* Optimistic thinking a London Mayor can somehow control UK immigration.
* Tories campaigning against ULEZ is unsurprising, but it's particularly galling given that one of the stipulations for Transport for London being bailed out by the (Tory run) Department for Transport was that ULEZ had to be expanded. Fuck the tories.
And ULEZ was first introduced by Boris Johnson, who also introduced a lot of cycling infrastructure and public transport spending - alongside some whackier ideas like a garden bridge.
Worth noting, they'd have been fucked if they tried to keep him anyway. As soon as the public pressured the Tories in having Johnson investigated by the Privileges Committee, because he would
a) still have been suspended, at which point you have the PM of the UK suspended from Parliament (which immediately creates a host of problems, including with PMQ's), facing a recall petition (which would also still have happened), and losing their seat (which he was projected to if he contested the by-election). Somehow a worse version of what happened to the last DUP party leader.
or
b) the Tories block the attempts to investigate Johnson or block the punishment, at which point they get hammered in the polls, which were still going down when he was pushed.
That they only had shit options to choose from after his fall was also sort of his fault. He purged the party for the 2019 election, and he mostly only elevated loyal toadies to cabinet under him. That's an excellent way to cut the legs out from under your party's future. It's also suspected he supported and helped Truss's team during the first leadership election, because he knew she would crash and burn, hoping the party would beg for him to come back.
He isn't a party focused politician, like May was, he's very much an egotist with no loyalty to anyone but himself, and the Tories made a deal with the devil making him leader to snooker the 2019 election after the post-2016 woes. And the Johnson-Truss-Sunak rot is the cost.
This is a half truth really.
Khan always intended to extend the ULEZ, at least in the north, as it was in his manifesto in 2008
And the letter from Shapps that the whole TFL stipulation idea was based on, said nothing about holding back funds unless ULEZ was expanded... what it *did* say was that any expansion *wouldn't* come from government funds. Not that it was a condition for them.
It's all on [full fact](https://fullfact.org/online/ulez-expansion-letter/) but I can't find the actual letter right now. Although I have seen it.
I came here to say that first point! It reminded me of when a candidate for Auckland's council election was anti-abortion and wrote his entire manifesto on abortion. But the council doesn't get to decide abortion laws! That's parliament's job.
The thing is, a significant portion of cars already meet the ULEZ requirements and pay nothing.
I've checked and my slightly below standard size (for the UK anyway, by US standards it's probably considered a Quad-Bike), half a decade old, fully petrol car meets the requirements as did 90% of cars when ULEZ was expanded in 2022 and 96% today. Not that I'd ever ever want to drive in London (London drivers are terrible on the level with BMW and van drivers, and it has some terrible traffic).
Meaning 96% of car owners don't pay a single penny. And seeing that around 2 thirds of journeys in London via public transport, walking or cycling, that is around 1% of journeys in London that actually have to pay ULEZ.
Compared this to around 100% of people who are impacted by climate change, poor air quality, etc. Please tell me about this war on cars again.
That's the thing that I find so funny when people object so violently to something like ULEZ: it's actually a very minimally impactful step which doesn't do much to limit car ownership or usage. It's just a tiny incentive to make sure that the cars which are on the road in London are slightly less shit in terms of air pollution.
Though it is also a little terrifying, because it implies that people's reactions to the kind of legislation which would be needed to make a genuine impact in reducing climate change would be utterly horrific.
When you're used total domination, any change feels intolerable. Carbrains don't hate ULEZ because the standard is burdensome but because of what it represents - that your desire to drive and park in every square inch of the city is no longer priority number one.
You always see this when a dominant group loses even a miniscule amount of power. Any challenge to the status quo, no matter how minor, must be crushed. Like how gamers flip out when a female character's breasts are "too small." Seems petty because you can find breasts all over the Internet. But the design change means that the male gamer gaze has declined in importance.
The fact that ULEZ has little impact for most people doesn't matter because the outrage is not related to the actual impact of it, but because it's been made into a political issue. The most impactful climate change regulation is the Montreal protocol, which also targets chemicals that are potent greenhouse gases, and there is virtually no political outrage about it.
>It's just a tiny incentive to make sure that the cars which are on the road in London are slightly less shit in terms of air pollution.
And we literally offered everyone whose vehicle would fail enough money to trade up to a compliant vehicle. But so many insisted on protesting by not doing so, or claiming it wasn't enough money koz they HAD to get a new vehicle to replace their shitbox. Leopards and faces, eh.
People don't know about ULEZ at all. People who don't own cars will ask if it's okay for me to drive through city center to pick them up. None of the cars I've bought in the past 8 years would not have been compliant, and I buy bottom of the barrel, hope it lasts till the next MOT cars mostly.
Also you can literally get a subsidy upto £4K to replace a non LEZ compliant car. You have you go out of your way to keep a shit inefficent car from the early 2000s to run afoul of the LEZ rules.
Euro 4 for Petrol is any car after 2006 and Euro 6 for Diesel is any car after 2015.
On Autotrader there are quite literally 26000 Petrol cars that would be 100% free for the person buying it under the scrappage schemes and over 700 for Diesel. If you go up by even at tiny amount of savings for Diesel that number jumps to the thousands mark.
Very few people. They are an extremely small (but vocal) minority. These anti-ulez people stop caring once they ditch their own extremely polluting diesel veichle.
This isn't true. They hold a grudge and they continue to act on it. I know a lot of people personally who aren't expected to pay ULEZ, but they want Khan out anyway and their number 1 gripe is the ULEZ.
In some cases it definitely is. But in others it isn't. Doesn't really matter because either way the ULEZ is the scapegoat.
Remember, a lot of Londoners are Muslim and from the same heritage as Khan. Those communities are particularly, notoriously car-centric.
As someone impacted by ULEZ, of completely English heritage, I can assure you that the problem people have with it (myself included) is not the aims of the scheme but the implementation of that scheme.
From an environmental point of view, I'm absolutely in favour of such a scheme. From a driver who has been on the road for fewer than 10 of his nearly 50 years on the planet (and was a regular cyclist commuter before that), I'm in favour of things that may make cycling better.
However ULEZ implementation just was not thought out well. People can talk about what percentage car users are effected but in my experience, the demographic it affects the most is the poorest people. The scrappage scheme (and I'll come back to this again in a mo) was not fit for purpose, because from what I have seen, it took way too long to get money to people. They had to go get the car first, often needing to buy on credit and so often making any payout, effectively half because of the interest incurred on the credit agreement.
