Birmingham’s clean air zone (CAZ) initiative, which levies charges on high-polluting vehicles, has led to spiralling costs for local businesses. The Telegraph has the story.
The clean air zone in Birmingham is piling extra costs onto small businesses, local entrepreneurs have claimed, as the backlash against Labour’s anti-pollution policies grows.
Since 2021, the most-polluting vehicles which travel into Birmingham city centre must pay £8 per day, with coaches and lorries charged £50.
The zone is similar to London’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) which was launched by mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019, and will be expanded this month.
Business owners in Birmingham told the BBC that the CAZ had increased their costs.
One resident said: “I ordered something to my shop, first question they asked me was if I was in the zone or out – once you say I’m inside the taxing zone, they’re going to add £8 to your delivery.”
Karen Woolley, of the Federation of Small Businesses in the West Midlands, added that the introduction of the low emission zone had affected the way people travelled through the city.
“If people are aware there is a CAZ in place, and they ordinarily went into that area for whatever reason, they may well be thinking again,” she told Radio 4’s Today programme. “The businesses in the CAZ zone are seeing an impact.”
Birmingham City Council was approached for comment. It has previously said that the CAZ has improved air quality in the city and reduced the proportion of vehicles which are among the most polluting from nearly one in five to under one in 10.
The news comes after Sir Keir Starmer scrapped Labour’s commitment to rolling out CAZs across the country. Outside of London, they have been introduced in the Labour-run cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Bradford, as well as Glasgow, Bath, Sheffield and Oxford.
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Whilst the Jews lived without a state for 3,000 years.
What a cretin
Look at the state of Lammy! (sorry,wrong sort of state)
I think we have enough things to worry about in our own “state”.
State-cabal 🤔
A state is something which is recognised by other states as being a state.
Our rulers are becoming ever more detached from reality. It’s something to do with the four Ds: decadence, degeneracy, derangement, all of which express their death-wish.
Israel has offered a two-state solution five times and the Arabs have always rejected the idea. Lammy is an ignorant cretin.
And that is probably being unkind to ignorant cretins.
Look at the state of the UK. And that’s down to the fact that DEI idiots like Lammy have been elected to Parliament.
Well, Israel calls itself the State of Israel, so why should there not be a State of Palestine?
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on May 10, 2024, recognizing the State of Palestine as qualified for full membership in the United Nations. The resolution was approved by a vote of 143 in favour, 9 against, and 25 abstentions. The United States and Israel were among those voting against the resolution.
International law says there should be a State of Palestine, the UN General Assembly says there should be a State of Palestine, the G20 countries say there should be a State of Palestine, the Arab peace initiative says there should be a two-state solution with a State of Palestine, the whole world is on this side except the USA, dominated by the Israel lobby.
And, for the 100th time, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict did not start on 7th October 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba:
During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine’s predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by its military. Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighbourhoods were depopulated. Many of the settlements were either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. Israel employed biological warfare against Palestinians by poisoning village wells. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel.
Jeffrey Sachs gave a long talk in Hong Kong on the matter here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_JRfshqF4&t=1440s – from 1:53.27, on how he “as an American Jew” is disgusted with Israel’s policies and Netanyahu’s wars everywhere: in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and, if he has his way, Iran, “which could be a world ender”.
“The answer for peace is a State of Palestine and a State of Israel. And when one asks is that possible, I speak regularly with the foreign ministers across the Middle East – I’m talking about the Egyptian foreign minister, Jordanian foreign minister, Turkish foreign minister, Saudi foreign minister – I know all of them personally and I talked to them at length.
“The Arab world has been asking for peace with Israel since 2002 in what’s called the Arab Peace Initiative, and Israel has been giving them the finger and saying “no” because we will keep all of the territory. Now this is suicidal in my point of view for Israel, and it is illegal and utterly cruel.
“So an attack comes on October 7th. Did that come out of the blue? No, the attack on October 7th came after more than 50 years of brutal occupation by Israel and complete rejection of a State of Palestine.
“So I have no sympathy for Netanyahu. I regard him as one of the most violent, deranged political leaders in modern history actually … Everybody wants peace except Israel. Israel wants control.
“Does Netanyahu offer a single alternative other than we defeat Hamas? Has he uttered one sentence about a political outcome? No, and you know why, because his whole career, his whole life is based on preventing a State of Palestine.”
