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I don’t think you can draw that conclusion from the study.
No you can draw that conclusion from the commitment Sadiq Khan made to the Tory government in return for funding.
He didn't say to the government don't worry I will further reduce the nitrogen dioxide and ozone levels, even though they have already massively fallen, if you provide me with financial support to cover the 95% drop fares revenue during the pandemic.
He said to them don't worry I will expand ulez to give TfL a sustainable future, if you provide me with financial support to cover the 95% drop fares revenue during the pandemic.
ULEZ doesn’t actually affect that many vehicles, particularly so in central London, so initial impact will be limited
It's good to hear an ulez supporter admit that it doesn't make much difference.
I see no reason why owners of polluting vehicles shouldn’t subsidise TFL instead of taxpayers outside of London.
You mean owners of modern low emission vehicles (there is a reason why it isn't called LEZ) who can't afford to buy a new vehicle during a time when their incomes aren't keeping up with unprecedented increases in energy and food prices.
Shifting the burden of resolving a problem they didn't create onto the people least able to afford it might be what you would expect from a Tory politician but generally it is frowned when Labour politicians do it.
And taxpayers outside London benefit from their capital city having an effective transport system.
Taxpayers not subsidising spending which they don't directly benefit from themselves is a valid argument, if you are a right-wing Tory, and it can be used to claim that those who can afford private healthcare should not have to subside those who can't.
But when you don't view the world from a right-wing Tory perspective it becomes a less valid argument.
About a month ago, Neal Lawson, a member of Labour since the late 70s, got a letter from the party’s governance and legal unit, inviting him to defend himself over a two-year-old tweet. His apparent offence? He had praised an example of cooperation between the Lib Dems and the Green party, saying: “This is what grown-up politics looks like.” If this was deemed to be an incitement to vote for a party other than Labour, he was warned, he would be in breach of party rules and expelled.
Keir Starmer is casting his net further, now Compass displeases him.
It is scary to think that those responsible for this climate of fear, intimidation, and intolerance, will be in government in a few months time, as our saviours.
"And there was no one left to speak out for me"
Seem pretty clear the tories will be fighting the next election on a 'getting rid of the green crap' position. The big question is whether Starmer will follow them or stick to everything he's said to date on climate change and other environmental issues.
Still a load of fallout on the ULEZ / by-election stuff
You’ve just described most home care workers and community health care workers.
If they have to take their labour elsewhere it will have to be out of the caring professions.
Yes I have, they're essential to social cohesion and underpaid badly. They are, like the NHS front line staff, due a huge pay rise.
Still a load of fallout on the ULEZ / by-election stuff
Did you read the article that you linked?
I did and it is basically an anti-Labour Party rant by a former editorial writer for the Sun newspaper, who has previously done stints for both the Institute of Directors and the hard-right "Taxpayer's Alliance".
He is using Labour's failure to win Uxbridge to ridicule what he calls "a landmark Labour policy in London" and to suggest to his readers that Labour deputy Angela Rayner is "hard-left" and waiting to seize the opportunity should Labour be elected to government. Quote:
"What reason is there to believe that the pledge to find a balance between private and public sector will not be ditched the moment something turns against Keir, and the hard-left Rayner wing of the party find an opportunity?"
It is exactly the sort of scaremongering the Sun use in their editorials.
Of course Tories like Andy Silvester will exploit crisises within the Labour Party, it is seriously advantageous to them. London has the greatest concentration of Labour voters in the UK. The last time I checked Labour had a 40% lead over the Tories in London - double the national average.
And yet despite that it is conceivable that Sadiq Khan could lose the London mayoral election next year, he really didn't do that well in the first round of the last mayoral election.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/sun-pr-chief-takes-up-deputy-editor-role-at-city-am/
"The paper has been a force for good for 50 years and it’ll carry on being exactly that for many years to come."
That's not quite how I would describe the Sun newspaper.
