Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has called for Rishi Sunak to ditch “high-cost green policies” in the wake of the surprise Conservative win at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.
While the Tories suffered substantial defeats in the ‘safe’ seats of Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome, their win in Boris Johnson’s former constituency was credited to a campaign centred on opposing Sadiq Khan’s expansion of London’s Ultra-low Emissions Zone (Ulez). Under the policy around 10% of London’s drivers will be charged £12.50 per day in a bid to lower air pollution.
Sir Jacob, the former Business Secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
You should learn from where the Government has done surprisingly well against the form book, and learn there that high-cost green policies are not popular.
I think the Government should take away the power for these Ulezes which is provided for by legislation… You should go with the grain of what voters are doing anyway. Voters are year in, year out buying cleaner cars with cleaner engines. The development of engines in recent decades have been phenomenal.
Sir John Redwood, Margaret Thatcher’s one-time policy chief, added: “Will Mayor Khan cancel Ulez now voters have told him how unpopular it is? After winning Uxbridge by speaking out against Ulez, will the Government now act to stop so many attacks on motorists?”
Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, wrote on Twitter: “The lesson is surely that green policies are very unpopular when there’s a direct cost to people – as indeed all the polling says. This time that hit Labour. But soon it could be us unless we rethink heat pumps and the 2030 electric car deadline.”
Even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer admitted there was “no denying that Ulez was the reason we didn’t win in Uxbridge”, and said both he and Mr Khan “need to reflect on that”. This followed Deputy Leader Angela Rayner saying Labour has not listened to voters as she acknowledged Londoners cannot afford Ulez. She called for a rethink on the green scheme, which she argued was “at the cost of working families who have basically had enough”.
Nonetheless, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has insisted he is “determined” to press ahead with the punitive tax on many of London’s poorer motorists.
Janet Daley in the Telegraph is on the money, as usual.
Everybody got something last night. Keir Starmer will no doubt claim that the Labour win in Selby, overturning a huge Tory majority, means that they are on an invincible march to victory. The Lib Dems will make their usual claims to inevitable national triumph on the basis of a by-election result.
But the Tories – whose success in Uxbridge was the most minimal squeak – have produced what is probably a more politically interesting result. In what was a marginal seat and so should have been the most readily lost, they actually won. And the reason for this is what should be an invaluable lesson for all three parties.
It was Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to outer London that won it for the Tories. This diabolical scheme to penalise drivers of older cars and van-owning tradesmen in the outer suburbs has aroused a level of rage which must now be a lesson to all serious contenders in the general election. The ramifications go far beyond this single, apparently anomalous, success for the Conservatives.
Could there be a more explicit illustration of the limits to the electorate’s tolerance of supposed green measures, Janet asks. People “are not prepared to sacrifice their entire way of life”. Indeed.
Of course, Ulez is ostensibly not about Net Zero at all but about air quality. But everyone knows when they’re being lied to and that it’s really about the war on the motorist. Besides, as we never tire of pointing out, London’s air quality has never been better.
Stop Press: Rishi Sunak has been advised to scrap the ban on the sale of new petrol- and diesel-driven cars from 2030 in response to the by-election result in Uxbridge. Meanwhile, Ross Clark says in the Telegraph the Ulez revolt could doom Labour at the next General Election.
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Of course, the last thing the Tories want is for Khan to shoot their fix by cancelling ULEZ,
They need Labour councils across the country to announce more of such schemes, Liverpool is just the latest.
Both parties may throttle back for a while but in the main they’ll just change the subject.
Just how dim are these politicians?
Bin net zero. Stop the boats. Home and hosed.
You have no need to worry. In the weeks leading to the GE the Tories will talk a lot about doing exactly what you suggest. In the inconceivable circumstance they form the next government they will carry on as now.
When they become the opposition they will support all Labour policies towards the current policies.
That’s how they’ve won recent elections. Seems like people still believe them.
Still preferable to labour.
Not if returning them to power perpetuates fake right wing government, which it has in recent times
Time for kill or cure
“The lesson is surely that green policies are very unpopular when there’s a direct cost to people”
Don’t all green policies have a massive direct cost to people?
They do. The way I see it is that the green blob wants to make me poorer, cold and hungry, they wouldn’t be concerned if that kills me.
As such I will respond to their policies and proposals in the same way I would respond to an armed intruder in my home.
Yes———-Everything classed as GREEN is worse and dearer. And all for what?
Slightly off topic but reading article prompted me to look at the Uxbridge by-election result. Laurence Fox got fewer votes than the Green Party. How depressing. I know people have mixed feelings about him, but it doesn’t appear that there is even a remote likelihood of the mainstream parties being punished for lockdowns, mass immigration, Ukraine, woke, net zero.
I saw earlier that Laurence was pleased with 4th place, not a great result but he was ahead of the Lib Dem.
The government needs to take immediate control of the two coal-fired power stations that are being decommissioned, given the national grid is being refused access to them this winter. Net Zero is a declaration of war on British people.
“Net Zero is a declaration of war on British people.”
Sadly, we are talking to ourselves when repeating this mantra. Some of our stupid compatriots won’t wake up until their vehicles are physically taken from them.
