Who else is going to highlight this deranged woman’s incoherent nonsense?

On cycling? Pretty much everyone, including Cycling Weekly. On crime? Probably not Cycling Weekly.

Cycling Weekly highlighting Susan Halls well-known anti-cycling views doesn’t mean that the Tories aren’t treating crime as their main campaign issue.

As the Tory campaign advert portraying Londoners as living in a black and white 1950s dystopian Hollywood world revealed yesterday. Despite the fact that the current Tory government had direct responsibility in appointing the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

I don’t doubt that Susan Hall will not win the Mayoral election but I do find this quite interesting:

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/susan-hall-sadiq-khan-london-mayoral-election-labour-conservatives-ulez-b1147814.html

Yes, Khan enjoys a 24-point advantage. But voters are also largely dissatisfied with his performance on a range of issues. A majority of Londoners say the mayor has done badly or very badly on dealing with knife crime and gangs, tackling homelessness and improving the availability of housing.

It is noteworthy that, despite their falling out over Ulez, the mayor launched his campaign with Keir Starmer. Recall that the Labour leader somewhat threw the mayor under the bus following the Uxbridge defeat, when he said the party was “doing something very wrong” if the policies it put forward “end up on each and every Tory leaflet.”

Why the rapprochement? Khan is wise to the fact that he isn’t an especially popular incumbent, and so it makes sense for him to be associated with a buoyant national Labour Party. Conversely, Hall is staying about as far away from Rishi Sunak and the national Tories as possible to the extent that, as Londoner’s Diary points out, the colour scheme on her leaflets is a deeply un-Tory orange.

42 percent of  London households don’t have access to a car

Highlighting that seems a bit dim as it also points to most people being happy to rely on a functioning public transport infrastructure, which Khan is responsible for, isn’t he?

Thats something very few parts of the country have got

They’ve not really thought this through, have they?

??? If 42% don’t have access to a car, that means most (58%) households have access to one or more cars.

??? If 42% don’t have access to a car, that means most (58%) households have access to one or more cars.

That’s about right.
There are striking discrepancies too – inner London (already covered by ULEZ & congestion charging) has fairly low car ownership so most people aren’t overly affected by the charges and it has a very good and very dense P/T network.

Outer London – especially affluent suburbs like Wimbledon, Beckenham etc – have very high levels of car ownership and less good P/T so they’re (proportionally) more affected by the recent ULEZ expansion and they’re also quite likely to make a noise about it. Even if that noise is highlighting how it now costs them £18,000 a year to take Jemima to ballet class half a mile away cos they’re just outside the zone but the class is inside.

Normal people would think “what is wrong with walking half a mile?!” but that connection rarely seems to be made in active travel circles….

Normal people would think “what is wrong with walking half a mile?!” but that connection rarely seems to be made in active travel circles….

I don’t quite get your meaning here, but a long way from London and without any form of ULEZ, people seem pretty happy to drive their kids ⅔ mile to school, which when you include finding a space takes about the same time as walking. Bigger problem in AT circles is that quite sensible arguments get shouted down or misinterpreted by militant drivists.

??? If 42% don’t have access to a car, that means most (58%) households have access to one or more cars.

But then not all of them will use them for commuting, anecdotally based on friends in London most only seem to use them for the weekly shop and weekends.

And of those that do, few will be affected by ULEZ.

If you you lived in London and they canceled UILEZ now very few people would go out and buy a worse car, I just can’t see it being a vote winner outside a noisy minority.

And statistically you’re more likely to be a victim of crime outside of London than in London based on the National Crime Survey, so even that is perception issue, not a reality for most people.

Crime in England and Wales – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

Outer London – especially affluent suburbs like Wimbledon, Beckenham etc – have very high levels of car ownership and less good P/T

Public transport in Wimbledon is excellent (tube, trams, overground and buses) you could quite easily manage without a car here but because people have cash and Jemimas they won’t. I didn’t notice any particular noise about Ulez around here tbh.

One bit of good (and very funny) news about the mayoral elections though:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/laurence-fox-london-mayoral-election-reform-vote-candidates-b1148208.html

I particularly liked that he “would appeal against the decision, which he claimed was the result of “political corruption”. It is understood that there is no avenue for appealing against the decision by London Elects.” . What a dickwad.

Wait a second… his application was rejected because he didn’t get enough signatures? Or rather, that some were ruled invalid and rejected without appeal?

Isn’t that exactly the same reason the anti-war candidates in the Russian election were rejected?

Makes you think.

Now where did I put my tinfoil hat?

kilo
Full Member
I particularly liked that he “would appeal against the decision, which he claimed was the result of “political corruption”. It is understood that there is no avenue for appealing against the decision by London Elects.” . What a dickwad.

