No prizes for guessing what the Mail thinks about that. “'Will YOU pay for my new car, Sadiq?': Fury as London Mayor confirms ULEZ expansion comes into force on August 29 next year - forcing 200,000 drivers of older vehicles to pay £12.50-a-DAY just to 'drive five minutes down road’”. Do go on.
“Motorists have been expressing their outrage at the prospect of having to pay thousands more a year to commute into London, as Sadiq Khan confirmed today that the ultra-low emissions zone will be expanded to cover all of Greater London from next August. Hundreds of thousands more drivers face a daily fee of £12.50 for using London's roads after the mayor announced he will expand the zone to boost air quality. It will now stretch more than 30 miles from Uxbridge to Upminster”. Well past Barking, then.
The Mail asserts “The ULEZ expansion is only the latest action in Sadiq Khan’s war on motorists”, but admits he has introduced “measures such as a £110million scrappage scheme to support Londoners on lower incomes, disabled people, small businesses and charities to scrap or retrofit their non-compliant vehicles. There will also be a major expansion of bus services”.
And there will no doubt be more of the why-oh-why brigade moaning “what about knife crime”? Look Over There. But the Mayor has one unexpected ally: an editorial in today’s edition of the Murdoch Times. “Big Smoke-Free … Sadiq Khan is right to extend the capital’s ultra-low emission zone”.
You read that right. “Dirty air is a killer. Every year an estimated 40,000 lives are cut short in Britain as a result of air pollution, costing the economy £20 billion in healthcare and sick days”. Is this a purely altruistic conclusion? “That is why The Times launched its Clean Air For All campaign”.
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
Any names? “Bromley, Barnet and Croydon”. Ah, the London Borough of Bromley - the one that scuppered Ken Livingstone’s “Fares Fair” policy in the early 1980s. As with all those Brexiteers frothing about the possibility of the UK rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union, though, there is no excuse for the Tories playing yah-boo politics just to attack Mayor Khan.
And those wanting to Look Over There at knife crime - London had 133 homicides recorded in 2021, and just under 100 were attributable to “Knife or sharp implement”. That’s not to say there should be no action on knife crime, just to point out that the numbers for premature pollution deaths are larger.
The 70mph speed limit was unpopular. Mandatory wearing of seat belts was yet more unpopular. Drink-drive laws were, too, especially when the hated breathalyser was ushered in when the minister was a woman (Barbara Castle, for those not of A Certain Age). Banning use of hand-held mobile phones is highly unpopular. Parking restrictions are also unpopular.
But, guess what? Being able to taste the pollution isn’t exactly popular, either. Nor is the prospect of lives cut short by respiratory disease. That is all.
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2 comments:
The complainers could always do what I did when ULEZ v1.0 bit my Fast-Appreciating Future Classic, viz. switch to using a bicycle for mundane things like shopping. Though it does seem mildly absurd to penalise an elderly but frugal econobox while allowing free rein to the under-gardener's Lamborghini.
Last time the only beneficiaries of the scrappage scheme were the motor manufacturers of Korea and their dealerships. It is a stupid idea that penalizes the poor who cannot afford to replace their old cars, often diesel because we were lied to about their 'green' credentials and bought them.
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