Conservative MP and former party leader and Government minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said he backs the ‘blade runners’ who are disabling Ulez cameras. The Mail has more.
Usually he prides himself on being tough on crime, but the former cabinet minister said today he was ‘happy’ for the residents of his Chingford and Woodford Green constituency to destroy cameras because they have been “lied to”.
Sir Iain said: “A lot of people in my constituency have been cementing up the cameras or putting plastic bags over them.
“I am happy for them to do it because they are facing an imposition that no-one wants and they have been lied to about it.
“The actions you are seeing show how angry people are at what is being imposed on them. Sadiq Khan has gerrymandered all the information – people have had enough.”
Since his comments were first published, Sir Iain told the Evening Standard that “I do understand the frustrations of the people in my constituency who are being hit by these charges and who feel like they are not being listened to by the mayor. These sort of actions show how angry people are. But I don’t condone law breaking of any kind.”
It’s notable that no one besides Khan seems willing to defend the scheme or even state their opposition to the vandalism of the cameras. At this point it feels like it’s Khan versus the whole of London.
Meanwhile, the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, told GB News this morning that he would stop the rollout if he had the power to do so and highlighted his reservations about the true motives behind the expansion.
I don’t have the power to stop it coming into force. That’s a decision for the Mayor of London backed by the Labour leader. I think he should think again.
He says this has to do with air quality, his own impact assessment says this will only have a minor to negligible effect on air pollution.
It’s not about air pollution, it’s about a money-raising exercise and this is absolutely not the time to be putting all those costs on hard-pressed and hard-working Londoners and those in the area outside London.
What Harper didn’t mention, though, is that the reason he doesn’t have the power to stop it is because the Government’s lawyers have said it would be contrary to the Government’s own policies on air pollution. That’s despite the impact assessment showing it will have a negligible impact on air quality! In truth, the Government could challenge it if it wished, either by changing its own policies (perhaps via legislative amendment) or by arguing that the impact is too negligible to contravene its commitments.
Harper also told LBC’s Nick Ferrari programme that the Government will be backing an amendment to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill to make changes to the 1999 law that created the role of Mayor of London. According to the Mail:
Under the amendment, brought forward by Tory peer Lord Moylan, London boroughs would be able to opt out of future Transport for London (TfL) clean air schemes if they are meeting air quality targets.
The Transport Secretary said: “One of the problems here is that a number of London local authorities don’t support this scheme coming into force, so for the future, we are backing an amendment, a backbench amendment to a piece of legislation which will mean in future any road user charging schemes like this would have to be also backed by London boroughs.
“And that’s important because if you look at the Mayor of London’s own website for his Project 2030 scheme, he wants to roll out more road user charging schemes, pay-per-mile schemes across London.”
Sadiq Khan countered on BBC Breakfast this morning that it wasn’t about the money:
This is about helping our air be cleaner. In a couple of years’ time, TfL has predicted there will be no additional money made because the number of non-compliant vehicles (will decrease).
But if it’s not expected to make money and it won’t make the air appreciably cleaner, what’s the real motive for forcing through such an electorally disastrous policy? Could it be because, as highlighted in yesterday’s Daily Sceptic, Khan is Chair of C40 Cities, an organisation committed to “reducing car ownership” and cutting travel by car? Is it, in other words, the latest move in the global war on the motorist and the crazed scramble to ‘cut emissions’ at the expense of humanity?
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That was reported on GBN a day or two ago. Others made the point that it looks a lot like the old “Poll Tax” (“Community Charge”) that came and went, a few decades ago. The GBN also broadcast part of an interview of Rishi Sunak to the effect that he is criticising the ULEZ extension.
I can reconcile being “happy” that the law is being broken and at the same time not condoning law-breaking. At least … I think I can…
…but using IDS’s argument that “we have been lied to” would justify a huge amount of law-breaking…
Hmm … I’m trying to resolve the cognative dissonance…
Argh … sorry, that should be cognitive dissonance
The fact that the actions could or can be determined as unlawful by some, it will be deemed inevitable by others, Read some Solzhenitsyn, his words of warning have never been more important to read than today. Here is one to start with.
Someone that you have deprived of everything, is no longer in your power, he is once again entirely free.
The Tories are up to their necks in their commitment to net zero, UN2030, ID2021, CBDC, digital identity, building back better, the Marrakesh agreement, the new international health regulations (in his time as Health Sec, Javid was busy boasting about his lead role in drafting the new ‘health treaty’ as he referred to it then), LTNs, EDI, ESG, KYC and any other supranational collectivist project you care to name. They may well choose to make some cynical, short term capital by pretending to be unconvinced about certain developments, or go all wide eyed and claim “we didn’t know…’; but after 13 years, does anyone still believe they actually oppose any of this stuff? We may pay their wages, but it isn’t us they answer to. “Oh, look who I’ve bumped into who’s here to help us achieve net zero…” as our former Energy Secretary helpfully told us, acting surprised.
Doesn’t Duncan Smith saying that rebellion against these restricted zones is ok sort of give away that his party isn’t actually going to do anything to stop them?
If they were, he would be telling us to vote for his party because they’ll put an end to it. But he obviously isn’t saying that.
