London Underground ticket office staff face the loss of 1,000 jobs, but the Transport for London bosses and the capitalist media would have Londoners believe that the main issue is where Bob Crow takes his holidays.

The Daily Mail plastered its pages with pictures of the transport union RMT leader on a cruise liner and on the beach in Brazil as though it was something to be ashamed of.

Like every other worker Crow is entitled to annual leave and has paid for his own holiday.

He is rewarded well, in common with other union general secretaries, so his choice of vacation is not one that most workers could afford, but few RMT members would begrudge a leader who works hard on their behalf the break he has taken.

The attack on Crow is twofold. It implies hypocrisy for living a life of luxury while representing working people and continuing to call himself a communist/socialist.

It also suggests dishonesty with regard to his demands for a face-to-face meeting with Boris Johnson while out of the country, even though Mail journalists surely understand that modern telecommunications access allows prominent people to have statements issued in their name when they are abroad.

For Crow to pay for his own holiday with his own salary, the size of which is subject to agreement by RMT members, is not hypocrisy.

It would be more accurate to apply this description to Mail editor Paul Dacre who rails against state "handouts" and the European Union but trousers €300,000 (£250,000) in EU rural development and agricultural guarantee funds for his Langwell estate near Ullapool, which is largely reserved for lucrative shooting parties.

Dacre's fellow Tory backwoodsman Johnson uses his Telegraph column to suggest that Crow's holiday choices be ignored, while itemising them for emphasis.

But he accuses RMT and its sister union TSSA of "trying to hold the capital to ransom" by calling strike action to defend their members' jobs.

TSSA leader Manuel Cortes points out that he too was demanding a meeting with the mayor and had not left London, yet Johnson failed to take up his offer of talks.

It is clear that the sole obstacle to Cortes, Crow and Johnson getting together to hammer out a resolution of this serious situation is the mayor's refusal to negotiate with the unions.

While he has been mayor, he has hobnobbed with literally hundreds of City bankers but has not found time to meet representatives of the workers who keep London's transport system running.

It has to be remembered that London Underground ticket offices have a special place in Johnson's electoral history.

When he first stood against Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone he opportunistically took issue with the mayor's plan to close some ticket offices by assuring Londoners that he backed retention of them all, asserting that "there is little financial, strategic or common sense in these closures."

That remains the case. Having staff available in Tube stations makes them safer, apart from the small percentage of travellers - still hundreds of thousands a day - who need guidance to buy a ticket.

Despite Johnson's "ransom" nonsense, the unions have expressed a willingness to suspend strike action if the mayor puts the job cuts on hold.

He should grasp this sensible offer and start working with the unions instead of playing up to backwoods Tories on whose support he relies for his future leadership bid.