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Rishi Sunak Should Overrule Local Councils’ Attacks on Motorists, Including Unwanted 15-Minute Cities

by Toby Young
19 February 2023 9:00 AM

Ross Clark has written a great piece for the Telegraph urging the Prime Minister to over-rule the crackpot schemes of local politicians to impose more taxes on motorists, such as Sadiq Khan’s planned extension of London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone. He thinks it would be popular and might even revive the Conservative’s flagging fortunes.

Four London boroughs, as well as Surrey County Council, have launched a judicial review of the Ulez extension, alleging that Khan deliberately targeted his consultation at younger, non-motorists in an effort to swing the results in his favour – and then ignored evidence that two thirds of respondents were against the scheme. But why should it be left to borough councils to fight it out with Khan? The proliferation of low-emission zones, congestion charges and “15-minute cities” demands that the Government step in and formulate a national policy on what councils can charge for and how they can charge for it.

I wouldn’t object if the Government replaced fuel duty and road tax with a national road pricing scheme, which charged us all a simple, easy-to-understand tariff according to where we had driven – and then billed us in a civilised manner. As electric cars start to eat into income from fuel duty, such a system is probably inevitable.

But what we have is a bunch of councils acting as highwaymen, instigating a patchwork of aggressively enforced charging schemes. London, Bristol and Birmingham all now have low-emission zones, London with a congestion charge on top. Oxford and Canterbury are developing bizarre schemes where you can drive in and out but get hammered if you cross from one mysterious zone to another. Then there are tolls for the Dartford and Mersey bridges. We are supposed to know where these schemes are, what their rules are and how to pay them – even when we are visiting an unfamiliar part of the country. Then we are given no more than 48 hours to pay – or else a fine arrives in the post. It is not safe to drive anywhere in Britain without an encyclopedic knowledge of local government road-charging schemes.

What an excellent idea. Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: There was a protest in Oxford yesterday against the local council’s plan to create 15-minute neighbourhoods that attracted a lively counter-protest, with black-clad demonstrators carrying signs saying, ‘No to racism, no to fascism’ and ‘Don’t let the fascists divide us’.

Stop Press 2: The traffic-calming measures in Canterbury, whereby the city is going to be divided into seven different zones with restricted travel by car between them, is actually the brainchild of a the city council’s Conservative leader Ben Fitter-Harding, with the Labour and Lib Dem councillors opposing them. One Conservative councillor, who dismissed the plan as a “utopian dream”, says he hasn’t met a single resident who’s in favour of it and fears a wipe-out at the next election if Mr. Fitter-Harding presses ahead. The Telegraph has more.

Tags: 15-Minute CitiesLTNsSadiq KhanUlez Expansion SchemeWar on Motorists

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46 Comments
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Liewe
Liewe
4 years ago

The article shows the futility of interventions in the spread of flu-like illness. A far bigger worry for transplant/immune-compromised patients is the resistant bacteria being created through chronic use of unregulated hand sanitizers.

14
0
steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago
Reply to  Liewe

my medic researcher wife is very worried about this. wont use the hand sanitisers or let the kids. says handwashing alone is good enough

7
0
frankfrankly
frankfrankly
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

Good old soap! (Who’d ‘ve thunk it?)

4
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

Agree, I haven’t use the rubbish for months
Hand sanitizer, that is.

Last edited 4 years ago by Fingerache Philip
2
0
Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
4 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

Indeed, its not exactly new or novel is it?
They knew full well before they started fire hosing sanitiser about what would happen, this article is from 2018:
“In the early 2000s, hospitals across Australia began installing more hand-sanitizer dispensers in their rooms and hallways for staff, visitors and patients to use. Research showed these alcohol-based disinfectants helped battle staph infections in patients and certain kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. And rates of these infections went down.

But other infections didn’t drop when people started using the sanitizer stations. In fact, certain infections went up.

