Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I don't know if things have changed much with the LEZ but I do recall from my 28 years of commuting into the capital seeing a thick brown pall hanging over it from my train window on a bright and still summer's morning.

ULEZ was one possibility to fill the budget gap imposed by the Government, but that doesn't really help you win elections. The Government will just say "should cut waste". or whatever.

There's something of a rethink going on with green policies generally. I think that's probably necessary, rather than an overreaction to one result. As Tony Yates has said, it's great to talk about green jobs and green investment, but the cost for many years is large and negative. We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't have to. One thing I think they could do is reduce the amount spent in the first couple of years on green transition, because there's no way that can be spent efficiently from a standing star. Other than that, it has to be done, so at the very least going to have to be upfront about the costs.

Pointed out by a professional contrarian elsewhere, from Scientific American:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... l-warming/

New research is helping to quantify just how big that effect might be. A study published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that eliminating the human emission of aerosols—tiny, air-polluting particles often released by industrial activities—could result in additional global warming of anywhere from half a degree to 1 degree Celsius.

I'm picking up that part of the problem in Uxbridge & West Ruislip was that although Sadiq Khan is indeed, as we've noted, obliged to implement the expansion of ULEZ in London, he also understands the necessity of doing so in order to mitigate London's air quality crisis, and critically, is a zealous enthusiast of the measure. This made it harder for Labour to campaign on this basis during the by-election campaign. I think there is also the sniff of a suspicion that Khan is enthusiastic about ULEZ expansion because he sees it as boosting his mayoral budget - a criticism often levelled at him by critics of ULEZ expansion, which I'd say is probably untrue.

The real sting about the Uxbridge result is : How the blithering fuck did Labour allow the Tories to shift the entire focus of the by election from being a chance to deliver a verdict on 13 years of Tory fuck-ups, incompetence and corruption, with the previous MP a proven liar, to a referendum on a highly localised issue that actually originated with the aforementioned lying bastard former Uxbridge MP.?

How? Because for all their faults the Tories know how to move on and reframe. Labour still have serious issues with navel gazing. Some of it is the Corbynistas desperate to paint anything as a loss if it hurts Starmer, but the party as a whole are still far too keen sometimes to look for the cloud that accompanies any silver lining.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 1:29 pm The real sting about the Uxbridge result is : How the blithering fuck did Labour allow the Tories to shift the entire focus of the by election from being a chance to deliver a verdict on 13 years of Tory fuck-ups, incompetence and corruption, with the previous MP a proven liar, to a referendum on a highly localised issue that actually originated with the aforementioned lying bastard former Uxbridge MP.?

Simple. They seriously underestimated just how unpopular the ULEZ expansion is. It's a worthy ideal, but one that has a real-life impact on "ordinary hard-working taxpayers"; the sort of thing that "Geoff Buys Cars" on YouTube would lap up.

Next time a self-employed courier for Hermes/Evri turns up at your door, just look and see what car they're driving and if you can be bothered, see if it'd be ULEZ compliant on the TfL checker. I know the gentleman who delivers for Evri round here (and he's by far and away better than bloody UPS these days, who just drop parcels at my door and don't even ring the bell) drives a car that isn't so - it's an old diesel Ford Focus.

Now expand that to many "man with a van" outfits, delivering your consumer durables (or TEMU tat) to your door.

They're worrying about this because they can see it as a way back for Sunak on a bigger theme- Labour will whack up the taxes of ordinary working people. Lots of people whose votes it needs thinks taxes are too high already.

ULEZ in Central London isn't the same as ULEZ in Uxbridge, so I don't think "Bozo started this" really works. Uxbridge is much more like Greater Manchester than the London Borough of Tower Hamlets See what the Proper Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester is doing about the problem- delaying. Even in Tower Hamlets, the winners of the local elections ran on "war on the motorist". As I say, see how hard Jamie Driscoll goes on bringing ULEZ to Sunderland.

I thought this was a joke then I realized that Ian is the president of the BFAWU.

That latter (ULEZ in Sunderland) will be interesting as I was alerted to that YT channel I mentioned earlier by a gobshite braggart from Durham elsewhere who is resolutely anti-environment and likes to brag about his golf club membership and his Audi R8. Many years ago, he responded to a post where I'd mentioned not getting a car on a PCP because of the high mileage I do with "so clock it - I have".

