London Mayor Sadiq Khan has apparently softened his stance on the controversial Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) scheme, which contributed to Labour’s recent Uxbridge by-election defeat. Khan’s previous staunch support for the anti-pollution tax has given way to a “constructive listening mode” after private discussions with Labour leader, Keir Starmer. The Sunday Times has the story.
Starmer and his shadow cabinet blame the Ulez for their failure to win Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge & South Ruislip in northwest London on Thursday.
The leader called Khan on the day of the defeat to urge him to fall into line. Aides for both men said the talks were “positive” and “constructive”.
Allies of Starmer claim Khan has now promised to review the policy in what would amount to a significant U-turn. A senior Labour source said: “It’s clear Sadiq is going to be reviewing it.”
Khan and Starmer are exploring how to limit the financial impact of the policy on drivers while cleaning up the capital’s pollution problem, according to sources. In a sign of the growing pressure on the mayor, yesterday he deleted a tweet about “bold action” being required to protect the environment.
The Ulez is due to expand at the end of August from the boundary of the north and south circular roads to throughout Greater London, requiring drivers of the most polluting vehicles to pay £12.50 a day in the midst of soaring inflation and a cost of living crisis.
The revolt over the Ulez expansion also poses questions over the future of other low emissions zones which have been established across the UK.
While London has led the way with such schemes, other cities have begun adopting them, including Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford and Bath.
Some MPs suggest the debate in both Labour and the Conservative Party over the policies could now lead many local authorities to pause plans to expand or introduce further schemes.
Labour has been divided over its green agenda for months amid fears among those in the top echelons of the party that its commitment to a plethora of unpopular, expensive green policies, could cost it the election.
For example, they see the party’s pledge to end all North Sea gas and oil licences as an “unhelpful distraction” after a backlash by the unions and industry.
One critic called for the policies, many of which have been masterminded by the shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband, to be junked, adding: “This is the moment Labour should ditch the green crap.”
Starmer’s most senior advisers, including Deborah Mattison, his Director of Strategy, and Morgan McSweeney, the party’s election chief, had predicted the Ulez would be a vote loser and have spent months locked in a bitter battle with Khan.
One party insider said: “At the start of the campaign, there was a lot of talk about it [Ulez] being scrapped. Of course, this time last year, Deborah was among those who wanted Labour’s logo to be turned green so I can understand why Sadiq is a bit bemused by being told that by her.”
The Uxbridge result saw the civil war being fought behind the scenes erupt into public with Danny Beales, Labour’s defeated candidate, saying the policy had “cut us off at the knees” and handed the seat to the Tories, albeit with a significantly reduced majority of 495 votes, down from 7,210.
Beales, who had been given permission to speak at the gathering by Starmer’s team, added: “This isn’t complicated. You cannot tell working people you are laser-focused on the cost of living … on the difficulties facing them … of making life easier … and then also penalise them, simply for driving their car to work. Ulez is bad policy. It must be rethought.”
The Labour leader ratcheted up pressure further when he told activists gathered at the party’s national policy forum in Nottingham: “We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet.”
Starmer also repeated his calls on Khan to “reflect” on the policy and specifically “how” the expansion plans are being carried out.
A senior party insider said: “Keir is entirely right to be focused on throwing all these dead weights off the electoral ship. There is no way Ulez [expansion] is going to survive, even if we had won Uxbridge.
Worth reading in full.
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It’s an islamist, therefore it is indulging in a bit of taqqiyah – lying to decieve the kuffar.
“Khan and Starmer are exploring how to limit the financial impact of the policy on drivers while cleaning up the capital’s pollution problem” ….the only “pollution problem” in London is in the London Underground where particle pollution is 1800% higher than on the surface.
The pollution problem is the self-styled “religion of peace”
Way too late to save his butt me thinks!
The islamic block postal vote is very difficult to overcome
“The islamic block postal vote is very difficult to overcome.”
As we know only too well in Oldham.
“This isn’t complicated. You cannot tell working people you are laser-focused on the cost of living … on the difficulties facing them … of making life easier … and then also penalise them, simply for driving their car to work.’
Mr Sunak, the Conservative Party, Conservative Party M.P.s, are you listening?
Net zero? Oh for heavens sake! How can you be this dim?
I make no apologies for re-posting this. It cannot be repeated too often.
‘Net Zero regulations and actions are scientifically invalid because they:
https://co2coalition.org/publications/challenging-net-zero-with-science/
They are neither dim NOR actually in control…. national governments appear to be nothing more that enforcers for the UN/WEF.
The majority of the countries of the world aren’t free or democratic. It took some serious naiveté back in the day to think that an organisation made up of all the countries in the world would spread a message of freedom and democracy. The UN reflects its membership and Western countries are utterly cowed by it while being the main countries funding it. Any credibility the UN had died when it threw out Taiwan, a founding member, in favour of the barbaric Red China. And the WEF is likely a Red China front organisation.