In particular, enterococcal infections — caused by bacteria that affect the digestive tract, bladder, heart and other parts of the body — started increasing.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/08/02/635017716/some-bacteria-are-becoming-more-tolerant-of-hand-sanitizers-study-finds?t=1611846494692&t=1612447906319

Last edited 4 years ago by Nessimmersion
3
0
toby lewis
toby lewis
4 years ago

The link “fro elsewhere” to the ons site is giving a 404 error.

1
0
GCarty80
GCarty80
4 years ago
Reply to  toby lewis

Looks like the URL was incomplete.

0
0
BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
4 years ago

And excellent piece. Links a lot of threads of information on lockdowns and their effects together.

It makes a very strong case for no more lockdowns and why on earth vaccine passports have anything to do with solving the issues outlined here I have no idea. Unless it was never about a virus

6
-1
steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago

“infections acquired in hospitals and care homes, when added together, account for a substantial majority of COVID-19 deaths”

NHS and PHE are really not fit for purpose

Lockdown just slows the gaining of immunity by the wider community that would then shield the more vulnerable. Imperial modelling suggests that lockdown causes more deaths than non-lockdown from covid – let alone the lockdown deaths

6
0
Bloodyhell
Bloodyhell
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

Add in schools and universities and you have about 100%. Hospitality has been hung out to dry.

2
0
peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

Its been the case over recent years that unless their is a dire need, the last place to go if you want to stay healthy is a hospital. The covid numbers just show how this is even more true for respiratory illnesses.
This is not about a virus, never has been. Its about changing society to allow the resource constrained capitalism to take place under a biosecure fascist totalitarian regime. Many anglosphere countries are well on their way, but there are issues about splits in the US and Europe.

4
0
Steven F
Steven F
4 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

Re. Your second paragraph and the NWO. There’s a good piece on this in yesterdays Off-Guardian:
The New Normal (Phase 2)
https://off-guardian.org/2021/03/09/73943/

0
0
Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
4 years ago

Underlying the fact that Covid is a nosocomial infection.
As highlighted on here and by Yeadon et al months ago.
The longer this farce progresses, the more right the Great Barrington Declaration’s proposals appear.

3
0
Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
4 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Worth noting that the only hospitals to get their Nosocomial infection rate down to statistical zero were those in Singapore last year, which proceeded on the assumption that Covid is primarily contact transferred through oro-foecal contamination, same as polio or Norovirus.
They went absolutely rabid on proper soap n water handwashing.
It worked – go figure as the USians say.
https://market-ticker.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=239747

Last edited 4 years ago by Nessimmersion
0
0
frankfrankly
frankfrankly
4 years ago

The lesson one can draw is that neither GBD nor the official policy-which, after all, includes shielding, can work well. Shielding properly would need identification, effort and resources, all of which are being misdirected or squandered in a generalist approach. The age structure and vulnerability (ie co-morbities, obesity & diabetes) were known from Italy a year ago. The tragedy is that no lessons were learned then and few now.

Given the well-know BME propensity for diabetes and the significantly worse health of Asian elders, shielding here would mean deliberately breaking up the extended family. This would have to be done by compulsion-and good luck with that.

Although Prof. Whitty acknowledged that infections were slowing before lockdown he insists that opening up after May 17th (my birthday!) is a grave risk. He cannot have been looking at the US states which have reopened and can be compared to (often neighbouring) ones with stringent measures. Doubling down on an error is a very human mistake and it will cost us dear unless we end the obsession with lockdown. As the 2011/14 Influenza Prep. Plan outlined, a generalist approach cannot work. That we knew this is another tragedy and why however disheartening it can be ‘la lutta continua.’.

Last edited 4 years ago by frankfrankly
1
0
Jo Starlin
Jo Starlin
4 years ago

Does anyone know how I can locate the round up from previous days? It no longer seems to appear on the relevant days update?

0
0
renegadepoet
renegadepoet
4 years ago

Having A Laugh

Having A Laugh.gif
1
0

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