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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As per The Lady of long ago… You sneer all you like, The Gentleman’s not for querying.
Rest in Peace, Maggie.
PS Are you aware of your spirit being alive with us down here somewhere? We need some of it.
If you subscribe to the view that history goes round in cycles, and if you think our present government is going to put us back where we were economically in the 1970s, then perhaps there’s some hope we may see a turnaround akin to the one Margaret oversaw…
I don’t see patterns like that but I fear the date you should have mentioned was 1945-51. Rationing continues and licenses were needed to buy building materials, for example.
And what of your fellow male posters who think women shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near politics, even to vote?
Don’t worry, I’m not expecting a response. After 3.5+ years on here, I know how this goes by now…
I be judgin’ the man by the man’s ideas and actions, Mogwai mi hearty
In other news, I see Trudeau has exited stage left… about time
REJOICE!
Wolves do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.
The Brits are in no position to sneer at anyone on any level. Genuinely an object of laughter and pity throughout the world now, including in the United States. SIxty years ago perhaps you could’ve talked about the crassness and coarseness of the Yanks. Today people like Trump look visionary in comparison to what our political class has to offer. He and the idiot kings that surround him are obviously woefully deficient when it comes to any true leadership but the Brits have sunk so low that they just simmer and boil and rot and sneer inside a goldfish bowl toilet, rolling in the muck of the greatness of their conceit.
Excellent last sentence. Almost poetic
Trump Derangement Syndrome is not just a disease of the Left. Those who you might think should be supporters and labelled far right by the BBC-Guardianistas also show TDS.
Honestly, I just want to see if he actually has any success in shrinking the state.
I’ve always assumed it was a lost cause and only inevitable collapse could bring about a reset.
I’m really curious to see whether this insane central planning system we have can be taken down by design. I remain skeptical, but also open minded.
If Trump has opportunities to sneer I hope he uses them to the max.
I love all the sneering, it just shows what bad loosers they all are. Each twisted little comment is as pointless as all the other twisted comments. They lost, end of.
I am waiting for someone to write a book about the irrational Trump Derangement Syndrome. The propaganda has gone deep.
Only 17 comments. I think I’m wasting my time writing this stuff. Time to take a long holiday.