ULEZ expansion ruled lawful by High Court

[Rockets]

51 minutes ago, megalaki84 said:

Whilst I'm sure that true, Labour also know that softening on environmental issues is the surest way to split the Left vote. 

The left doesn't win elections...the centrists do

Edited July 28, 2023 by Rockets

[malumbu]

A gentle suggestion Rocks is to pick your battles.  Let the good people of Bexley fight the ULEZ, not really sure why you would want to do this.  I know you are angry with lefties due to the LTNs and the forthcoming CPZ expansion but methinks you are not making good use of your time on thus thread.

Unless you really want to champion the Tory right who don't give a fig about the environment.  Surely not.

Thinking back to today's great result it also feels like payback for the Brexit boroughs.  ULEZ is going to cost them much less than Brexit has harmed me, my family and my wishy washy lefty peer group.  Although we of course could all pay more for our personal transport be it car, motorbike or pushbike due to  Brexit (ie cost more to buy).  And going it alone (and lack of political ambition) means that our environmental industries will fall behind the EU, US and China.  Nice link from 'personal responsibility' to 'environmental catastrophe' to Brexit.

Edited July 28, 2023 by malumbu

[Rockets]

No, I am angry with lefties because they created this mess by gifting the last election to the Tories. My friend was an advisor to the Corbyn campaign and I asked them...at what point did you realise it had all gone horribly wrong..and they said when they got the text to return to Labour HQ as they headed to the victory party....

 

...its that sort of blinkerdness that I can assure you Keir is more than aware of and desperate not to repeat.

 

So you can all claim it doesn't matter but Uxbridge does and it has triggered the centrist in Labour to say (quite sensbily)...don't let the left balls this up for us.....so Sadiq and the hard left councils are right in the line of sight of that one...

[megalaki84]

59 minutes ago, Rockets said:

No, I am angry with lefties because they created this mess by gifting the last election to the Tories. My friend was an advisor to the Corbyn campaign and I asked them...at what point did you realise it had all gone horribly wrong..and they said when they got the text to return to Labour HQ as they headed to the victory party....

 

...its that sort of blinkerdness that I can assure you Keir is more than aware of and desperate not to repeat.

 

So you can all claim it doesn't matter but Uxbridge does and it has triggered the centrist in Labour to say (quite sensbily)...don't let the left balls this up for us.....so Sadiq and the hard left councils are right in the line of sight of that one...

Totally fair point Rocket. There is clearly healing to be done and I hope Labour govern for all, not the few. Unfortunately, I think environmental issues will raise many more tensions going forward and we will all have to balance the ideals of an orderly democratic process (and I agree ULEZ and CPZ have not exactly been that) with the climate crisis. And I say climate rather than air quality because neither scheme is in my eyes really about air quality - they're forming the basis for future policy on all vehicles. 

[malumbu]

So, back to a point that I frequently make.  Has the lack of leadership from firstly the coalition and then Tory governments led to all this mess?

A Brown government in 2010 would have led to a national network of Low Emission Zones, as we are seeing ten years later (ULEZ/ Clean Air Zones) as the courts ordered the government to sort out air quality.  So we would have had restrictions on more polluting vehicles earlier.

The Johnson government DID push the carbon reduction programme, albeit that they dodged the difficult issues - aviation, agriculture and gave in on on shore Wind (and all governments have ducked the nuclear issue since Thatch did a 180 in 1989, which with privatisation of the energy sector led to the energy security/volatility we see now.). Ultimately Johnson would have had to do battle with Sunak over the costs of environmental policies.  And Sunak (and the RRRss Transport Sec) has dropped the baton.

This has led to a vacuum into which Khan and a few others have stepped in to play their part, not that we all agree on their polices, but surely we are on the same page regards to the government.

I've been close to this over most of my career and Today on Weds or Thurs got it right when they had both the Met Office and the CCC on, both criticising politicians for backing off their climate change ambitions.