He’s basically showing the damage Trump has done to politics in this country too. Actually most democracies in general.

I’ve no doubt if we were ever subjected to the hell that is a Reform Party government they would absolutely try to subvert the institutions that form the back bone of our democracy… All whilst using the mantra that they are actually defending democracy. The Tories and RW press have already laid the ground for this…

It’s not an impossible scenario and  that chills the blood.

TINAS – yeah, sure. I’m responding to Binners saying the fact that 42% of households not having access to a car shows that “most people [are] happy to rely on a functioning public transport infrastructure”. That’s not true, first because most households do have access to one or more cars, and second because there’s no way of parsing how many in that minority that don’t have access to a car don’t want one or simply can’t afford one etc etc.

Can I ask a genuine but possibly really naive question?

Was that Tory party add (The one describing Sadiq Khan as having ceased power) real?

Sorry my youngest son is really into politics. I try and monitor what he is looking at and help him to look at things critically and think for himself.  At times it has put me in the interesting position of defending Boris but this time I genuinely can’t tell whether it is a Mickey take or the real thing (It is completely hatstand).

Having looked at the various political websites its easy to understand why people believe that London is lawless.  Like here people talk to people they perceive to have the same outlook.  Unfortunately with anything vaguely American there is a perception that knife crime in London is out of control (it’s less than national average for the USA before you add in gun crime).  This gets fed back to British forums and becomes true (The BBC can’t possibly be telling the truth).

Luckily my son believes that anyone in American politics left of Bennie Sanders is unredeemable so I don’t have to engage too much on that side.

Was that Tory party add (The one describing Sadiq Khan as having ceased power) real?

I don’t have the most reliable memory im afraid but I’m sure it was on the official Conservative X account and no doubt on other SM too. See if anyone can confirm my memory though.

@Richie_B Maybe gloss over Sanders’ views on gun control?

1) Richie – check with your lad which video he is talking about. There may be fake or parody ones in addition to the original Tory video and then the edited Tory video. Take him to the official campaign site (spit) so he can learn about primary sources and then take him to sensible, reliable news reporting so he can learn about trustworthy sources (Times, Guardian, FT, BBC – reliable doesn’t necessarily mean non-partisan).

2) who is this stuff aimed at? Not really London voters – but British voters at all?

We all think that there are evil geniuses and big money behind political campaigning but half of this stuff is cranked out by 22 year old interns relying on Chat GPT. I bet CCO isn’t wasting much money or time on the unwinnable London Mayoral campaign so it doesn’t surprise me that stuff gets shoved out the door that is shit.

3) the idea that “London has fallen” because everyone stays in because Khan has banned driving is conspiracy theory nuts. Look for yourself (NB it’s been pissing with rain all morning)

https://londonwebcam.co.uk/

The one on the campaign website was apparently taken down pretty quickly.  The Guardian one is supposed to be the edited one.  The one I saw was pretty much the same but slightly nastier so I’m guessing it was real.

I don’t have many illusions about who produces adds like that but the idea that stuff like that is put out without a grown up watching it and thinking it was a good idea is worrying which ever way you look at it.

For an Idealist so far my son is reasonably good at sorting idealists from self serving ****s (ASD can have it’s advantages).  He is probably better than me at distinguishing the fakes from the real thing.  When I saw it I couldn’t believe it was real because of the 1950’s Mccarthyite vibe.  Even though I’ve seen the Guardian version I still wondered whether they had fallen for something because no one else, including the BBC, have mentioned it.

Meh, Tories gonna Tory innit.

It’s the Uxbridge By-election’s main legacy now the “war motorists” narrative is apparently their main propaganda tool within the M25.

They barely held onto a seat and the only point of differentiation was the Tory stance on ULEZ. So vote Tory then if you think the greater London area needs more unfettered access for motor vehicles…

It’s just Culture War noise, filter them out and carry on with your day.

the only point of differentiation was the Tory stance on ULEZ.

IIRC the Lab candidate in Uxbridge wasn’t all that keen on ULEZ either.

Bleeding Starmer wasn’t that enthusiastic about it, despite it being a policy of the single most popular Labour official in the country!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67020197

the polls could definitely be wrong but its not looking good for oyster card Suzie

London Mayoral Voting Intention:

Khan (LAB): 44% (+1)
Hall (CON): 26% (-5)
Garbett (GRN): 7% (-2)
Blackie (LDM): 7% (-9)
Cox (RFM): 5% (+4)
Rose (LRP): 3% (New)
Campbell (IND): 3% (New)

Via @Survation, 21-26 Mar.
Changes w/ Jul 2023.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) April 2, 2024