Labour has come under pressure to rule out expanding a Ulez-style emissions tax from London to other major cities in the U.K. if it wins the next election. MailOnline has more.
A policy document drafted by Sir Keir Starmer’s party backs the idea of ‘clean air zones’ in major urban areas alongside expansion of public transport.
London mayor Sadiq Khan is facing a major fight over the Ultra-Low Emission Zones scheme, which sees the worse-polluting vehicles hit with a £12.50 daily charge.
It currently only applies to cars, vans and lorries entering central London, but from August will be expanded to include all London boroughs.
Greg Hands, the Conservative Party chairman and MP for Chelsea and Fulham, told the Telegraph: “Khan’s cash-grab Ulez expansion is hugely unpopular here in London. Labour need to rule out these unpopular moves on hard-working residents of our great cities.”
The document, first reported by the Labour List website, recommends Labour “support the principle of Clean Air Zones”, but adds that they must be “phased in carefully… and should be accompanied with a just transition plan”.
They are already in place in Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Greater Manchester, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Tyneside.
Tory candidates to run against Mr Khan in next year’s London mayoral election have pledged to scrap the Ulez extension to outer boroughs.
But Sir Keir last week backed the expansion, saying Londoners risk getting lung cancer without it.
He admitted it was “a lot of money” for vehicle owners to pay.
Asked on LBC Radio whether he was fully behind Mr Khan’s expansion of London’s ULEZ, the Labour leader admitted: “There’s many people who will look at the scheme and say, ‘That’s a lot of money for me to pay.’”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Telegraph, Ross Clark says the Ulez expansion scheme could be the end of Sadiq Khan’s disastrous misrule.
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Mr Starmer wants to supposedly save UK lives with a policy that just happens to align with those of special interest groups while increasing military spending to allow more people far away to die for profit. If there’s that much concern for health and well being, the policies should be consistent. The obvious answer to this inconsistency is there is no genuine interest in the health of this population or any other.
‘…increasing military spending to allow more people far away to die for profit’
What on earth are you talking about?
Poland has just ordered 1250 tanks. The Baltic States are increasing their defence spending, as are Finland, Sweden.
This country was a founder member of NATO 1949, signed the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukrainian territorial integrity in 1994, ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997.
Syria breached the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013. Britain did nothing. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized Crimea. Britain did nothing. Russia, having once more invaded Ukraine, now threatens Moldova and the Baltic States, potentially Poland, Sweden and Finland.
If the Baltic States are invaded by Russia, and they certainly believe they might be, as does Poland, Britain will have to respond militarily.
With a land war in Europe, if ever there was a right time to increase defence spending (in order to rebuild an expensively constructed conventional deterrence now clearly in ruins) now would be that time.
Or am I missing something?
What you’re missing is that it simply doesn’t matter to us who rules which bits of Eastern Europe and never has.
The politicians who favour supporting Ukraine are the people who gave us lockdowns, population replacement, the tranny evil, increasing restrictions on freedom of speech and movement, the indoctrination of our children with PC nonsense, tens of millions of injections of dangerous gunk in response to a trivial virus, multiculturalism, Net Zero and second class status for the indigenous population.
Along with the other major powers we have de-nuded our arsenals to provide weapons for the proxy war, and turned the rest into woke versions of what used to be the greatest fighting services in the world. Right now I wouldn’t be confident of victory if the Isle of Man invaded us, never mind Russia. I reckon we’d have to capitulate in a week.
I quite agree and further wonder why we are “disarming” ourselves by sending our weapons stocks to Ukraine to be blown up? We cannot replace them readily. Seems like “a cunning plan”. Nothing is as it seems in this conflict.
It matters very much to us now that the Baltic states are members of NATO.
It mattered very much to us that Ukraine gave up its nuclear warheads in 1994. That is why we guaranteed its territorial integrity in exchange for their surrender.
What signal does it send to the rest of the world if the only country ever to surrender its nuclear arsenal is then dismembered by invasion?
The signal is clear. That is why Iran, Saudi and the UAE (and Libya whilst under Gaddafi) now seek nuclear weapons.
And just how do you think that will play out?
So you see it matters very much to us. That is why we, and so many of our allies, are now, expensively, having to rebuild our entirely broken conventional deterrence; broken by the weakness, pusillanimity and short sightedness of you and so many others like you in this country.
Don’t those countries want nukes because the racial supremacist state has them?