No one from the Conservative Party has come out saying that the party is against this policy of discriminating against owners of older cars and that they will oppose ot and roll it back the moment they get a chance.
Seems to me like IDS is rebelling against his own party and his own government.
Absolutely, and look how quickly he was forced to water down his comments: the party can judder into action quickly enough when they want it to. Tories’ only function now is to make themselves unelectable (going well), so that Starmer can be installed on “wave of popular support” to implement the full range of Sustainable Development Goals in his first term (conveniently ending just before 2030).
They’re getting themselves into position for post politics jobs in the corporations and supranational organisations calling the shots.
They get brownie points by pushing their agenda while keeping the population pacified.
All political parties do and across all free and open societies.
They even stuck one outside a crematorium! Citizens have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws and fight back against micro, power-mad Dicktator Khant and his unscientific authoritarianism. These Blade Runners are making a meaningful difference by taking action like this and it signals to TPTB that people won’t tolerate being persecuted or walked all over any longer. It also proves to the rest of the bovine masses that they do actually have power, if only they’d get off their backsides and use it. I’d be knighting every last one of them if I could. I’m well impressed with their gumption. Just a shame they’ll have to remain ever-anonymous because they are owed a debt of gratitude by those who don’t wish to be bullied and pushed around for the rest of their lives, as far as I’m concerned. You screw around with people’s lives pushback is inevitable.
https://twitter.com/MartinDaubney/status/1697158168168599951
Agreed, no longer enough to “sit on your ass in the bus of survivors”, as the gentleman sang.
Fantastic post Mogs, I wish I could agree even more. Not possible to.
Ta Ian 🙂
Breaking the cameras might well be illegal. But the law is immoral and wrong. So f**k it, I certainly won’t be paying any LEZ charges or related fines. They can stick it. And three cheers to the Blade Runners.
Breaking government-operated gas chambers was also illegal.
Rosa Parks broke the law, Gandhi broke the law, Martin Luther King broke the law. There is certainly a case to be made for breaking the law for a good reason when it doesn’t harm anyone else.
If the alternative is that families cannot afford heating and food, then who can blame these people for breaking the law?
Absolutely spot on. I hope the groundswell of public opinion grows to the point where it can no longer be ignored.
If 94% of cars in London are compliant then only 6% are responsible for potentially killing a claimed 4 million people.
There are an estimated 2.5M cars in the capital, so there are 150,000 polluters which occupy 1,600 square km, so there are less than 100 polluting cars per sq km, even assuming they are all working at the same time.
They must have pretty lethal exhaust fumes.
Applying logic will get you into trouble, fafor…
Maths is so anti-science.
Luvvit!
Bravo! Your clear logic shows that you do not need to be a scientist to reason, just to have some common sense. This clearly shows there is a separate agenda at work and that pollution, like climate change, is fraudulently being used to achieve it.
Khan claims that he expects that this will stop making money years from now (in a few years worded with a non-mayoral slant) because he expects the number of non-compliant cars to decrease. In other words, Khan stated that it does make money right now and will make money for years to come but this may eventually cease if people update their old used cars to newer used cars as they usually do.
Case close, methinks.
The Khant’s little racket will only cease to make money when he switches to the more ruinous – for all motorists – ‘pay per mile’ scheme.
Emission regulations are also very likely to get tighter over time. In a few years, the cars which are compliant with the most-recent regulations now won’t be compliant with the most-recent regulations then anymore. And ULEZ requirements will almost certainly be updated in line with emission regulations.
The Khan-shaped Bonus Hole will adjust the “compliance” requirements to ensure that his Tax Grab will continue by targeting more and more drivers.
It would take 24 hours for the Government to draft, check, sign and bring into force a Statutory Instrument to amend the Greater London Authority Act …. and stop Khan’s Tax Grab.
It doesn’t even need to go through Parliament, so there would be no opposition.
They’ve chosen not to do it.
Clearly this is not just about money but about Khan’s much wider ambitions under the C40 mayors’ openly declared objectives.
I would not personally sabotage a camera but I have great admiration for those who are breaking the law to register their opposition.
I believe there are many people like me who are naturally law abiding but terrified about the consequences of an unelected globalist cabal imposing measures that are against the public interest.
The science behind climate change is still unsettled and THE SCIENCE, based only on flawed data and questionable computer modelling produced by those with a very clear vested interest in a green agenda, is disputed by many authoritative figures with sophisticated real world evidence to back up their opposition.
We the many are being dictated to by the unelected few seeking to enhance their personal power and finances whilst impoverishing the rest of the world.
This can only end in the tears of poverty and it’s inevitable consequences for the millions and unimaginable power and wealth for a very tiny minority.
Utterly shameful!
Most of Khan’s voting base are ethnics so they’ll be hardest hit. You get what you vote for.
I don’t understand how giving Khan money reduces air pollution. This is simply a Catholic kind of indulgence, a payment to continue to sin. All very strange.
Tory ministers claim that they are powerless to stop Khan’s money grab. How about reducing Central Government grant’s to TfL and /or GLA by the amounts raised by UKEZ expansions? That will establish if it’s all about air quality.
Here we have a sitting MP of the fake Conservative Party raking in nearly £100,000 a year accusing others of lying to the public.