Yes, wait for the headlines in 2030 where people complain they’re shocked that their local car dealer has closed. And in 2035, when they can no longer acquire spare parts for their old cars and can only fly out of three UK airports for obscene amounts of money. New crime waves will also spring up, with people’s cars being stripped for blackmarket spare parts in their driveways at night!
Anxiety and fear are powerful emotions. “Practical Politics is all about scaring the populace with an endless series of hobgoblins so they will clamour to be led to safety” Mechlen. —————Climate Change is simply the latest hobgoblin, but isn’t it a whopper?
On a commercial note, Vattenfall have pulled out of an offshore wind farm, as the subsidies paid to them from the tax payer via the government, are not enough to make the project viable. Vattenfall refer to subsidies as incentives, but could be construed as backhanders and bribes dependant of point of view.
If it is not commercially viable to build and operate a windfarm then it follows that the product of such endeavours would also be commercially unviable.
“Vattenfall refer to subsidies as incentives, but could be construed as backhanders and bribes dependant of point of view.”
Yet further mangling of the language. We are seriously not far from black equals white and two plus two equals five.
“The lesson is surely that green policies are very unpopular when there’s a direct cost to people….” should have said “…. when the people are aware of the direct costs they suffer”. The media and the government will not tell them.
If they are able to ban petrol cars by 2030 I’ll eat my underpants.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-can-these-celebrity-jab-fanatics-live-with-themselves/
And here’s a small reality check. The celebs pushing the needles.
“And yes, these people – Esther Rantzen, Iain Dale, Tony Blair, Edwina Currie, Boris Johnson, Nick Ferrari, Jonathan Van-Tam, Jeremy Vine and Andrew Neil – really did say and write these things.”
A short list of some truly despicable people. I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. Rancid has apparently got cancer. Ah well, never mind.
I’m only surprised that Rancid hasn’t told us that her cancer would have been worse without the jabs.
Despicable woman and thick as a plank to boot.
Sunak, as globalist puppet leader, must obey the will of his masters on the Net Zero power grab.
You can expect lots of happy talk from him, but zero action.
Losing an election is no problem when his fellow Unaparty agents will continue the ‘plan’.
Reverse ferrets on the way from the Lib, Lab, Cons and once the next GE is out of the way they will go straight back to where they left off.
Who’s going to vote the WEF and the UN out though? Like cockroaches under a cheap hotel door, this is going to keep happening.
Manchester and Andy Burnham are currently poised with their bogus ‘Under Review’ signs over their CAZ. All the cameras and infrastructure are still up. The camera company is allegedly financially affiliated with Burnham’s wife – which is probably way more than allegedly, and this thick as mince puppet has already spent half a billion on this scheme and it has yet to operate for a single day. If anyone wants to join in the great Manchester middle finger to this here’s the FB link..
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greatermanchestercaz
Burnham is a bloody evil POS!
I would caution against the use of measures of particulate matter based purely on size and amount. It does not consider the chemical composition.
Following the report that PM2.5 levels in the underground are higher than overground, and that Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ would drive people into more pollued areas, I bought an air quality meter – a Temtop. It measures PM2.5 and PM10 – that’s 2.5 microns and 10 microns. The former is the most critical because it penetrates further into the lungs.
The results I get are inconclusive because PM2.5 on a nearby grassy park is higher than on a nearby busy road where the fumes are most intrusive. Furthermore, I like to burn Tibetan incense. In a room, that nearly puts the meter off the scale! It is probably not very healthy, but my nose tells me that the traffic fumes are worse.
I looks like am going to have to buy myself another gadget! Any recommendations?
Those of us that suffer from allergy to one or two types of pollen or fungal spores know well that it’s not just the amount! It depends on what is actually airborne, what else is around, humidity, etc.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-infernal-nonsense/
And from TCW here is Paul Homewood’s excellent weekly demolition job on the eco nutters, net zero lunacy.
Schwab says NO.
Dear Eco Socialist Pretend to Save the Planet Politician. ——–How much is NET ZERO going to cost ? ————You don’t know do you?. ——–Oh, so isn’t that a bit like saying your going to buy a yacht but have no clue at all about yachts? —-Yes it is. You have no clue about cost, no clue about benefit, and no clue whether the technologies required for your absurdity could ever be invented. But you are going to do it anyway. Isn’t it the case that you are Eco Lemmings walking of a Green Cliff because all the other Lemmings at the UN are doing it? ———-YES IT IS. ————2 weeks ago Grant Schapps was asked “Are heat pumps any good”? ———He replied “I don’t know”——ha ha ha aha jeez. He doesn’t know. That is right. None of them know what they are doing. They are a shower of green parasites.
As my old dad used to say——–“When in doubt do NOTHING”. We know that it is only fools and fanatics that are so sure of themselves, and only fools and fanatics would enter into a policy (NET ZERO) where the cost is unknown, the benefits unknown and the means of achieving it unknown. ———The best policy is therefore DO NOTHING.
I’m still entirely at a loss how a London usage tax for people who can’t afford new cars is supposed to improve air quality. If older cars were causing a serious pollution problems, the only way to solve that would be to ban their usage. You can poison Londoners all you want, provided you chuck over £12.50 to me first! is an outright weird concept for a policy that’s actually supposed to accomplish anything except making money.
It’s to fund his personal caliphate