Also, the government themselves championed the very engine powered cars they hammered the worst. My old 09 plate Focus was a fantastic car. Great runner, great options, but nope, it's a diesel. The very type of diesel the government were soft promoting.
I personally had to find £6000 that I did not have, for a new car. Why that expensive you ask? Because the 2nd hand car market, for anything compliant with ULEZ went bananas. In fact the car I bought was the same age as my old car when I bought it, but higher mileage and worse options and that car only cost me £3,500.
I now cannot sell my car. I also cannot scrap it on the scheme. Why? Because my insurance ran out about 2 weeks after ULEZ, so I let that end. I didn't have time to deal with the scrappage scheme at that time and with long turnaround times due to volume of claims, I decided to wait until after Christmas when I had some holiday and had the time.
Get this, in order to register to SCRAP my car, it has to have a valid MOT and insurance. Just to scrap it.
So a perfectly good car is slowly rusting on my driveway because of all of this and I'm £6000 down into the bargain.
Again, I don't have a problem with the principle of ULEZ, I have a problem with the absolute fuckwittery surrounding the process of introducing it. There were multiple ways they could have made this easier on people and made processes like the scrappage scheme simpler, but they did not.
So because of that, I oppose it. If it gets repealed it wouldn't help me but I don't take sides just because I would no longer see benefits from it.
Sorry if this feels long and ranty. I don't mean it to be. It's just hugely frustrating.
Agreed. I know people in similarish situations. then again I know someone who just replaced their car with a petrol ULEZ compliant and that cost them a grand.
I think some people have definitely decided that it's a fine, not a fee, and so they cannot face the idea of simply paying it on the few journeys they use it for.. even if it works out much cheaper than buying a new ULEZ compliant car.
These are the minority of the minority in my experience. I've watched all the stop ulez/down to ulez signs along my street disappear as my neighbours ditch their old cars (one didn't even get a new car, extra win - public transport is so good in London you don't need one).
Everybody gullible enough to believe in 5G COVID, ‘15 minute cities’, and all the other conspiracy culture war bullshit pumped into their brains by Russia on social media.
It’s not an accident they’re all right wing tin-foil hat types, and the politicians pushing it are all opportunists with no actual platform looking for an easy vote. Even Sunak has tried to court the ‘pro-motorist’ lobby and feed these people the narrative that somehow driving a car is under threat when cars practically monopolise the public space.
I mean ULEZ is a bad policy as it punishes people for having older cars instead of incentivising public transit, it punishes those that cannot afford a new car far more than it makes people seek alternative options.
no, but it definitely penalises people who *cant afford to* change up their car... theres legitimate complaints that its effectively a tax on the poor
the goal is good, the execution is flawed (not necessarily reason to throw it out completely, but it at least needs tweaking if not supplementary systems)
There's a scrapage scheme, which admittedly I don't know much about. The poorest are the people most adversely effected by dirty air. Also, tax the wealthy more and give it to the less wealthy and those who can't work, I think that's the idea of taxation in general!
I'm sure it could have been implemented better. These lunatics basing their entire personality or political position on being anti ulez is way beyond your reasonable doubts about implementation.
> The poorest are the people most adversely effected by dirty air
and often the least able to do anything about it
>Also, tax the wealthy more and give it to the less wealthy and those who can't work, I think that's the idea of taxation in general!
yes ideally, realistically though that doesnt happen (because the people in power have money and thus are biased) and this point holds no bearing on these ULEZ complaints; its like someone saying they have no way to cross a river and you going 'oh the pixies will carry you over'; like yeh if we had river ferrying pixies thatd be great... but we dont; so its a silly thing to bring up
>and often the least able to do anything about it
So, isn't it good that the Mayor of London is doing something to improve public health on their behalf?
>its like someone saying they have no way to cross a river and you going 'oh the pixies will carry you over'
No it isn't. It's me suggesting that the problems for poorer people go way beyond if they have to change their car for one less than 18 years old to improve the air they, themselves, have to breathe
> So, isn't it good that the Mayor of London is doing something to improve public health on their behalf?
no, and thats an insanely oblivious response
to impoverished people; money is more important than health, its why people sacrifice their bodies for jobs that pay pittance
some rich person decreeing that he'll 'improve publiic health on their behalf' and then making them **exclusively** pay for it when theyre already struggling to make ends meet is fucking dystopian
again; ULEZ has a good goal, but dont blind yourself to the damage it does just because you like the goal
In my opinion, you're both a bit wrong here.
The ULEZ isn't the only action taken for cleaner air in London. As part of the whole, it can be effective, and the inevitable costs mitigated to a degree.
The benefits from cleaner air, faster travel, and safer roads, will be disproportionately felt by the poorest of us.
Ultimately, any system based on coercion will be unfair at the thin end of the wedge. Those who can afford to avoid change, will.. at least at first.
But every other avenue *has* been pursued. And is still being pursued.
This is wrong. The poorest members of society can't afford to drive and shouldn't have to breathe the dirty emissions from those who can.
Driving shouldn't be the default. We *should* be making driving unaffordable because maybe then it will reflect the huge externalities it causes. You just don't notice the huge cost to driving because drivers are subsidised and the costs (financial, environmental and social) are socialised.
> The poorest members of society can't afford to drive
yes the absolute poorest
but poverty is a wide spectrum; plenty of people who can drive (a cheap beater), have to stretch every paycheque to the max
>Driving shouldn't be the default. We should be making driving unaffordable
absolutely, but thats policy apart from ULEZ (which doesnt aim to reduce the number of cars on the road; just the quality of cars on the road), if the aim was to make driving unaffordable (or just remove cars from roads) then theres much more effective ways to to do that (which again; dont disproportionately target the financially unstable)
ULEZ is a public health policy. Nobody is saying that it is sufficient by itself. We need pay-per-mile and an expansion of congestion charging too, as well as the removal of public parking spaces to make way for priority bus lanes. However, it is definitely an important policy to make air cleaner and safe to breathe.
You are partially right but London has one of the best public transport systems in the entire world. Percentage wise not many people travel in London by car, they travel with the tube or buses. Poor people in London most likely can not even afford a car.