Didn’t South Africa give up its nukes?
And I’ve never been consulted about our armed forces, so I accept no responsibility for them. But I will point out that we haven’t been experiencing a Russian invasion over the last few years.
If Iran has nuclear weapons, Saudi and UAE will develop/obtain nuclear weapons.
South Africa never tested a nuclear device.
They had some technology which they gave up, dismantled.
Regarding Russian invasions:
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Maybe pop down to Salisbury and chat to the locals about Russian invasions, then move on to Amesbury.
Let us know how you get on……
Oh God, you’re so thick you believe the official narrative about Salisbury.
But, even if it were true, it hardly constitutes an invasion, does it?
Hundreds of thousand of barbarian invaders crossing the Channel, assisted by the RN, on the other hand….
You haven’t been to Salisbury….or Amesbury…..ever…..have you?
Come back and let us know when you have.
I’ve been to Salisbury – with a Finnish girlfriend! – but not Amesbury.
Why would I need to have gone to either to know that the official narrative is a pile of crap?
Because then you could talk to the friends and family of those who died and learn a thing or two…..
“Those who died”
Didn’t only one person die?
Has there yet been an inquest into her death?
What exactly could I learn from her “friends and relatives”?
You may be very relaxed about the death of a British citizen, another seriously affected and a police sergeant, badly injured, who lost his career, plus two Russians badly poisoned on British soil.
I will not be alone in finding that attitude very odd indeed.
Of course you will never go to Amesbury, but, if you did, I wonder very much what the locals would make of you and your callous, frankly bizarre, mentality.
Hi Monro. Tell me, which country is the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons in anger?
That very much depends on how you define nuclear weapons.
Typically they come under the heading NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) now called CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear)
The U.S.A. of course dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.
However CBRN weapons have been used through the ages, dating back to the siege of Troy and beyond.
What you’re missing is that it simply doesn’t matter to us who rules which bits of Eastern Europe and never has.
… provided it’s the Russians and not the Germans, that is. Britain has fought two large wars in the last century to help with accomplishing that, the second one, supposed to become a finished business this time, ending with the violently enforced (by Russian soldiers) deportation of German farmers, villagers and small town people from all of eastern middle Europe.
I regard British participation in WW2 (and WW1, for that matter) as an utter disaster for our people.
What an absolute load of garbage you talk sometimes Monro. So much so that I’ll not waste my time refuting your idiotic opinions. You read like a press release from Downing Street..
Thank you.
You’re more than welcome. I always get a whiff of the 77th brigade when reading you..
I always enjoy the humour on here.
Well you supply the majority of it.. bit conceited what!!
You are far too modest.
Yes.. I get it from Queer Smarmer who we’re meant to be discussing..
‘A modest man, with much to be modest about.’
Well I’m calling you out Monro. As soon as you mentioned Syria using chemical weapons, which is a blatant, cooked up lie, I stopped listening to you.
Oh dear!
‘On 2 February 2023, the Director-General of OPCW and the Identification Team’s Coordinator briefed States Parties in The Hague on the Identification Team’s third report, in which it concluded that the Syrian Arab Air Force was responsible for chemical weapons use in an incident in Douma on 7 April 2018, killing at least 43 named individuals and affecting dozens of others………’
U.N. Security Council 9275 meeting 06 March 23
So, who to believe? The U.N. Security Council or some random numpty on here….
Tricky…..or not really…..
Didn’t the majority of people in Crimea vote that they join the Russian Federation?
Was the UK military not involved in increasing military ties with Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion? This would have been when it was also persistently reported that Ukraine had a Neo-Nazi problem.
Was the UK mainstream media not curiously silent on the conflict in Eastern Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion?
Was it not reported in 2021 that the UK plan was to significantly increase UK war spending over the following 4 years?
I would suggest that the UK Government, with media support, has been very active in order to get to something resembling the current situation.
Nope. No. No. Nope again. And no, definitely not. But well done on the grammar and spelling.
Some examples.
From my MP, March 2021:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2018-12-06/ty-article/meet-the-lonely-ukranian-jew-fighting-his-countrys-new-fondness-for-nazis/0000017f-f452-d47e-a37f-fd7ee25a0000
https://wiesenthal-europe.com/en/news-releases-menu/15-news-releases-2016/255-wiesenthal-centre-to-nantes-mayor-ban-reportedly-neo-nazi-azov-battalion-meeting-bent-on-recruitment-of-french-youth
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ocha-ukraine-situation-report-17-feb-2022-enuk
https://counterhate.com/research/hatebook/
https://declassifieduk.org/uk-commanders-in-ukraine-met-neo-nazi-linked-national-guard-to-deepen-military-cooperation/
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/17/now-its-official-ukraine-uk-poland-form-security-alliance/
Britain can put one weak armoured brigade in the field with about 120 tanks
That’s it.
