"The Tube strike hardly materialised," Mayor Ken Livingstone said Sunday. "The majority of London Underground staff did not agree that it made sense to punish ordinary Londoners on New Year's Eve."

The dispute centres on a new 35-hour working week. The RMT agreed to the deal a year ago, but is unhappy about new rosters, warning that they would compromise safety.

Jerome Godfrey, 21, from west London, said the strike "does nothing but fundamentally devalue principles we hold dear, like the right to strike. It irritates people at the most importune moment".

Restaurant workers Delphine Poletti, 22, and Yohan Priollet, 23, joined by two friends from their native France, came out of a nightclub at Tottenham Court Road to find the Tube station closed.

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