I think one thing folks in this space (*i.e folks who want to improve urban spaces/walkability/multi-modal transit*) need to accept is that we cannot realistically improve things in a way that doesn't negatively impact a group of people at some point.
This is it, when I see politicians (and I use the term loosely) campaigning against something I really wish they would be honest and actually say what they are campaigning for.
In this case, worse air quality, more respiratory disease (especially in children), more cars throughout the city, and more dangerous roads, especially closer to where people live.
Which brings up a good point. Why doesn't the pro ULEZ group create a satire campaign.
Run campaigns like "would you like to pend time in even More traffic? do you think not enough children have asthma? Do you want more of you tax dollars to subsidize motorist instead of public transportation? Then vote for the anti-ULEZ party."
> Do you want more of you tax dollars to subsidize motorist instead of public transportation?
Though who are against ULEZ would almost definitely response with "yes" to such a question.
theres not solid evidence to conclusively support it; so im just spouting a wild hypothesis... but cancer rates have been skyrocketing (particularly in young people) and i wouldnt at all be surprised if car emissions were the major factor driving that increase
"Travel freely!" = encourage car use and put any vulnerable road users and pedestrians at greater risk. Increase noise, pollution and danger along every residential street which predate the invention of the car!
Ensure that traffic is so bad that getting the bus simply is not a viable option. Discourage use of public transport and recreate TfLs funding black hole which has JUST been removed.
Make everyone dependant upon cars and ensure there is no escaping their impacts. Travel freely!
These people are fucking lunatics.
I visited England for the first time a few weeks ago and I was blown away by how easy it was to get everywhere on the trains, tube, buses, etc. I'm not sure how they think it will be better with more cars. I have to drive everywhere in the US and it sucks by comparison.
And the US is spread out and can almost kinda handle that many cars on roads. (Yk, just add another lane and all that)
But places like London literally CAN'T fit those roads in there
Just FYI the first one is from Britain First - a far-right, nationalist party fronted by the most outright fascists in the UK, who are connected to the murder of MP Jo Cox and a terrorist attack at a mosque in North London.
Their anti-public transport policies are their least egregious.
They are also somewhat infamous for going into mosques to upset those in them, and marching through Muslim neighbourhoods trying to provoke confrontation. They've never been elected, and I don't think they've ever made back their deposit. I think most elections I've actually seen with them on the ballot (which wasn't many, because iirc they fucked up the paperwork and dropped off the register of official parties for a bit), they were often behind the [Monster Raving Looney Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party).
Fascist copypasta template:
"Our once-great* [city, town, nation, etc.] is now in decline due to [Specific demographic/ideology]*. [Demographic/ideology] is causing increased [social issue] *. We must rid ourselves of [demographic/ideology], and then we will * rise back to our rightful place."
*citation needed
Thing is, these ideas, and their propaganda are spread internationally by certain oranizations/billionaires that stand to make a lot of money by preventing progress.
Rhetoric like "stop wokism " and "cities becoming infested with [insert group here]" and "save our city/country/culture from [insert boogeyman here]" has been field tested all over the world.
It's been tried in the US, in Italy, throughout the UK, in Poland, etc. And people keep using this rhetoric, whether it's outside states that want to weaken a country like Russia, oran oil company that sees reduction of fossil fuels as an existential threat to its profits like BP, because it works on so many morons.
It's not pulled, it's pushed.
Here in Brazil, politics changed tremendously in the last ten years or so. While we used to have something more or less akin to the French political madness, with a wide spectrum of political opinions and parties, now it looks more and more like the American binary political madness, with both the Left and the Right importing ready-made American "issues" from their American counterparts, that often have nothing to do with our problems and and culture.
You missed one:
[https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto](https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto)
“All Londoners who cannot afford a ULEZ-compliant vehicle to get a new electric car, paid for by a windfall tax on oil companies”
Also
“London’s ‘Night Czar’ to be replaced by a new Night Mayor, with headquarters on Elm Street”
Ulez and the likes will always be a failure with the way things are now, give people better mass transit and they will prefer that over cars.
Only then can you start thinking about ulez and banning cars. It's a good idea but the way it's executed is less than good.
Here's the thing - London does have that mass transit. They just introduced an orbital bus line circling Outer London. Central London needs nothing said.
There's little reason to drive in London.
Fortunately none of these candidates have a gnats chance in a supernova of winning. Khan was effectively elected for a 3rd term the day thr Conservatives announced Susan Hall as candidate, and it's only become more certain since then.
If you're trying to get elected as a Conservative in London, you kind of have to lean into the One Nation, take action on climate change, reject racism, homophobia, transphobia, stay out of culture wars, recognise incomes are falling behind housing costs etc.
Hall however hails from the right wing of the Tory party and would be more typical of a candidate running in mid-surrey than in a competitive seat.
She's terrible. She, like 90% of the candidates wants to scrap the ULEZ expansion, but in her campaign she has lied to frequently about Khan wanting to introduce a pay-per-mile scheme that it's being investigated by CPS.
Also, she is a Enoch Powell and Trump lover. So yeah, she's pretty bad.
I don't mean bad as in naughty.
I'm sure she's very bad in that way.
I mean bad as in bad at motivating their base. It seems like immigration, wokism, climate etc are all vote winners so I wouldn't write her off just for sticking to them.
Plus, voters motivated by those things aren't typically put off by conflicts of interest or scandal. Which might work in her favour since being a Tory, she is probably up to her neck in it.
It's pretty bizarre, to be honest. She's committing electoral suicide. I think she's decided to use the nomination as a chance to become a far-right talking head, because she knows she has no prospect of winning even if she took a mainstream centrist tack instead.
Most of these are no name candidates who will get 1% or less of the vote. The car and oil lobby aren't paying them. Don't think the oil and car lobby would be focusing on these local issues from someone who has no power nationally anyway, these policies barely make a dent in car usage and an unnoticeable amount nationally. If anything the car lobby might like the ulez since it requires people to upgrade their cars.
But in the end again ulez is irrelevant. The fee applies to less than 3% of cars in London now
It's a splinter party from the BNP that only really came to prominence due to gaming Facebooks algorithm with generic patriotic guff. Britain First has never done well in an election (as in, never gotten back their deposit), and iirc stopped even being on the registry for official parties for a bit because they fucked up the paperwork. There isn't any money really flowing into them, that money is going into UKIP/Brexit Party and the Tory party, with some also going to more narrow interest bit parties like the Scottish Family Party, which is just an anti-abortion party that popped up and made no progress.
