ULEZ - Toff Caught Trying It On

Some people are well-known merely because they are, well, well-known. It’s the same idea as former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan being famous because he not only knows famous people, but also has become very well-known. So he too becomes famous, or at least infamous. And following him along the path of shameless self-promotion has come Georgia Toffolo.

Georgia Toffolo

Who she? Well, Ms Toffolo came to the attention of some TV watchers via her appearances on a programme called Made in Chelsea (Yah AK? AK Yah!). She then progressed to I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which she won. Now, she promotes Herself Personally Now via a variety of social media and mainstream media channels, plugging clothes, exercise and so on.

One of these strands is titled Trying It On With Toff. Which she has done with her political affiliation (her Wikipedia entry tells us “Toffolo has been a member of the Conservative Party since she was in secondary school. Toffolo has stated with regard to her political views, ‘I believe that the traditions of our country should be upheld and I'm a real advocate of business. I can't comprehend why someone my age would support the Labour Party’”).

Being a Tory, she seems unable to pass up any opportunity to dump on London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan, because he, as any fule kno, is one of those Rotten Lefties™. And her party has not managed to find a credible candidate to challenge him in the next Mayoral election, which happens next year.

So it was that she approvingly promoted a Mail Online hit piece without doing such troublesome things as thinking it through first. “Sadiq Khan won't have to pay the ULEZ charge: London mayor's taxpayer-funded luxury 2020 Range Rover is exempt from the £12.50-a-day fee!” What she did not think through was why that vehicle might be exempt from the ULEZ charge.

Why? Because it is ULEZ compliant. As are more than 90% of cars across the soon to be expanded ULEZ area. While the Tory high command flails around desperately, suggesting that everybody in ULEZ land will have to pay the change, aided and abetted by their cheerleaders in our free and fearless press, few of their supporters seem to realise that they are being lied to.

Georgia who?

And so it came to pass that, after the first few replies to Ms Toffolo’s advert for the Dacre Doggies, most of those replying passed severely adverse comment on her inability to separate political tribalism and press propaganda from reality. “What's surprising about this? Anyone's 2020 car is exempt” was one response. And that was, more or less, where the subtle stuff ended.

“Yes, because it’s ULEZ compliant like 9 out of 10 cars in London. It’s not difficult to grasp with a basic level of comprehension of the English language” was the less subtle version. “That’s rather the point. For modern cars, you don’t pay. You are a thinker, I see” was another. It got worse.

Like “As is pretty much every petrol vehicle made since about 2005. Unless we've suddenly forced the mayor of a global city to chug about in his mum's old MG Maestro, he should be alright. You're absolutely hopeless at this!” And what about Herself? “Why are you surprised that the Mayor of London uses a ULEZ compliant car? He’d be pretty silly to use something that isn’t wouldn’t he? What do you drive Toff?” I mean, she’s a Tory. She must drive something.

Another highly relevant angle was mentioned by Zoe Kennedy: “Sadiq Khan is in this vehicle because he needs the same level of security as the King, because of articles like this whipping up hate against him”. Khan used to bat around South London in a very ordinary VW Golf. No longer possible. Not that the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker care about that.

Nor does the pro-Tory propaganda mention this point: “The ULEZ was BROUGHT in by [Tory] Boris Johnson & its expansion was REQUIRED by the Tory Govt as a condition of receiving funds to offset loss of income on London Transport because of covid”. Not for nothing did an exasperated Natalie Rowe tell “You are really beyond thick”. Ms Toffolo is missing something.

Like getting clued up on the press. And its on-off relationship with reality.

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