I rode the UK's newest bus - Rachel Reeves needs to pull her finger out

The Tube is a magnificent thing, although not all of London gets to make use of it to the same degree. Various historic reasons - such as the simple fact that more people live above the River Thames - mean that the south of the capital is not nearly as well served as the north. Residents can only use parts of the Northern, District, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines, and often have to resort to buses, National Rail and Overground services.

I should know; I'm one of them. I used to live in north west London, and access to the Underground was much more readily available overall. Today, I am in Wandsworth, and, in order to get to work in Canary Wharf, I need to catch a National Rail train to Clapham Junction or Waterloo, and catch the Overground or Tube from there. If I want to take the Tube, I have to take a bus to Tooting Broadway, where locals can catch Northern line trains.

I had to take a bus to the Underground, where I used to live, too, but the broader concentration of stations was in a different league.

Sir Sadiq Khan has long wanted to extend the Bakerloo line, at least to Lewisham, but has so far been disappointed in not receiving the necessary funding from the Government.

In the meantime, the Mayor of London has launched a new speedy bus route, the Bakerloop, whose purpose is to make sure residents get to where they need to go more quickly by stopping at fewer stops, before the Bakerloo line extension (BLE) is built.

I decided to try it out, and waited around 11 minutes for a bus to turn up outside Waterloo station (the wait time was advertised as around 12 minutes, more or less spot on).

I jumped on, and was the only person on the bus for a little while, until a few people got on in Elephant and Castle.

Last year, I rode the entire Superloop bus network, which this bus is part of, around the edge of London.

By the end, the experience was torturous, with each route feeling longer and longer.

I therefore envisioned quite a lengthy journey this time, but was left pleasantly surprised, as my stopwatch suggested that it took only about half an hour.

On the way, I saw London's classically varied streets, from commercial high streets and A roads to quieter residential streets of what seemed to me Victorian houses.

I concluded that it is, for the moment, an adequate temporary solution.

But it goes without saying that the Tube would be much quicker.

Sir Sadiq needs to pull his finger out and keep pushing Ms Reeves to provide the cash needed.

I asked Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves about it before they ascended to the roles of Prime Minister and Chancellor last year.

Sir Keir was very vague, and said that he would work together with Sir Sadiq to make sure they can deliver on much needed promises to improve London's transport and housing.

Ms Reeves did not guarantee any funding for large projects.

She said: "Of course I want to see the investment in infrastructure our country needs to grow after 14 years of mismanagement.

"But we have to always show where the money is going to come from, and we need to grow the economy to be able to release funds for crucial infrastructure investment."

The Chancellor announced in June a huge strategy to spend £15billion on transport infrastructure around the country, as she sought to persuade voters that Labour was serious about growing the economy.

She has some money worries at the moment, to say the least, and the Treasury is widely considered to be seeking to increase taxes in November in order to plug a hole in the public finances.

But levies are not the only way, as investment also ensures that more tax revenue is collected.

London may not be at the top of the priority list (I grew up in the Midlands, where public transport is dire in comparison), but the BLE would result in an important boost to the city's already huge economic output, and make people's lives easier.

It seems that giving money to London is viewed to be a cardinal sin, but it is important to remember that not everybody living there is a wealthy hedge fund manager with a fancy car.