Poland just ordered 1250 tanks.
Russia isn’t going away.
If we do not deter them now, we will have to fight down the road.
And given the state of our armed forces, we will probably lose….
and zero diplomats.
I very much agree that the world would be a much safer place if diplomats were made to serve on the front line.
My response with examples has been sent for approval.
Didn’t the majority of people in Crimea vote that they join the Russian Federation?
Stalin deported the people of Crimea to other locations in Russia, creating the usual, depopulated wilderness he was so fond of. Present-day Crimea is a large Russian naval based and a city which has grown around that. These people, ie, Russian soldiers and civilians economically dependent on them –
unsurprisingly – voted to become Russian after Putin decided that he want to annex Crimea formally (instead of continuing to lease it from Ukraine). And that was doubtlessly a vote where everybody was free to chose between I want to become Russian and I want to be driven accross the border by Russian soldiers.
Is this the same Smarmer that admitted openly on the BBC that he follows the lead of the WEF and not parliament? Oh.. and he’s a member of the Trilateral Commission.. the one world government pushers extraordinaire..
Apparently his colleague David Lammy is once again at the Bilderberg meeting along with Tom Tugendhat.
Yes.. I saw that DHJ.. the plotting both continues and thickens..
So, Starmer says Londoners risk getting lung cancer without “it” ie clean air zones.
Idiot. Has he ever measured the toxicity of the London Underground?
That said, I could name several candidates which have the proven capacity to elicit all sorts of cancers, starting with my old favourite – traditional vaccines, which have now been magnificently superseded by the mRNA covid jabs (but don’t worry, soon all jabs will be mRNA based.
If you want proof, digest this –
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027869152200206X
I have yet to see any of this coherently criticised. If anyone would like to then please enlighten me.
Yeah.. he also needs to look to the sky occasionally and maybe comment on the obvious chemical trails being omitted from planes.
The amazing thing about this ULEZ is that everybody may drive in it freely with any kind of vehicle provided he coughs up the money. Londoners are dying of air pollution but only if the polluters don’t pay £12.50 before doing their surely dirty work. Either Khan doesn’t really believe in his own back story or he’s selling the health of the people he claims to want to protect very cheaply.
If anybody seriously believes that Kneel is concerned about Joe Public coming down with lung cancers they must have a hole in their head. And if anybody believes that Kneel believes that the climate in London is about to unleash a tsunami of cancers on the population then they deserve a hole in the head.
Lying Tw#t.
I remember another politician who was not in the least bit concerned about Lung Cancer. ———–Gordon Brown. He gave tax relief on diesel cars to encourage us to buy them because they had less CO2 emissions than petrol ones, knowing full well that diesel is bad for lungs.
First they came for Leicester… (picked on as the epicentre of the tier 3 experiment)
Then they came for Oxford…
Then they came for London…
“First they came for Leicester…”
Leicester was chosen by the Davos Deviants because the city rioted in the late 19th century when central government tried to impose the smallpox virus. The situation became so serious that the imposition was abandoned.
The DD’s do enjoy historical references in their kill games.
Who gives a fig what Starmer says he will do or what the Tories say Starmer will do for that matter. All establishment parties are taking their orders from the same unelected powerful organisations and individuals. For the last 30 years the only difference between Labour and the Tories is a matter of time.
If we are all to have electric cars in the next 10 years why would you need a “low emission zone”. ——-Don’t electric cars have zero emissions already? The squiring parasite politicians just cannot seem to stop pretending to save the planet harder and faster than each other. They are determined to heap as much misery on the people who vote for them as they can.—— It is like a game of Climate Poker ——“I will venture 2 billion quid on Smart meters”————-“OK, I will see your 2 billion and raise you 8 billion on Hydrogen”———–Pretending to save planets is all the rage and very popular with the parasite class gravy train eco socialists which seem to comprise our whole parliament these days as not a single one of them asked a single question as to the cost/benefit of NET ZERO. It was simply waved through so they can all get on with their Climate Poker game.