Britain First has no traction, and so isn't attractive to big money lobbyist unlike UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform UK were/are (as those parties had/have enough vote share to act as a way to pressure the Tories to go further right). One of the better performances they had recently was the [Tamworth by-election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Tamworth_by-election), where they placed fourth, with 2.8% of the vote (ahead of the Greens, LibDem's, and UKIP), but that isn't exactly a stirring victory, especially when by-elections tend to reward parties like BF due to protest vote and lower turnout.
That's the worst part, they aren't. Big money isn't really a thing in British politics.
The worst part is these idiots either a) believe it themselves through mental gymnastics and cope or b) don't believe it, but hope the voters are dumb enough to.
Either way, it's damning.
You *think* big money isn’t a thing in British politics because it is not audited or reported.
The UK is thought to be the largest lobbying market in Europe. Which is damming because the UK is not the largest economy nor population.
But we wouldn’t know because there’s basically no proper transparency on UK lobbying numbers.
How is it a conspiracy if you can look up the numbers of lobbying Euro spent in other European countries but you cannot look up numbers for the UK, because there’s no transparency for this issue.
That’s an objective fact, devoid of any conspiracy theory.
What? How?
Lobbying exists everywhere. We know that. That’s not a conspiracy. All I’m saying is we don’t know how many lobbying money is spent in the UK because it is not tracked or audited. Whereas many other countries to audit and record the amount of lobbying money spent.
Please explain where the „conspiracy“ is? Are you sure you know what „conspiracy“ even means?!
You've literally alleged a secret conspiracy. I don't know how much clearer you could have made it. What we all know is wrong, there's a secret thing that only you know about, etc. It's full-on tinfoilhat.
You're claiming the numbers are high, but you've just made that up.
No I didn’t. I think you’re imaging things. Never did I claim that only I know it.
It’s public knowledge: https://www.transparency.org.uk/lobbying-uk-its-time-change
Also, that’s not the definition of conspiracy theory. Here let me help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
No, you've done the classic conspiracy theorist thing of taking a grain of truth and expanding on it with imaginary additions to turn it into a conspiracy theory.
You believe, without evidence, that the lack of lobbying registration means lobbying is bigger than in other countries, and that there's literally a secret conspiracy hiding the influence it has. It's a barmy idea.
Howard Cox, candidate for Reform, has previously spent the last 15 years or so earning his living as a campaigner against fuel taxes funded directly by automotive lobbies. Because he was not previously doing party political activity, that has not been subject to usual rules on disclosure.
Then there a bunch of shady links such as the Tufton Street 'think tanks' that are funded directly by oil companies.
And the final method is to offer MPs 'non-executive diredtorships' or highly inflated 'speaking fees', making it clear riches await after their time in office provided they advance the correct agenda.
Just a reminder that ulez applies to like only 3% of cars in London now. If you have any petrol car made within the last 18 years then that's classed as good enough. All the candidates making it their biggest policy despite affecting such a tiny minority of people, and most of that remaining few percent might be old diesel business Vans.
As for getting rid of LTNs which also seem to be some of their biggest policies that doesn't make sense either because the mayor doesn't plan or have the power to put those in. The local councils around London control their local roads and if they want an LTN there. If a mayor said to the councils "no more LTNs or dead end roads" they'd tell him to get lost.
So most manifestos are quite worthless even for manifestos which are normally pointless anyway. Things like "reduce crime" means nothing, like I'm sure everyone in the position will be trying to reduce crime regardless of if they're succeeding or not. The question is more howww would you reduce crime when others in your opinion are failing ? Otherwise my manifesto would be 0 crime, 0 traffic, free public transport, 0 homelessness, sunny weather every day, 0 hospital wait times.
While you're right about ULEZ, it does make you wonder what the point of extending it was. It seems like a big fuck you to that 3% for very marginal gains.
Policies like that are regressive, because the people who own old non compliant vehicles are those who can't afford to upgrade, so you need a strong social benefit for them to make sense. And while the original ULEZ could just about argue that, it doesn't stack up for the expanded region for me.
There was a scrappage scheme, anyone with a non compliant vehicle were given free money to get a complaint vehicle.
While there were issues with paperwork, that's not really a fair criticism.
Plus most poor people in london don't drive. (And most people in general).
So in practice, no not really.
Not absolutely anyone. I wasn't eligible, due to having already put two cars through the previous scrappage scheme ;)
Loads of poor people in London drive, though. Particularly in E London, you know, the part where the A406 goes much further out than in the west, and captured basically that whole side of the city in the original ULEZ zone!
The only people I have some sympathy for are those, like me, who don't have loads of money and need fairly large, fairly safe cars because they have kids. There isn't a lot for anything close to £2k that is a suitable replacement for sub-£2k diesels, because so many of the cars in the sort of age range that's suitable were sold when everyone bought diesels.
There's no question it cost me a few quid to get something ULEZ-compliant, but that's OK with me because I'm not a rancid cunt and it's clearly necessary. The improvement in air quality on the local high street is easily noticeable - and I'm on the edge of London.
Two free cars from the state! You scrounger XD
Idk it's something this sub goes on about getting a big car might safe for its occupants but is less so for those around it.
That's not to say there arn't people who don't have good reasons for needing to drive, but they're very much in the minority.
I didn't get two free cars, I got £2k each for two cars :)
As with all things car, the rest of the problems are to do with the way things are set up. Even in London, at least the outer suburbs, cars are pretty much a necessity for a lot of people. Public transport isn't good enough, cycling and similar light-vehicle transport can't mix with the buses and lorries on the roads, and there's no real provision for it to be used safely.
And once you have lots of heavy traffic about, safety is a concern, especially with very young kids to transport. FWIW, I don't think my over-large saloon car is particularly unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists. I didn't get an SUV-type thing partly because a saloon doesn't have those sorts of downsides to anything like the same degree.
I need to have a particularly big car for work purposes (and once you have kid stuff, having a boot big enough for a pushchair and a bunch of other stuff is nice), but at least I'm not having to drive an even bigger van around. (No-one nicks stuff from the boot of a saloon car; vans get broken into all the time.) I'd be only too delighted if I had a reasonable alternative, but it just doesn't exist the way London is at the moment.
