As well as being very convenient, Oyster cards save you money. But that’s only because the prices of tickets for individual journeys on the London Underground (and buses) have been jacked up to ridiculous levels in recent years, and are set to go higher still.

The Oyster card project is primarily designed to permit reduced staffing at ticket windows and to cut delays in boarding buses. One side-effect is that many tourists and out-of-towners effectively pay a ‘tax’ for using London’s public transport system because of the high price of individual tickets. (One-day travelcards receive minimal publicity nowadays.) In addition, Oyster cards allow the police to track movements of suspects, on requesting records from TfL.

These may or may not be good things but the way in which the card has been forced on Londoners whether they like it or not is contemptible.

It is claimed that the forthcoming increase to £4 for a single ticket on the tube will force the last few Oyster-resisters to finally get a card. But most Londoners still without a card are those at the absolute bottom of the social scale, without a credit or debit card or other means to pay in advance. What’s most likely to happen is simply that they will be forced off public transport altogether. It’s outrageous to make these people suffer for the sake of this project.

And you can bet one thing: once there’s no more money to be squeezed out of the last few people who don’t have Oyster cards, and everyone who’s ever going to convert has converted, Oyster prices will start to increase markedly.

Once upon a time in the 1980s, the Greater London Council, under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, introduced a pioneering initiative called ‘Fares Fair’, which was aimed at radically cutting the cost of travel. London has the same leader today, but his priorities have changed for the worse.