Boiler wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 2:35 pm
Next time a self-employed courier for Hermes/Evri turns up at your door, just look and see what car they're driving and if you can be bothered, see if it'd be ULEZ compliant on the TfL checker. I know the gentleman who delivers for Evri round here (and he's by far and away better than bloody UPS these days, who just drop parcels at my door and don't even ring the bell) drives a car that isn't so - it's an old diesel Ford Focus.

Now expand that to many "man with a van" outfits, delivering your consumer durables (or TEMU tat) to your door.

Yes, I thought that the other day. It's over £60 a week for them. I was looking at how much Khan had put up the mayor's precept (part of council tax) and it went up by 9.7%, which I respect him for, but it's not like a van driver being asked to pay £60 a week. The politics of this is much harder than lots of people are prepared to admit. And I'm not sure it's implications are limited to a few seats in Outer London.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 2:56 pm
I thought this was a joke then I realized that Ian is the president of the BFAWU.

That genius was a Brexiter too.

Here's a by-election from Corbyn's time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Rich ... y-election

I can just remember thinking "Great, Zac Goldsmith lost!" I didn't call for the head of Corbyn.

Boiler wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 2:56 pm That latter (ULEZ in Sunderland) will be interesting as I was alerted to that YT channel I mentioned earlier by a gobshite braggart from Durham elsewhere who is resolutely anti-environment and likes to brag about his golf club membership and his Audi R8. Many years ago, he responded to a post where I'd mentioned not getting a car on a PCP because of the high mileage I do with "so clock it - I have".

They're already talking about it on a Sunderland football message board.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/ulez.1611579/

There's a certain amount of "just another revenue raiser". Of course, you can make these things revenue neutral by cutting other taxes, but taxes are going to have to go up overall, so that probably won't happen. Unless you're Sunak of course, and you'll just do a Cameron and make up some "welfare cuts".

Good thread here. Why didn't Labour point out Grant Shapps made Khan do it? Because that's not true.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 3:28 pm Good thread here. Why didn't Labour point out Grant Shapps made Khan do it? Because that's not true.

I'm afraid it IS true.

He explains in the thread.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 3:43 pm He explains in the thread.

I can’t seem to see the thread. Perhaps you could explain ?

Khan had already said he planned to expand ULEZ in 2018.

And that letter from Shapps doesn't say anything about expanding to the whole of Greater London- when it was written ULEZ was only the small central section. And the settlement between TfL and the DfT bans Khan from using the DfT money to expand ULEZ.

It's Khan's policy to expand to Greater London, and he's, to his credit, not pretended otherwise.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 4:01 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 3:43 pm He explains in the thread.

I can’t seem to see the thread. Perhaps you could explain ?

Here you go:





I've read it 3 times but my brain is frazzled from two Devon to Surrey and back again dashes over the last few days with barely any sleep so it simply isn't computing! All I'm seeing here is that Khan WAS pressured into doing this but when he did do it the rug was pulled from under him and it's been made to look as if it was his choice alone? That thread doesn't change things, in my opinion.

Whatever the true story is, which I suspect is somewhere in the middle, Khan/Labour's messaging on this has been awful and Khan has been thrown under the bus by his own party to some degree.

*Edit* - written before Tubby's clarification above.

Khan had to raise revenue to make up for the cut in the central grant, but it's his choice he did it like this. He wasn't pressured in extending it to the Greater London boundary- Shapps actually made it harder for him by stopping him using the bailout funds for this purpose. "Widen the scope" in the context of 2020 just means from the central zone, and could include charging more vehicles there and up to the N-S circular.

Of course, the Tories would have attacked whatever he did, but it's a Khan policy, and one he's embraced. He's likely to be able to win on Central London votes, but he can't expect people who are going to lose because of it to be happy.

Yes, Khan has (rightly) always been in support of implementing ULEZ expansion. It is unquestionably the correct policy to address the air pollution crisis, in my view.

But Shapps really did make TFL funding contingent on further ULEZ implementation, and I do think that politically, and strategically in the context of the Uxbridge contest, much more could have been made of this.