 

 

[Bic Basher]

8 hours ago, mr.chicken said:

2. The difference between Tory and Labour was a lot smaller than the Green party share of the vote, and the greens are pro ULEZ to the point where they are trying to implement their own in Brighton.

 

No chance of that happening as Brighton is now a Labour council since the last local election.   When it came down to it, the Green administration managed to make a pigs ear of refuse collections being one of the issues that led to them being voted out.

When it comes down to it, if there's a strong local issue such as the bins or ULEZ in Uxbridge, voters will vote for whether will make their lives easier, not if they want to reduce pollution, regardless of the good intentions.

[Rockets]

Interesting that the judicial review on ULEZ was based on a consultation where people we asked whether they supported it or not (59% said no). I do wonder whether the judge would have viewed it differently if no such question was asked and whether the Tories realise this and why they are requesting the LTN review. Any legal experts have a view?

[alice]

I've wondered why the ULEZ is said to have made the difference in Uxbridge if 95% of cars are already ULEZ compliant.

[malumbu]

Some quite tough action on air quality in Brighton, which is good.

Daft question on consultation Rocks.  Do you want something that could inconvenience you.  Most will say no.  LTN and Toriez us about votes as you well know and something I've  commented on, on that thread.

I'm not changing my spelling as rebranding Tories would make them sound much more exotic.

Edited July 30, 2023 by malumbu

[Rockets]

Hardly a daft question.  Not since the first CPZ consultation has the council put a simple yes/no question and I wonder if that would not be a robust consultation in the eyes of the ULEZ judge. If so, Southwark and others may have problems during the Tory led review.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Rockets

[Rockets]

BBC News - Jeremy Corbyn to 'have a think' about London mayor bid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66416568

 

This could be a disaster for Sadiq and Keir if this was to happen.

[jazzer]

Could be a disaster for the entirety of London if that nut job ran for Mayor of London, suggest he looks top run for Mayor of Moscow, wouldn't last long before Putin got sick of him and arranged for his swift exit to Siberia. 

[malumbu]

Why is he a nut job?  He had some decent policies.  He wasn't electable and had too much baggage.  That doesn't make him a nut job.  And why is this relevant to CPZs?  Just another hobby horse.

[jazzer]

Suggest you ask i) ask Rockets who posted the link I commented on and ii) he got Labour their fourth consecutive loss and at that the biggest loss the Party had experienced. And this isn't North Korea yet, although those who want LTN's and CPZ's sure make it feel like that sometime. 

This is a democracy and I'll say whatever the damn I WANT to. 

[Rockets]

8 hours ago, malumbu said:

Why is he a nut job?  He had some decent policies.  He wasn't electable and had too much baggage.  That doesn't make him a nut job.  And why is this relevant to CPZs?  Just another hobby horse.

This is a thread on ULEZ and not CPZs and is relevant due to the political hot potato I referred to many posts ago. Clearly Jezzer wants back into the Labour party and is using the threat of running for Mayor as the lever and is jumping on the ULEZ band wagon.

He would have been an absolute disaster for this country and given his issues with controlling anti-semitism within his own party should never be allowed back in to it. 

 

 

[malumbu]

The only reference I got to Corbyn and the ULEZ, was about his brother who attended an anti-ULEZ rally.

Some light reading which will hopefully make you smile, beyond that I hope not worthy of further comment unless you want a separate thread on what is a far right group and what is a conspiracy theorist

https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/news-535pm-bbc-london-15-april-2023

 

[Rockets]

It's all getting a bit uncomfortable now...

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-ulez-expansion-charges-labour-sadiq-khan-jonathan-ashworth-b1100694.html

 

And meanwhile (and apologies for posting something from that rag) things you thought you'd never read.....(but does anyone on here identify as an urban middle class neo liberal leftie...;-))

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12404331/Extinction-Rebellion-founder-Roger-Hallam-slams-urban-middle-class-neo-liberal-Left-Sadiq-Khans-ULEZ-expansion-condemns-scheme-intrusive-regressive-lowest-paid-Londoners.html

 

 

 

[malumbu]

14 days and counting.  It's happening, get used to it.  And for heavens sake this is not East Dulwich, why on earth are you bothered about the outer boroughs? 