A 3% reduction in NO2 is good, more needs to be done but it is a good start.
Another thing that should be done is moving schools away from high concentrations of traffic. (or traffic away from schools). I read a study that showed that schools near busy roundabouts/ juctions etc have significantly more kids with asthma.
I have just had a visit from a friend from south london. a socialist who set up a community enterprise. she will not vote labour because of Starmers stance on Europe and the NHS despite allways voting labour in the past
This is the reality. Starmer in his hopeless pursuit of tory votes is losing his core vote and its going to cost him a majority
I think the reality is that you have a friend in South London.
Two in fact. You can count me as a friend TJ 😉
LOLz!
One day I will make it down to london
Starmer in his hopeless pursuit of tory votes is losing his core vote and its going to cost him a majority
I doubt it will cost him a majority, in fact so assured is a labour majority that I think it is a good idea for voting green. If enough people do so hopefully that message will get through and he won't so readily backslide on the environment.
Unfortunately even if he remains committed to environmental policies, I foresee them taking a neoliberal approach to implementation, ie paying large corporations to deliver poor value. Maybe if the greens can start gaining seats, that might change.
Maybe if the greens can start gaining seats, that might change.
That would be great. I fear that one may well be the high water mark, wrong though that is.
Starmer in his hopeless pursuit of tory votes is losing his core vote and its going to cost him a majority
I expect there are a lot more centre right votes to hoover up than far left votes to lose.
The thing is there are some LW policies that could be popular with the voters he's trying to entice.
Has he got the moral courage to go for it?
Yeah he loses the left votes to nowhere and gains the right votes from the Tories.
He may gain some tory votes but would he gain sufficient to make up for the left not turning out to vote?
Depends on in which seats voters are lost and gained. Proportion of the popular vote is worth nothing if the marginal seats go Tory again. And this absolutely can happen once the campaign proper gets underway. Anyway, if we allow dissatisfaction with Starmer to result in yet another 5 years of Tory rule, that’s as much about the voters as it is the politicians. If the UK public can’t play the political system in front of them this time, you can forget about positive change of any kind longer term. Voting to get Tories out under FPTP is step one no matter what the change you are personally seeking is. Let them form another government on their current trajectory, and you can forget it.
Yeah he loses the left votes to nowhere and gains the right votes from the Tories.
He loses the left votes to SNP, Greens. Lib dems - this pattern is obvious in recent polling and by elections
And its not far left votes he is losing - its anyone left of cntre
I cannot vote for a party that is full on brexiteer, pro NHS privitisation and anti democratic.
Anyway, if we allow dissatisfaction with Starmer to result in yet another 5 years of Tory rule, that’s as much about the voters as it is the politicians
Nope. Its about the politicians.
If he wants to offer tories but slightly more competent then he shouldnt be surprised if people dont vote for him.
He isnt offering to change the trajectory but just make it slightly more competent and less corrupt.
I doubt it will cost him a majority, in fact so assured is a labour majority that I think it is a good idea for voting green.
I am really torn by this. All my instincts tell me to back the Green Party - a social democratic party currently devoid of any self-serving careerists. The greater the Green vote the greater the message it sends with regards to a social democratic alternative and the global climate change crisis. That would normally be my default position.
The problem for me is that we appear to be in a unique position which (notwithstanding Uxbridge) suggests that support for the Tories has collapsed to a historical low.
If this does indeed happen then the next general election is no longer just about defeating the Tories for me but inflicting a wound on them that will take years to recover from, if they ever do. The Tory Party is 200 years old, surely it must be approaching its sell by date?
Call me a dreamer but if Labour secure a 200 seat majority, only 21 more than in 1997, the Tories will be devastated. They will be massively weakened, they will without doubt lose some of their big guns. It will take years from them to recover and I can see further splits between the various factions as occured post 97 with ukip. Long term the conservative vote could be permanently split with a need for them to rely on electoral alliances, which is sort of what happened last general election.