Never mind that, whilst China builds coal power stations like coal was just discovered, with Africa and India joining in, nothing we do will make any difference whatsoever. Apart from crashing the economy and further impoverishing all of us…
Unlike the computer models used in engineering, these are completely open ended. This means that when they have given results that are not correct they are modified to represent reality. The other factor is that they do not rely on proper science, they use an ultra simplified and completely incorrect analogue of the real atmosphere. The real atmosphere is chaotic, the processes very complex, and contain large amounts of convection, none of which is modeled. For 40 years now these models have run very much hotter than the real temperature data, but it seems that no one cares at all that this is the case! One cannot believe any projection either, unless they correctly show reality, this week, this month, this year. This is partly because now is weather, not climate, but having modified the weather forecasting programs to include “climate change” these are now much less accurate than they used to be! Temperature today is:
Real-time Global Temperature
(updated every 1-2 minutes)
57.44°F / 14.13°C
Deviation: 0.24°F / 0.13°C
Stations processed last hour: 49058
Last station processed: Singapore, Singapore
For source/info see:
https://temperature.global
and in the last 140 years:
?resize=600%2C456&ssl=1
It is falling at the moment! About 1.4 degrees since 1880 (which was at the end of the little ice age).
What are these strange illustrations at the head of the piece? They make it look like a child’s comic. Not more AI I hope.
Another article ignoring the ever-growing herd of elephants in the room. They’re breeding like Tribbles these things…
”The death toll in 2023 is nearing pandemic levels and the absence of an explanation is leading to wild theories. Experts warn that an urgent investigation into the matter is needed to curb dangerous theories and resulting anxieties.Government figures suggest the number of extra or “unnecessary” fatalities this year is higher than 2021 and 2022, and on a trajectory that could even surpass 2020.
Of particular concern is the 15 to 44 age group, where cumulative deaths are tracking above all recent years, including 2020.
Last night Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, called for an urgent inquiry.
He said: “There has been a complete failure by the Government to investigate these deaths correctly. This means we don’t know how to prevent further unnecessary deaths, fuelling wild speculation about the drivers.”
”fuelling wild speculation about the drivers”?? Who’s side are you on Prof Carl?! 😮
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1794096/excess-deaths-dangerous-theories
I think he’s being slightly disingenuous and trying to lead them to their downfall
I think it’s pretty clear that he despises these people and everything they have done
It’s not a failure to investigate ….. it’s a refusal to do it (because they know the answer).
To be miraculously resurrected the day after they win next years GE.
In other words, keep quiet until we’re in, then do what you like.
My window cleaner has a specialist water tank fitted in his diesel van. He had a 20k loan to cover getting it fitted. Thanks to ULEZ he has had to buy a new van and get a further loan for 13k to get the specialist water tank fitted (after selling the diesel van to a window cleaner out of town).
Now if it doesn’t go ahead, he will, quite rightly, be suing for his money and I hope he wins. Of course at the end of the day we will be paying for this shambles. But that is Sadiq Kahn’s fault, not the fault of my window cleaner.
Additionally he has become incredibly depressed. He’s a young guy who works very hard. He had already stretched himself and he cannot afford the new loan without really tightening his belt. Plus inflation and heating expenses have made things far worse for him. The additional strain, through no fault of his own, has really taken its toll. I can see it in his face. The poor guy is beside himself and feels he is so far underwater he is finding it difficult to see light at the end of the tunnel.
This is the real and unacceptable cost of climate and net zero related policies.
No doubt the downvoter wants your window cleaner to suffer more
All deliberate – they don’t want anybody to be self-employed, or to own anything – if you aren’t dependent on the state, you can’t be controlled
Agreed. The amount of bullshit regulations I go through and the thousands of pounds I have to pay my accountant to have a quiet life are ridiculous. I run a very simple one-man business and it costs me a bomb. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a ten-man or 100-man business. There’s an attitude that if you aren’t pined down by the state that you’re a criminal unless you can prove otherwise. I remember the Thatcher era from my childhood when everyone was being encouraged to start up his own business. Now, the state wants your money and, through cultural Marxist schemes such as ESG and DIE, the state wants your mind.
This is a horrible thing to read. I feel so bad for the window cleaner. It’s my biggest problem with the modern world and modern government. In one sentence, what I want from a government is this: ‘Leave us the f___ alone!’ No more big schemes, no more ‘change’! Government should be like the operating system on a computer: it runs quietly in the background so I can get on with the work I need to do.
Ideally an OS like Linux, where I can audit it, and see what’s actually going on.
These are Authoritarian Socialists who think they’ll never run out of other people’s money to spend on their moronic schemes.
I predict their “solution” will be to say they will massively increase the scrappage scheme for cars which aren’t ULEZ compliant and they’ll make “the rich” pay for it.
The same “rich” who are going to pay for every other moronic policy. Except they won’t.
Time also for a review of the pretend to save the planet NET ZERO———It won’t save any planets, but it will save us all a large chunk of our wages if we can keep our perfectly good car and fantastic gas central heating that the silly planet savers would rip out and replace with a dumb heat pump so they get a little gold star on their lapel from the UN and WEF.
The heat pump thing hasn’t really hit the s…t yet. Very soon the electricity supplier will say no, the load in your street is as big as we can supply without spending a vast amount to upgrade the cables. Very soon though!
I see today reports of the insidious communists (SNP) wanting to ban selling your house unless you get rid of the gas central heating and have an alternative, (most likely a heat pump). —I don’t think the Scottish people are stupid, but it amazes me how they continue to fall for this eco socialist Anti Human Hate the English and Westminster disgusting political party.
The ULEZ extension has nothing to do with clean air or anything other than creating a large income stream for the London Mayor. ULEZ was originally introduced by Boris Johnson for the same reason. These people are desperate for power, and they realise they need lots of money to gain it, and they don’t care if it impoverishes their citizens to get it.