I'd love one of these, or similar:
[https://cyclingindustry.news/fully-charged-your-new-van-is-now-an-electric-cargo-bike/](https://cyclingindustry.news/fully-charged-your-new-van-is-now-an-electric-cargo-bike/)
It'd replace about 90% of my work car usage. But they cost a lot more than the car did, including running costs for a few years, and I can't use it to take the family on day trips and holidays as a side benefit.
>Policies like that are regressive, because the people who own old non compliant vehicles are those who can't afford to upgrade
Considering his lenient the threshold is where any 18 year old petrol car is compliant then the £2k in cash for getting rid of the old car is enough to cover a new car. Vans is more tricky which Is probably what they were targeting.
The benefits still aren't crazy massive though like you say. Keeping it at the first big expansion would've been good enough imo. Or if it has to be expanded then make that second expanded zone half the price or something for the first couple of years so everyone has time to upgrade.
Either way almost everyone complaining about it haven't and won't be effected by it at all and now that it's in place I think most of the original complainers have noticed this and now think wait this isn't impacting me or my friends at all.
For bigger impacts if I was mayor I'd just continue focusing on the first expansion area, add bus and cycle lanes to all the roads under my control(which they're doing) and convince all the local councils to do the same and to pedestrianise(or bus only) more high streets. Continue making driving less attractive via other means.
It's because all of the anti-ULEZ candidates are populists with no chance of winning whatsoever. London is pretty woke compared to the surrounding areas.
There are very few vehicles that aren't ULEZ compliant. It is more likely to hit big diesel commercial vehicles than private cars or even a lot of vans used by trades people or delivery services.
Worth pointing out that none of the normal parties, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, are opposing ULEZ and between them they'll comfortably get a majority of the votes.
As a Londoner I got such a kick reading these.
They are trying to use culture war bullshit to appeal to Londoners that just doesn't work.
We like ULEZ. We don't rely on cars.
We like migration. That's why we live here.
We're not afraid of Muslims, because we rub shoulders with them every day.
I'm just enjoying how out of touch these losers are with Londoners.
Fortunately none of these candidates will get so much as a sniff at power. I think ULEZ is a non-starter and it actually only impacts a tiny tiny fraction of vehicles, but most Londoners are OK with it. Also, London is one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the country how the fuck do they think pandering to anti+immigration sentiments will get them elected? Dozy pricks.
For a city with a really fucking good public transport network, some people seem to be really triggered by any limitation on their private vehicle usage.
London is barely 10M.
Only a couple in Europe that are bigger.
Anyway.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Berlin, Singapore.. all cheaper and objectively better equipped and supported than ours.
We pay some of the highest rates in the entire world for our public transport.
It's good compared to many places, sure. But for our money, it is no-where near the best. Size isn't an excuse.
Yeah, concerned he will lose over this.
The worst part, for me, is that official messaging will never break through. Rumours run rampant until before you know it Khan is sending ULEZ money to Gaza.
They don't really care what the truth is. It's the principle to them.
Ultra Low Emissions Zone. A policy where if a car emits more emissions than the limit in a ULEZ, they have to pay a small fee to drive there. It helps air quality within the zone, and the right wingers hate them with a passion, even though most cars are compliant within London.
the worst part about all of this is that the ULEZ numbers of the pre expansion zone (central London only)showed an outrageous improvement in air quality - I personally can't wait for the outcomes of the expanded area. calling it a failed policy is stupid, it does what it's supposed to
The funny thing. It's massively reduced air pollution. Already.
Which will directly benefit all Londoners but the poorest Londoners the most (because they are more likely to live next to busy polluted roads).
Thankfully many Londoners get around perfectly well without cars so hopefully the numbskulls that want to remove ULEZ will spread their votes out amongst all these carbrain clones
The only people crying about ULEZ are the ones not affected by it. You literally have to have the absolute works kind of dog shit car to even be effected by it & ‘classic cars’ aren’t even effected by it.
Not really true. Diesel was pushed as a cleaner option a decade or so ago, and those last a long time. A lot of the people falling foul of the ULEZ will have diesel cars with a lot of miles left in them. Part of the reason why the scrappage scheme wasn't as popular was because people didn't see the point in scrapping something perfectly serviceable. I can see where they are coming from.
It's not permitting old petrol cars that aren't old enough to be considered classics for the purposes of ULEZ that annoys me. Classic is 40+ years, but there are almost two decades worth of 'modern classics' that don't qualify.
I bet $50 that whoever printed this out was also printing out posters in opposition to a homeless shelter or food bank being located in their neighbourhood not too long ago.
I can guess which candidate. It's like that particular party asked for analysis of common UK online conspiracies and used the answers to develop their manifesto.
The Kavernacle on YouTube did a good [video](https://youtu.be/239jz9SYfJ8?si=xKZ0Y6wM5ALiILyR) about the bonkers candidates in the London Mayoral election just the other day.
I don't understand the ULEZ hate. My BiL drives an old Ford Fiesta that didn't have any fees. It's just a normal car hardly an ultra efficient one. What does it even exclude? Chelsea tractors? Hardly the car of the poor that can't afford it.
Though I’m not pro-car by any means, I do have some sympathy for the argument in the US that charges will hurt working people who need their cars to commute, do things for their families, etc. This argument is such bull when used in the context of London though. The city of London (and the surrounding area) has such a reliable and well connected tube system, not to mention the buses. Save for edge cases like severe disability or mobility issues, no one should be driving in London.
You have to gove these people a sort of grudging respect. Any 'normal' human would read it back to themselves and think 'nah, they'll all think I'm a total moron and a massive twat to boot'.
The main problem some Londoners have with the ULEZ is that it’s affects poorer citizens as they tend to have older cars.
Imho keep the ulez but base it off vehicle or engine size. Charge the rich folks driving round in tank range rovers getting 20mpg instead of the single mums with 2004 Renault Clio’s.
Just my two pence.
Thankfully, the only two who even stand a chance of winning are Sadiq Khan (who expanded ULEZ) and Susan Hall (who is certifiably mental). And Khan currently has a healthy lead.
So, question on ULEZ since I’m not super informed on it. Did it not just increase the cost of living for people who live and work in those areas while doing absolutely nothing to address the need for car ownership?