[mr.chicken]

The daily mail is an untrustworthy propaganda rag with a massive amount of slant and a small amount of accuracy. Just look at the incredibly silly list of buzzwords in the URL. I'm surprised they didn't manage to fit "woke" in there too, and maybe something about bathrooms.

[Rockets]

As I suggested previously It's causing significant political fallout - Labour front-benchers are turning on Khan and so, amazingly, is XR - not sure anyone had that down as something that was likely to happen. It seems, according to Hallam, that only the "urban middle class neo liberal left" like the idea of ULEZ or as we like to call them locally Clean Air Dulwich........;-) (sorry couldn't resist)....

 

[malumbu]

Rocks some facts which you chose to ignore.  40000 deaths a year due to poor air quality.  Major street level source of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter is road traffic, particular diesel cars.  Government failed to meet air quality standards and ordered by the supreme court in 2015 to sort air quality out ASAP.  Government introduces the concept of Clean Air Zones.  Johnson jumped the gun and announced the ULEZ before case went to Supreme Court.  So ULEZ/chargeable clean air zones are government policy.  Which has to be done as the courts told them to act.

So it doesn't matter who likes the or not. And the Extinction Rebellion bloke is just odd as he has described many of his members.

Facts, don't let the get in the way of your prejudices.  14 days to go.

[Rockets]

Malumbu, have I ever said anything that suggest I am ignoring any of those facts - this is just another example of your, increasingly desperate, attempts at distraction (with a healthy dose of name calling - not sure how anything in the recent threads suggest I am prejudiced). I am talking about the political fallout from the expansion decision and that political fallout won't abate in 14 days - it will probably get worse.

In line with that did anyone else notice in the Standard article the DoT returning the "they made us do it" serve from some about who was responsible for the outer borough expansion:

It comes as the Department for Transport confirmed that claims the Government ordered City Hall to expand the Ulez Londonwide are false.

An excerpt from a letter to the mayor, from then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in May 2020, was widely circulated on social media ahead of last month’s High Court ruling that allowed the Ulez expansion to proceed.

Many people wrongly interpreted the paragraph that required Mr Khan to “urgently bring forward proposals to widen the scope and levels” of road charges in London as a condition of the Government’s first bailout of Transport for London.

In fact, the letter was referring to the reintroduction of the C-charge – which had been switched off by the mayor at the start of the pandemic – and his proposed Ulez expansion from central London to the boundaries of the North and South Circular roads, which went ahead in October 2021.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66521469

 

The game of political tennis continues...

 

I didn't realise there were plans to introduce a toll to use the Blackwall Tunnel coming in to play.

[malumbu]

Air quality is a Defra responsibility.  But the powers are with local authorities.  Be honest, you want ULEZ, CPZs, LTNs all to fail and scores of labour councillors to quit.  It's a shame that the CLP and its leader haven't got any guts 

A simple  question Rocks.  Is it right to charge the most polluting vehicles to drive in urban areas.  A yes/no will suffice 

[Rockets]

I don't want them to fail but I think they will fail because they are ill-thought out, badly planned and, in many cases, nothing about climate change but everything about revenue generation. I don't want the councillors to quit I want them to do their job per the pledge they made when they took office and I want them to be accountable for their actions and to listen to everyone not just the active travel lobby groups and try to properly determine what the problem is before they embark on rushed implementations spending huge amounts of taxpayers money.

 

To answer your question you need to define most polluting - do you mean diesel cars, petrol cars, taxis, lorries, vans or buses? And do you mean most polluting in terms of NOx, PM10 or PM2.5? 

 

 

[mr.chicken]

14 hours ago, Rockets said:

To answer your question you need to define most polluting - do you mean diesel cars, petrol cars, taxis, lorries, vans or buses? And do you mean most polluting in terms of NOx, PM10 or PM2.5?

TL;DR: no.