“… so why should there not be a State of Palestine?”
Because they don’t want one. Accepting a Palestinian State would de facto mean recognition of the existence of the State of Israel. Palestinians want to eradicate the State of Israel and the territory to be subsumed by them.
They were offered a State in 1948 and again during the Presidency of Bill Clinton who put a great deal of effort in trying to establish a State for Palestinians next to Israel – they walked away.
Repeat: they don’t want a State they want the elimination of all Jews.
The basic problem is very simply that Palestine used to belong to Palestinians, of whom a small percentage were Jews with whom nobody had any problems.
Then came British rule and, for whatever reason, the British decided it was OK to support Zionist extremists who wanted to set up a solely Jewish state somewhere in the world, and that ‘somewhere’ ended up being Palestine. A trickle of primarily European Jews over the decades developed into a flood in the 1930s, bringing with them plenty of wealth and accordingly powerful support, particularly from USA.
With ever increasing numbers and ever increasing power, it is hardly surprising that conflict ensued and, as always, whoever has the best and most modern armament wins.
Decades have passed and Palestinians are now corralled into small areas of their original country (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) where they are essentially robbed of their right to exist. Israeli ‘Settlers’ (violent, armed thugs) kill Palestinians at will and rob them of their property. Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians of all ages (including children) were, and are, arbitrarily imprisoned by Israel without trial, suffering brutal treatment and torture.
Then came 7th October 2023 and the past 19 months have been used by Netanyahu and his extremist government to slaughter as many Palestinians as possible – and it is clear they have no intention of stopping.
I am afraid your claim that Palestinians have repeatedly turned down a State of Palestine is not credible – assuming they were offered anything larger than a swimming pool. With USA politicians (including Trump) firmly in the pockets of the Israel lobby, and with the USA always using its veto in the UN Security Council to quash any motion distasteful to Israel, one does indeed wonder how this problem will ever be solved.
But it had better be solved soon and diplomacy is the only way forward to end the violence.
This shows a complete lack of understanding of history and the Middle East.
Most of the borders in the Middle East were drawn by the British and French after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of WW1. The borders were drawn the way there were because they suited the British and French and didn’t reflect where different ethnic groups tended to live. For example the Alawites, Druze and Kurds didn’t get a recognised homeland and there were probably as many “Palestinians” on the East Bank of the Jordan as there were in the area the British called Palestine, which was also home to large numbers of Arabs and Druze. Logically this means that huge numbers of people who lived in Palestine between the 2 World Wars weren’t “Palestinians” and people who now identify as Palestinians can’t claim that all, or even most, of Israel is their ancestral homeland that they should be given.
I certainly do not claim to be a historian but there is a lengthy explanation of the history here: https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/. In addition, if you have read T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, you will agree that the areas under Turkish rule were formerly inhabited and with flourishing agriculture and a historical culture.
At the close of the First World War the remnants of the Ottoman Empire were indeed ‘arbitrarily’ divided up between Britain, France and Russia (later also Italy), but to claim that foreigners distributed around the world whose ancestors supposedly lived there 2,600 years ago have a superior right to that land is as ridiculous as saying modern day Italians have the right to occupy England because Ancient Rome once ruled the place.
However, history is history and the State of Israel exists. The problem is how to compensate the losses of the indigenous people, instead of slaughtering them and all their neighbours.
Sad to say but you’re wasting your time on most here.
They bleat on about the power of the media influencing Covid, Vaccines, ClimateChange Ukraine etc. yet somehow manage to miss the oldest and best of them all ie the Jewish propaganda pumped out ad nausium since 1948
In short they’ve been brainwashed and by definition can’t realise it.
Please listen to Jeffrey Sachs. He is Jewish by the way.
Also, when Israel has its Greater Israel where exactly do you think all the surviving brown people will be headed for?
Yes, I have often been astounded by the comments here, many advocating the genocide which the Western world is happily turning a blind eye to (while continuing to feed Israel with weapons and continuing to feed us with Israeli propaganda). Surely some people watch UK Column or the many other independent sources of information on what is happening in the Middle East? Surely not everyone can believe it is Israel’s god-given right to bomb practically every surrounding country? Surely nobody believes that killing children can be justified under any circumstances?
Scepticism of Israel’s claim to always be acting in self-defence seems to be in short demand on this platform.
