Sadiq Khan, right, with supporters this week and their placards

THE cringe of the week award goes to whoever in the Labour Party designed the “Saved by Sadiq” posters that were held up by willing disciples after the announcement that threatened bus routes will not be axed after all.

That’s right, the bus routes put on the chopping block by Transport for London, answerable of course to the Mayor of London… have in fact been saved by the same man.

What supreme taketh awaying and givething, or whatever the phrase is!

And yet somebody somewhere in Labour’s offices spent actual time designing a pretty poster.

Now, it is possible we can all be rather too cynical about politics, but it’s stories like the bus cuts which surely fuels it.

Would it be too much of a stretch to think that very few of the routes apparently facing the end of the road were ever in real danger? Only three are being lost in the city as a whole.

Would it be too sceptical to think that the threats and warnings were all part of the ongoing brinkmanship between
Sadiq Khan, Transport for London and the government in a funding dispute which has rattled on since the Covid lockdown?

It isn’t the most unusual thing for a worst case scenario to be bandied around before a white knight magically appears – almost like a script – to save the day.

In the meantime, the thousands who responded to a consultation on the future of London’s bus routes were left worried about whether they would have a way to get to work, their families and hospital appointments.

Drivers were also left fearing that their work would be taken away, some after a lifetime behind the wheel.

These games, and these posters, are not helpful.

Both sides in the dispute have some strength to their argument. A city like London deserves a bit of a helping hand to keep the city moving and government investment would be very welcome.

It’s also fair enough for ministers to want to see the books and how it’s being managed.

As the scrap goes on though, it’s the passengers who they should be worrying about most.