And the effect on Labour would be massive too. With the Tories no longer a serious electoral threat, for a fair few years at least, Starmer will struggle to maintain unity and tight discipline among his hundreds of MPs, and the wider Labour movement.
"We must sacrifice our principals because otherwise the Tories will win the next general election" won't be a valid argument if Labour has a 200 seat majority, rather than a 20 seat majority.
The pressure on Starmer to deliver on issues such as social justice, environment, and proportional representation, will be far greater if Labour has a huge majority rather than a tiny one.
I fully expect Starmer to be a crap Prime Minister, he has after all been a crap leader of the opposition, albeit an extraordinarily lucky one. But that will be far less of a problem if Labour has a huge majority - Labour will be able to replace him and change direction without an early election, something much more likely with a small majority.
The jury is still out for me. If as we approach the general election it looks as if it will much tighter, with possibly a hung parliament, and Labour has nothing to offer which is significantly different to the Tories, then voting Green might be useful imo. It would send Labour a clear message (obviously if enough people to it) that they need to get their finger out, change leader, and change direction.
The Tory Party is 200 years old, surely it must be approaching its sell by date?
And replace with what? I am not a fan of seeing the tories destroyed for the same reason I am not a fan of Starmer dragging Labour rightwards. We need strong parties across the board to effectively represent the interests of the different groups living here.
Starmer will struggle to maintain unity and tight discipline among his hundreds of MPs, and the wider Labour movement.
I think this is a tad hopeful. If the candidates were being chosen locally then yes you would get a split but thats precisely why Starmer and co are so heavily controlling it. These are people being chosen for purity to the cause and to avoid any troubling left wing views.
I'm very concerned that Green issues will become the next culture war job and the Tories will go full - 'waste of taxpayers money net zero.' Starmer will have to join in this battle.
It's the exact opposite of what we need but it will be a battle-ground and another race to the bottom.
Everything, absolutely everything in politics is now a race to the bottom.
No one dare stand up and say 'right were going to rally the resources and funds to do this stuff right.' Which is exactly what's needed instead of all this tactical 4d chess flip flop hopelessness.
Totally fed up with the arguments that Starmer is tip-toeing around not upsetting Labours chances. All that's happing is he's being driven by the Sunak and the Tories party line instead of defining his own narrative.
Basically he has been weak but lucky which just serves the Tory voters with more Tory ideals.
It would send Labour a clear message (obviously if enough people to it) that they need to get their finger out, change leader, and change direction.
I suppose the main benefit of Starmer's lurch to the far right is that when he fails, the usual suspects can't trot out the usual 'we were too leftwing' nonsense.
And replace with what?
With competing right-wing parties, which is what generally happens throughout Europe.
I think this is a tad hopeful.
As you point out yourself it is something which deeply concerns Starmer. The greater the amount of MPs the harder it will be for him.
the usual suspects can’t trot out the usual ‘we were too leftwing’ nonsense.
Hate to break it to you but they will trot out its the fault of the left of the party for undermining the glorious leader and so the only solution will be to completely purge the unbelievers and move further right.
Hate to break it to you but they will trot out its the fault of the left of the party for undermining the glorious leader and so the only solution will be to completely purge the unbelievers and move further right.
Painful and lazy that they will.
Is there a tipping point where Centrist's wake up and say - hey you've gone bit too for to the right now? (Given all the anger they put on a right-wing government.)
Hate to break it to you but they will trot out its the fault of the left of the party for undermining the glorious leader
The left are keeping very quiet at the moment. They're doing everything that the right wing didn't do in the last two elections.
The left are simply there to point out the obvious but no one is really listening. We are not part of the argument I feel.
It's either let's do Neoliberalism better or let's take the scraps of it .
I wasn't aware of this little gem from Starmer:
"We are doing something wrong if policies from the Labour Party end up on every Tory leaflet."
