Boris should play hardball with Bob Crow

The Tube unions certainly don't try hard to make friends. The threat this week of a series of different stoppages on the Underground suggests the stage is being prepared for a stand-off between the unions and Boris Johnson, who has promised a no-strike agreement. So is this going to be the big one, for so long threatened by RMT leader Bob Crow?

The Livingstone regime brokered a three-year pay deal with the RMT and Aslef, which reduced the number and regularity of strikes. But industrial action never stopped completely: the unions have long used the strike ballot and threats of two-day stoppages as a way of keeping up pressure on London Underground bosses. And the failure of successive Conservative and Labour governments to back the Tube's management in sorting out the militancy of the drivers, in particular, has left us with a transport system permanently at risk of strikes.

So Boris must confront the real possibility that he will have to take a stand. His first deputy mayor, Tim Parker, has a reputation as an industrial "hard man" and may well be tempted to use his private-sector expertise to move against the RMT and Aslef. Like Ronald Reagan and the US air traffic controllers in 1981, he and Boris may even consider breaking the unions.

To try to do so would present great risks to the fledgling Boris regime. About 90 per cent of all central London workers travel in by public transport. Any prolonged disruption would threaten the capital's economy at a time when it is already fragile.

If there were to be a long stoppage, the Mayor would have to prepare Londoners for it - and provide alternative possibilities for travel and parking. He would need to make sure people supported the idea of "sorting out the unions". It would be a trial of strength between the new Conservatives and old Labour union power - and one which David Cameron would watch with interest.

Could Boris tough it out? Senior LU managers will tell him that Tube drivers do not want a long stoppage: many of them are well paid and there are mortgage payments to keep up. Moreover, economic conditions now make most of the Underground staff 's pay and conditions look exceptionally generous: the public might take against the unions and support the Mayor. Many people expect the Tories to be tough with union militancy.

But whether it comes to that or not, Boris will need to be wily and brave if he is to sort out our friends at the depot.