You’re wasting your time. If you judge public opinion by the comments that are left on media sites, including MSN, support for the Palestinians has been declining for at least 6 months (what has happened to Glass Half Full? hopefully they’ve crawled back under the rock they emerged from) as people finally realise that the Palestinians and the barbaric baby butcherers of Hamas are pretty much one and the same and that Israel, for all it’s flaws, is on the right side of a clash of beliefs and is fully justified to try and destroy an enemy that would destroy it and 4 million people given the chance.
“Palestinians and the barbaric baby butcherers of Hamas” means you have been fully taken in by Israeli propaganda.
Anybody supporting a genocide, no matter where, should “crawl back under a rock”, in my opinion.
The history of Israel has been, and continues to be, a history of violence. And sitting there armed (illegally) with nuclear weapons and wiping out its indigenous population, while threatening every surrounding country, can neither be an envious situation, nor a stable one.
And to believe that nobody supports the Palestinians in the area is also Western ideology. The problem is, as always, USA that unconditionally supports its Israeli paymasters and controls the Jordanian monarchy, the Egyptian military junta, has now replaced the Syrian leader with Al-Qaeda terrorists, and previously murdered millions in Iraq, and so on and so forth.
The Arab Israeli conflict start in 1948 when Arab armies attacked Israel to try and destroy the fledgling state,
In 1948 the UN gave the Palestinians in state in the West Bank. They promptly joined with Palestinians on the East Bank to try and seize control of the whole of Jordan. They were defeated and Jordan occupied the West Bank the vile colonising bastards, sorry this can’t be true because Jordanians aren’t white or Jewish and therefore can’t colonise or oppress anyone, until the 1967 war. Therefore it’s the Palestinians own fault that they don’t have a state.
Perhaps the Arab armies were upset at foreigners declaring a fledgling state? Perhaps the original colonisers, Turkey, Britain, France, are to blame? Probably, but that is the way it is. The problem now is to find a solution and violence never leads to a stable situation.
States – a Body Politic within borders with a Government – have to be built by the people.
The Palestinians aren’t builders just destroyers. So that’s why Mr Lamebrain why they don’t have one.
They have had ample opportunity to build a State or even two States in Gaza and the West Bank.
They also had an opportunity in 1948 to build a State with a land area greater than the then State of Israel.
States cannot be created by drawing lines on a map no matter how many Countries say something is a State, but what that can create is a whole heap of trouble, conflict, war. Take a look at the “States” created by the Versailles Treaty carved out of Austro-Hungary, the State of West & East Pakistan, and that State called “Ukraine” created in 1991.
Statistics is the data of the state.
We should have referred to the Chagossians who not only don’t have a state but have lived in exile for 58 years and have been sold down the river by the Liebour government, although obviously their betrayal started under the Tories.
The author seems argues that Palestine is not a State and cannot be a State because some others do not recognise it to be one.
So if some others decided tomorrow not to recognise the UK as a State, would we cease to exist? What would the “thing” that occupied the islands of the United Kingdom be referred to as?
Surely the Professor misses the wood for the trees. What makes the ocean? The water or the tides of the Moon?
Mr Lammy is diagnosing the condition of the Palestinians as a result of them not having the benefits of the State.
The signifier of the Left is their ideological commitment to the State. The power of the state should be extended to the point where the needs of all in society can be maximally satisfied. In turn, this rests on the belief that all perceived human needs can be met.
This can be summed up as a faith in Progress (capitalised). Mr Lammy expresses his faith in such when he says he retains optimism.
The last Pope Leo, Leo the Thirteenth, identifying the errors of his time at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, proposed that social justice should be accomplished by the state being guarantor of such. What might then be said of the statolatry of Russia, Germany and Italy?
One might note that Mr Lammy mentions Apartheid. Some have accuse the State of Israel of being such a state. His reference to the Cold War is unfortunate given current developments.
States are very important to heads of state.
And to Americans it is very important that their states are united.
James – Re definitions of ‘the state’. How about ‘that institution which maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force in a given territory’? This harks back to the role which kings played centuries ago; NB Louis XIV ‘L’etat, c’est moi” and the use of ‘sovereign state’ to describe a republic.
Re the role of European powers in drawing boundaries in the Middle East. Certainly very clumsy but reflective of their view that states with constitutions and legalised power structures were better than the tribalism which characterised life in the whole area in spite of the Ottomans.
Multiculturalism is doing a good job of making the indigenous British and first nation Europeans stateless.