Obviously I agree with Starmer that Sadiq Khan should think again about ulez expansion during an unprecedented cost of living crises, but no doubt for different reasons.
I struggle to believe that a man who is apparently not overly concerned about tackling child poverty (we can't afford to deal with it at the present time) would be concerned about the financial consequences on struggling low income individuals and households of ulez expansion. I suspect his only genuine concern is for "votes".
However that above quote really takes the biscuit. It implies that there is something wrong if Labour has policies which the Tories repeatedly attack in their literature.
Presumably he believes that Labour should only have policies which the Tories won't attack.
I suppose that just adopting Tory policies should solve that little problem!
ffs
You mean owners of modern low emission vehicles (there is a reason why it isn’t called LEZ) who can’t afford to buy a new vehicle during a time when their incomes aren’t keeping up with unprecedented increases in energy and food prices.
As has been pointed out repeatedly the people being poisoned by vehicle emissions are the ones who don’t own cars.
You’ve quoted that study but have clearly not read it nor understood the finer points it presents.
For example, the taxi driver lobby is immensely powerful. That’s why there’s a specific exemption for black cabs, and represents a decent chunk of non-compliant vehicles. So there’s the first explanation for no giant change - the pollution is still there.
I’m not sure cost is necessarily an issue given that you repeatedly reference the extremely poor. Are they likely to be driving at all given that insurance for younger drivers in London is regularly over £1500/year? Given that Zip Car vehicles are all exempt it’s a bit of a straw man argument.
There are undoubtedly flaws in the scheme (especially around Heathrow where the airport has invested exactly nothing in public charging or environmentally friendly transport (busses are all diesel, it’s illegal to ride a bike to work in Terminal 2/3), and shift workers pay twice per work day).
That does not mean it shouldn’t be implemented, it means Heathrow Airline Ltd should be given a big and expensive kick up the arse to fix their bit of it.
I don’t buy the argument that if you’re poor you’re allowed to own a polluting vehicle.
Yeah I read and understood the Imperial College link, and no I have not 'repeatedly referenced the extremely poor'. If you are that poor you are not going to be able to afford any car never mind a 8 year old diesel car/van.
As has been pointed out repeatedly the people being poisoned by vehicle emissions are the ones who don’t own cars.
How does that work, if you own a car you don't breathe nitrogen dioxide?
Edit: Btw did you read the Imperial College link? I copied and pasted the important bit, including this:
"an average reduction of less than 3 per cent for nitrogen dioxide"
How does that work, if you own a car you don’t breathe nitrogen dioxide?
Poorer areas have poorer air quality and lower rates of car ownership.
They are already covered by ulez, why expand it to Kingston which has the best air quality in London?
Apart to make money.
ransos
Free MemberIt’s policy where the pollution is worst.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1683874223910006788?t=iLsGk_R3RTc87gdW3UYtzA&s=19</p>
Just dreadful retreads of empty platitudes.
It means nothing. There is no content. But I will ask why is Starmer doing everything in reality to oppose what he's saying in the film? It's Johnson speak.
Meanwhile Sunak has followed in the path of Labour's previously dumb campaign.
They are already covered by ulez, why expand it to Kingston which has the best air quality in London?
because air moves around? Because we need massive reduction in emmisions?
Just dreadful retreads of empty platitudes.
It means nothing. There is no content.
Thanks for posting. The short clip is Starmer saying that class shouldn't be destiny, which it increasingly has become, citing himself as an example. Relevant because there are people on this thread who've smeared him for being posh because he has a knighthood. He's many things but not posh.
Whether social mobility actually does increase under a labour government can be evaluated empirically.
<p style="text-align: left;">Whether social mobility actually does increase under a labour government can be evaluated empirically.</p>
I might be jumping the gun but toeing the current economic model does the exact opposite of what's he's suggesting.
In other words it appears like luck to me because there is no mechanism on offer to do what he says.
Because we need massive reduction in emmisions?