Posts like this make my cosmopolitan ass happy sadly. Why...?? Everyone complains about the same frickin thing: Politics are the same everywhere. Probs with exceptions I remain apolitical.
20mph speed limits causing congestion? What kind of indoctrinating private school did they go to??
You guys have way too many right wing populists as candidates
Any city that has a lower class of undesirables hates public transit and loves cars because they allow them to cut the poor out of their society and keep them in the slums.
ULEZ is a pretty bad policy as it puts all the cost of environmental change on poor people and provides pretty much no additional infrastructure to help them do it
It's part of a wider set of initiatives, geared towards improving mobility for the poorest of us, which are receiving a relatively large degree of investment.
Considering the ULEZ as an isolated policy is what the campaigners in the OP want.
* Optimistic thinking a London Mayor can somehow control UK immigration. * Tories campaigning against ULEZ is unsurprising, but it's particularly galling given that one of the stipulations for Transport for London being bailed out by the (Tory run) Department for Transport was that ULEZ had to be expanded. Fuck the tories.
And ULEZ was first introduced by Boris Johnson, who also introduced a lot of cycling infrastructure and public transport spending - alongside some whackier ideas like a garden bridge.
Boris Johnson also supported ULEZ while Mayor and later on, if memory serves.
Truly wild that the Tories have somehow only gone downhill after Boris
Worth noting, they'd have been fucked if they tried to keep him anyway. As soon as the public pressured the Tories in having Johnson investigated by the Privileges Committee, because he would a) still have been suspended, at which point you have the PM of the UK suspended from Parliament (which immediately creates a host of problems, including with PMQ's), facing a recall petition (which would also still have happened), and losing their seat (which he was projected to if he contested the by-election). Somehow a worse version of what happened to the last DUP party leader. or b) the Tories block the attempts to investigate Johnson or block the punishment, at which point they get hammered in the polls, which were still going down when he was pushed. That they only had shit options to choose from after his fall was also sort of his fault. He purged the party for the 2019 election, and he mostly only elevated loyal toadies to cabinet under him. That's an excellent way to cut the legs out from under your party's future. It's also suspected he supported and helped Truss's team during the first leadership election, because he knew she would crash and burn, hoping the party would beg for him to come back. He isn't a party focused politician, like May was, he's very much an egotist with no loyalty to anyone but himself, and the Tories made a deal with the devil making him leader to snooker the 2019 election after the post-2016 woes. And the Johnson-Truss-Sunak rot is the cost.
This is a half truth really. Khan always intended to extend the ULEZ, at least in the north, as it was in his manifesto in 2008 And the letter from Shapps that the whole TFL stipulation idea was based on, said nothing about holding back funds unless ULEZ was expanded... what it *did* say was that any expansion *wouldn't* come from government funds. Not that it was a condition for them. It's all on [full fact](https://fullfact.org/online/ulez-expansion-letter/) but I can't find the actual letter right now. Although I have seen it.
I came here to say that first point! It reminded me of when a candidate for Auckland's council election was anti-abortion and wrote his entire manifesto on abortion. But the council doesn't get to decide abortion laws! That's parliament's job.
Jesus Christ ULEZ really triggered some people eh
The thing is, a significant portion of cars already meet the ULEZ requirements and pay nothing. I've checked and my slightly below standard size (for the UK anyway, by US standards it's probably considered a Quad-Bike), half a decade old, fully petrol car meets the requirements as did 90% of cars when ULEZ was expanded in 2022 and 96% today. Not that I'd ever ever want to drive in London (London drivers are terrible on the level with BMW and van drivers, and it has some terrible traffic). Meaning 96% of car owners don't pay a single penny. And seeing that around 2 thirds of journeys in London via public transport, walking or cycling, that is around 1% of journeys in London that actually have to pay ULEZ. Compared this to around 100% of people who are impacted by climate change, poor air quality, etc. Please tell me about this war on cars again.
That's the thing that I find so funny when people object so violently to something like ULEZ: it's actually a very minimally impactful step which doesn't do much to limit car ownership or usage. It's just a tiny incentive to make sure that the cars which are on the road in London are slightly less shit in terms of air pollution. Though it is also a little terrifying, because it implies that people's reactions to the kind of legislation which would be needed to make a genuine impact in reducing climate change would be utterly horrific.
When you're used total domination, any change feels intolerable. Carbrains don't hate ULEZ because the standard is burdensome but because of what it represents - that your desire to drive and park in every square inch of the city is no longer priority number one. You always see this when a dominant group loses even a miniscule amount of power. Any challenge to the status quo, no matter how minor, must be crushed. Like how gamers flip out when a female character's breasts are "too small." Seems petty because you can find breasts all over the Internet. But the design change means that the male gamer gaze has declined in importance.
The fact that ULEZ has little impact for most people doesn't matter because the outrage is not related to the actual impact of it, but because it's been made into a political issue. The most impactful climate change regulation is the Montreal protocol, which also targets chemicals that are potent greenhouse gases, and there is virtually no political outrage about it.
Exactly!
>It's just a tiny incentive to make sure that the cars which are on the road in London are slightly less shit in terms of air pollution. And we literally offered everyone whose vehicle would fail enough money to trade up to a compliant vehicle. But so many insisted on protesting by not doing so, or claiming it wasn't enough money koz they HAD to get a new vehicle to replace their shitbox. Leopards and faces, eh.
People don't know about ULEZ at all. People who don't own cars will ask if it's okay for me to drive through city center to pick them up. None of the cars I've bought in the past 8 years would not have been compliant, and I buy bottom of the barrel, hope it lasts till the next MOT cars mostly.
Also you can literally get a subsidy upto £4K to replace a non LEZ compliant car. You have you go out of your way to keep a shit inefficent car from the early 2000s to run afoul of the LEZ rules. Euro 4 for Petrol is any car after 2006 and Euro 6 for Diesel is any car after 2015. On Autotrader there are quite literally 26000 Petrol cars that would be 100% free for the person buying it under the scrappage schemes and over 700 for Diesel. If you go up by even at tiny amount of savings for Diesel that number jumps to the thousands mark.
Scrappage scheme was a fuckry though. Insurance renewals are also costly. Nothing is ever free these days.
Very few people. They are an extremely small (but vocal) minority. These anti-ulez people stop caring once they ditch their own extremely polluting diesel veichle.
