. > :04:51.GPs were funded changed. The ones who lost out were given an annual
:04:52. > :04:57.lump sum and it is that which will stop. NHS England says the money
:04:58. > :05:02.will be reinvested to make all GP practices financially equal. Some
:05:03. > :05:07.will be better off but the NHS has identified 98 practices in England
:05:08. > :05:11.which could close. I would have thought this surgery would be a good
:05:12. > :05:18.example for them to make sure they follow the steps because they have a
:05:19. > :05:26.really good record on infection here. The British Medical
:05:27. > :05:32.Association says these changes will be most painful for the city's most
:05:33. > :05:35.deprived areas. They will have received funding historically which
:05:36. > :05:38.supported the essential work they were doing for the community in
:05:39. > :05:41.Tower Hamlets and that essential funding has been taken away from
:05:42. > :05:47.them, and what will be replaced won't be enough to meet the needs of
:05:48. > :05:50.the population that they serve. NHS England has told us it will meet
:05:51. > :05:55.with practices to solve how they can support them. In the meantime, the
:05:56. > :05:59.future of this surgery is very uncertain.
:06:00. > :06:03.A memorial service has been held to mark 30 years since the murder of a
:06:04. > :06:08.police officer who was fatally shot outside the Libyan embassy.
:06:09. > :06:11.25`year`old Yvonne Fletcher was policing protest against Colonel
:06:12. > :06:15.Gaddafi's regime in St James 's square when she was hit by a burst
:06:16. > :06:19.of gunfire from a first`floor window. Colleagues who pay tribute
:06:20. > :06:24.to her still hope her killer will be found. She was very bright, bubbly
:06:25. > :06:27.and popular, not only amongst her colleagues but with members of the
:06:28. > :06:33.public in Covent Garden where we used to work. That's all from me.
:06:34. > :06:38.Have a great Easter weekend. Now the all`important bank holiday weather.
:06:39. > :06:44.Temperatures got up to 17 in the centre of London. I don't think they
:06:45. > :06:49.will be quite that high again in the Easter break. The weather will be
:06:50. > :06:53.going downhill. Another fine day tomorrow with more sunshine than we
:06:54. > :06:56.had today but a cold breeze and lower temperatures on the way.
:06:57. > :07:00.Overnight tonight, the cloud we have overhead will melt away pushing
:07:01. > :07:05.south towards France, so we will be left with clear skies and a chilly
:07:06. > :07:10.start to Friday with temperatures at four or five degrees. Added to that,
:07:11. > :07:16.quite a chilly, brisk north easterly breeze. Cloud bubbling up to the
:07:17. > :07:20.north`east of London with sunny spells around but temperatures not
:07:21. > :07:25.as high as they were today. Looking at 15 or 16 and it will feel
:07:26. > :07:29.fresher. Saturday is a decent kind of day but this is how Sunday looks.
:07:30. > :07:30.An area of low pressure parking itself across southern England, so
:07:31. > :07:35.we will see wet itself across southern England, so
:07:36. > :07:41.we will see wet weather over England. Have a good Easter.
:07:42. > :07:46.One thing we can be sure about is it won't be as cold as Easter last
:07:47. > :07:52.year, when we had seems like this, a covering of snow with icicles and
:07:53. > :07:54.temperatures down to an Easter record of minus 12.5 Celsius. One
:07:55. > :07:59.year and a couple of weeks on, things look very different. The
:08:00. > :08:03.first half of the Easter weekend, a lot of dry weather and a lot of warm
:08:04. > :08:07.and strong sunshine as well. It is the second half of the Easter
:08:08. > :08:08.weekend when things turn more unsettled, with some rain