So why not target where emission are actually increasing instead of where they are in fact decreasing?
Apart from the fact that there is no money in it. Sadiq Khan hasn't yet figured out how he can charge £12.50 per day per wood burner from affluent middle-class electric car drivers.
In fact it has only been three days since Sadiq Khan stopped endorsing the use of wood burners, despite knowing since last year that how dangerous wood burners are to public health:
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has withdrawn his endorsement of wood-burning stoves promoted as “environmentally friendly” after a surge in sales of the appliances, which contribute to harmful air pollution.
That ^^ was three days ago. After the Uxbridge by-election. So no urgency there, despite knowing since last year:
"Ecodesign” wood burning stoves produce 450 times more toxic air pollution than gas central heating, according to new data published in a report from Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England.
Wood burning in homes produces more small particle pollution than all road traffic in the UK
So trendy middle-class unnecessary self-indulgent wood burners (95% of homes with wood burners have other forms of heating) cause more deadly small particle pollution than all the vehicles on the road, and yet:
A report in November found that no local authority with a smoke control area had issued a fine for smoke pollution in the past five years, despite more than 8,000 complaints having been lodged.
You will get fined for driving an 8 years old diesel that passes the MOT emission test, and produces a fraction of the pollution that a wood burner does, but don't worry about cosying up in front of that lovely wood fire.
Sadiq Khan is just another hypocritical lying right-wing politician who thinks that ordinary working people should pay for crises.that they didn't create.
So why not target where emission are actually increasing
Errmmm - they are right across the world 🙂
Not in London, pollution from road traffic has been decreasing for years.
Wood burners on the other hand.....
If Londoners want to pollute their local air with fine particles that's fine by me. However the CO2 and methane emitted by their central heating is green housing them, me and everyone else on the planet and it would be nice if they stopped. Same for the 8-year-old diesel whic is in the middle of dieselgate cars and lousy in terms of NOX, fine particles and CO2
Edit: a bit of fact checking based on reductions in the reduction in autombile pollution in France during confinement says 2300 lives were saved by the reduction in fine particles and 1200 due to the reduction in NO2 (which is nearly all automobile). IN France at least the diesel car is still the elephant in the room and wood burning a seasonal issue.
They are already covered by ulez, why expand it to Kingston which has the best air quality in London?
Apart to make money.
The whole of Kingston is an AQMA. Why do you think that is?
Why do you think that is?
Well as the archetypal middle-class leafy borough I am guessing that Kingston upon Thames probably has above average number of wood burners per household, and below average number of over 8 year old diesel cars and vans per household.
So probably something to do with this:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/09/eco-wood-stoves-emit-pollution-hgv-ecodesign
'Eco’ wood stoves emit 750 times more pollution than an HGV.
And wood burning in homes produces more small particle pollution than all road traffic in the UK.
What has that got to do with Keir Starmer, Sadiq Khan, and ulez expansion during a cost of living crisis?
Continuing the off topic discussion about the ULEZ, Guardian reporting the High Court challenge has failed. I thought judicial reviews could only look at the process, not the outcome, so this isn't a surprise. This means it'll be extended on 29 Aug as planned, and (as above) a non-issue come the election.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, we continue to do things differently.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-london-66328175
As predicted, ULEZ expansion is entirely legal and can proceed as planned leaving 5 Tory councils who raised the challenge even more put of pocket and looking even more stupid and now Uxbridge is stuck with both a Tory MP and an expanded ULEz zone and Labour putting an anti-ULEZ candidate into the by-election is also looking spectacularly stupid.
Now both sides are trying to argue the toss between 500 votes, Tory claiming they won on the basis of being anti-ULEZ, Labour claiming they lost for the same reason (or maybe "not anti enough").
What an absolute shitshow.
Thank God Sadiq Khan is reasonably sensible. Can he be PM? It worked for the previous London Mayor.*
* Well it worked for HIM, not the rest of the country... 🤔