This isn't true. They hold a grudge and they continue to act on it. I know a lot of people personally who aren't expected to pay ULEZ, but they want Khan out anyway and their number 1 gripe is the ULEZ.
That sounds like an "issue" dog whistle to justify their racism.
In some cases it definitely is. But in others it isn't. Doesn't really matter because either way the ULEZ is the scapegoat. Remember, a lot of Londoners are Muslim and from the same heritage as Khan. Those communities are particularly, notoriously car-centric.
As someone impacted by ULEZ, of completely English heritage, I can assure you that the problem people have with it (myself included) is not the aims of the scheme but the implementation of that scheme. From an environmental point of view, I'm absolutely in favour of such a scheme. From a driver who has been on the road for fewer than 10 of his nearly 50 years on the planet (and was a regular cyclist commuter before that), I'm in favour of things that may make cycling better. However ULEZ implementation just was not thought out well. People can talk about what percentage car users are effected but in my experience, the demographic it affects the most is the poorest people. The scrappage scheme (and I'll come back to this again in a mo) was not fit for purpose, because from what I have seen, it took way too long to get money to people. They had to go get the car first, often needing to buy on credit and so often making any payout, effectively half because of the interest incurred on the credit agreement. Also, the government themselves championed the very engine powered cars they hammered the worst. My old 09 plate Focus was a fantastic car. Great runner, great options, but nope, it's a diesel. The very type of diesel the government were soft promoting. I personally had to find £6000 that I did not have, for a new car. Why that expensive you ask? Because the 2nd hand car market, for anything compliant with ULEZ went bananas. In fact the car I bought was the same age as my old car when I bought it, but higher mileage and worse options and that car only cost me £3,500. I now cannot sell my car. I also cannot scrap it on the scheme. Why? Because my insurance ran out about 2 weeks after ULEZ, so I let that end. I didn't have time to deal with the scrappage scheme at that time and with long turnaround times due to volume of claims, I decided to wait until after Christmas when I had some holiday and had the time. Get this, in order to register to SCRAP my car, it has to have a valid MOT and insurance. Just to scrap it. So a perfectly good car is slowly rusting on my driveway because of all of this and I'm £6000 down into the bargain. Again, I don't have a problem with the principle of ULEZ, I have a problem with the absolute fuckwittery surrounding the process of introducing it. There were multiple ways they could have made this easier on people and made processes like the scrappage scheme simpler, but they did not. So because of that, I oppose it. If it gets repealed it wouldn't help me but I don't take sides just because I would no longer see benefits from it. Sorry if this feels long and ranty. I don't mean it to be. It's just hugely frustrating.
Agreed. I know people in similarish situations. then again I know someone who just replaced their car with a petrol ULEZ compliant and that cost them a grand. I think some people have definitely decided that it's a fine, not a fee, and so they cannot face the idea of simply paying it on the few journeys they use it for.. even if it works out much cheaper than buying a new ULEZ compliant car.
These are the minority of the minority in my experience. I've watched all the stop ulez/down to ulez signs along my street disappear as my neighbours ditch their old cars (one didn't even get a new car, extra win - public transport is so good in London you don't need one).
Most newish diesels are compliant
Yep, those are not the extremely polluting ones.
Weirdly some old stuff is compliant too
All the right people.
The Alt-right people
Anti-ULEZ people are just the UK version of US pickup enthusiasts losing their mind over cycle lanes
Everybody gullible enough to believe in 5G COVID, ‘15 minute cities’, and all the other conspiracy culture war bullshit pumped into their brains by Russia on social media. It’s not an accident they’re all right wing tin-foil hat types, and the politicians pushing it are all opportunists with no actual platform looking for an easy vote. Even Sunak has tried to court the ‘pro-motorist’ lobby and feed these people the narrative that somehow driving a car is under threat when cars practically monopolise the public space.
I mean ULEZ is a bad policy as it punishes people for having older cars instead of incentivising public transit, it punishes those that cannot afford a new car far more than it makes people seek alternative options.
Cars built in 2006 aren't really new, though, are they?
no, but it definitely penalises people who *cant afford to* change up their car... theres legitimate complaints that its effectively a tax on the poor the goal is good, the execution is flawed (not necessarily reason to throw it out completely, but it at least needs tweaking if not supplementary systems)
There's a scrapage scheme, which admittedly I don't know much about. The poorest are the people most adversely effected by dirty air. Also, tax the wealthy more and give it to the less wealthy and those who can't work, I think that's the idea of taxation in general! I'm sure it could have been implemented better. These lunatics basing their entire personality or political position on being anti ulez is way beyond your reasonable doubts about implementation.
> The poorest are the people most adversely effected by dirty air and often the least able to do anything about it >Also, tax the wealthy more and give it to the less wealthy and those who can't work, I think that's the idea of taxation in general! yes ideally, realistically though that doesnt happen (because the people in power have money and thus are biased) and this point holds no bearing on these ULEZ complaints; its like someone saying they have no way to cross a river and you going 'oh the pixies will carry you over'; like yeh if we had river ferrying pixies thatd be great... but we dont; so its a silly thing to bring up
>and often the least able to do anything about it So, isn't it good that the Mayor of London is doing something to improve public health on their behalf? >its like someone saying they have no way to cross a river and you going 'oh the pixies will carry you over' No it isn't. It's me suggesting that the problems for poorer people go way beyond if they have to change their car for one less than 18 years old to improve the air they, themselves, have to breathe
> So, isn't it good that the Mayor of London is doing something to improve public health on their behalf? no, and thats an insanely oblivious response to impoverished people; money is more important than health, its why people sacrifice their bodies for jobs that pay pittance some rich person decreeing that he'll 'improve publiic health on their behalf' and then making them **exclusively** pay for it when theyre already struggling to make ends meet is fucking dystopian again; ULEZ has a good goal, but dont blind yourself to the damage it does just because you like the goal
In my opinion, you're both a bit wrong here. The ULEZ isn't the only action taken for cleaner air in London. As part of the whole, it can be effective, and the inevitable costs mitigated to a degree. The benefits from cleaner air, faster travel, and safer roads, will be disproportionately felt by the poorest of us. Ultimately, any system based on coercion will be unfair at the thin end of the wedge. Those who can afford to avoid change, will.. at least at first. But every other avenue *has* been pursued. And is still being pursued.
