Millionaire Tory double act David Cameron and Boris Johnson raised their jackboot over our rights yesterday as Tube workers mounted picket lines in a mass strike against dangerous cuts.

Services were drastically reduced by the stoppage with London Underground bosses' volunteer scab army overwhelmed and police forced to manage crowds.

Desperate managers were accused of potentially lethal safety breaches as they tried to paper over the impact of a strike centred on blanket ticket office closures and nearly 1,000 job losses.

Shocking images of commuters crushed at the foot of escalators in Waterloo station saw calls from Tube union RMT for an urgent probe.

There were combative scenes in Parliament as the Prime Minister goaded Labour leader Ed Miliband to condemn the 48-hour strike.

The Labour leader repeatedly refused to respond.

Mr Miliband declared on Tuesday that he did not think the strike should go ahead.

"I think both sides need to do proper negotiations about these issues," he added.

But Mayor Johnson continued to defy calls from RMT and sister union TSSA to sit down and talk about the issues at the heart of the dispute.

Instead he and fellow Tories laid bare their anti-union agenda with savage public threats to restrict walkouts and wield more state control over democratic ballots.

Mr Johnson demanded that the law be changed so that a strike could only be called when 50 per cent of all union members backed it - despite himself being elected on a puny 38 per cent turnout.

The mayor took to the airwaves to claim that his own election by 17 per cent of London's voters could not be compared to the Tube ballot.

Mr Johnson blustered: "There's a difference between a local election or a political election and the operation of a vital public service and there are plenty of other capital cities around the world that actually have a total ban on strikes by their mass transit workers."

An unnamed Conservative source vowed that minimum voting thresholds and further constraints on strikes would be considered alongside other "reforms" in the party's 2015 election manifesto.

But RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "Rather than threatening to declare martial law in London as part of his ongoing battle with Boris Johnson for the future of the Tory Party, David Cameron should be telling the mayor to stick to his election promise to Londoners not to close ticket offices.

"Playing politics with a dispute that is simply about jobs, safety and services gets us nowhere at a time when talks are the only way forwards."

Labour MP John McDonnell accused the mayor and Prime Minister of deliberately "choreographing" a fresh attack on labour rights by provoking the Tube strike.

"It was a blatant act of provocation for Johnson to tell 1,000 Tube workers that they would lose their jobs just as they and their families were looking forward to Christmas," he said.

"The Tories want to politicise the Tube dispute to make trade unions a general election issue."