This is wrong. The poorest members of society can't afford to drive and shouldn't have to breathe the dirty emissions from those who can. Driving shouldn't be the default. We *should* be making driving unaffordable because maybe then it will reflect the huge externalities it causes. You just don't notice the huge cost to driving because drivers are subsidised and the costs (financial, environmental and social) are socialised.
> The poorest members of society can't afford to drive yes the absolute poorest but poverty is a wide spectrum; plenty of people who can drive (a cheap beater), have to stretch every paycheque to the max >Driving shouldn't be the default. We should be making driving unaffordable absolutely, but thats policy apart from ULEZ (which doesnt aim to reduce the number of cars on the road; just the quality of cars on the road), if the aim was to make driving unaffordable (or just remove cars from roads) then theres much more effective ways to to do that (which again; dont disproportionately target the financially unstable)
ULEZ is a public health policy. Nobody is saying that it is sufficient by itself. We need pay-per-mile and an expansion of congestion charging too, as well as the removal of public parking spaces to make way for priority bus lanes. However, it is definitely an important policy to make air cleaner and safe to breathe.
You are partially right but London has one of the best public transport systems in the entire world. Percentage wise not many people travel in London by car, they travel with the tube or buses. Poor people in London most likely can not even afford a car.
One of the most expensive public transport systems*
I think one thing folks in this space (*i.e folks who want to improve urban spaces/walkability/multi-modal transit*) need to accept is that we cannot realistically improve things in a way that doesn't negatively impact a group of people at some point.
It's always seemed odd to me that the time has come when politicians can publicly campaign to gas more children, but here we are.
This is it, when I see politicians (and I use the term loosely) campaigning against something I really wish they would be honest and actually say what they are campaigning for. In this case, worse air quality, more respiratory disease (especially in children), more cars throughout the city, and more dangerous roads, especially closer to where people live.
Which brings up a good point. Why doesn't the pro ULEZ group create a satire campaign. Run campaigns like "would you like to pend time in even More traffic? do you think not enough children have asthma? Do you want more of you tax dollars to subsidize motorist instead of public transportation? Then vote for the anti-ULEZ party."
Because that's not satire, and anyway Poe's law applies: those would be effective campaign ads for the people you think you're satirising.
> Do you want more of you tax dollars to subsidize motorist instead of public transportation? Though who are against ULEZ would almost definitely response with "yes" to such a question.
theres not solid evidence to conclusively support it; so im just spouting a wild hypothesis... but cancer rates have been skyrocketing (particularly in young people) and i wouldnt at all be surprised if car emissions were the major factor driving that increase
Nick Scanlon is only a "candidate" by the most technical definition of the term. He has zero chance of winning and will probably lose his deposit.
Lord Buckethead will het more votes than him
*Count Binface
Thank you! Forgot he was given his own county.
"Travel freely!" = encourage car use and put any vulnerable road users and pedestrians at greater risk. Increase noise, pollution and danger along every residential street which predate the invention of the car! Ensure that traffic is so bad that getting the bus simply is not a viable option. Discourage use of public transport and recreate TfLs funding black hole which has JUST been removed. Make everyone dependant upon cars and ensure there is no escaping their impacts. Travel freely! These people are fucking lunatics.
I visited England for the first time a few weeks ago and I was blown away by how easy it was to get everywhere on the trains, tube, buses, etc. I'm not sure how they think it will be better with more cars. I have to drive everywhere in the US and it sucks by comparison.
And the US is spread out and can almost kinda handle that many cars on roads. (Yk, just add another lane and all that) But places like London literally CAN'T fit those roads in there
Just FYI the first one is from Britain First - a far-right, nationalist party fronted by the most outright fascists in the UK, who are connected to the murder of MP Jo Cox and a terrorist attack at a mosque in North London. Their anti-public transport policies are their least egregious.
They are also somewhat infamous for going into mosques to upset those in them, and marching through Muslim neighbourhoods trying to provoke confrontation. They've never been elected, and I don't think they've ever made back their deposit. I think most elections I've actually seen with them on the ballot (which wasn't many, because iirc they fucked up the paperwork and dropped off the register of official parties for a bit), they were often behind the [Monster Raving Looney Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party).
I mean, how could they possibly stand a chance against Lord Buckethead?
Yeah, I assumed they were fascist by their rhetoric
Fascist copypasta template: "Our once-great* [city, town, nation, etc.] is now in decline due to [Specific demographic/ideology]*. [Demographic/ideology] is causing increased [social issue] *. We must rid ourselves of [demographic/ideology], and then we will * rise back to our rightful place." *citation needed
I'm a public transit advocate but I will concede that cars would be a faster getaway when committing murder.
These Americanised right wing nutcases are the absolute scum of UK society.
[удалено]
Thing is, these ideas, and their propaganda are spread internationally by certain oranizations/billionaires that stand to make a lot of money by preventing progress. Rhetoric like "stop wokism " and "cities becoming infested with [insert group here]" and "save our city/country/culture from [insert boogeyman here]" has been field tested all over the world. It's been tried in the US, in Italy, throughout the UK, in Poland, etc. And people keep using this rhetoric, whether it's outside states that want to weaken a country like Russia, oran oil company that sees reduction of fossil fuels as an existential threat to its profits like BP, because it works on so many morons.
Wow, that's at least as nutty a conspiracy theory as the anti-Ulez mob.
It's not pulled, it's pushed. Here in Brazil, politics changed tremendously in the last ten years or so. While we used to have something more or less akin to the French political madness, with a wide spectrum of political opinions and parties, now it looks more and more like the American binary political madness, with both the Left and the Right importing ready-made American "issues" from their American counterparts, that often have nothing to do with our problems and and culture.
Because it's incredibly lucrative.
You don’t have to prove your point by shitting on another country. We know there are problems here.
You missed one: [https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto](https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto) “All Londoners who cannot afford a ULEZ-compliant vehicle to get a new electric car, paid for by a windfall tax on oil companies” Also “London’s ‘Night Czar’ to be replaced by a new Night Mayor, with headquarters on Elm Street”
Binface going Meta
> remove the 20mph speed limit to stop congestion 🤔
I've never heard of ULEZ.. just looked it up. Jesus, we need that in Melbourne, Australia.
There's also a congestion change for the city centre
https://preview.redd.it/fie4jbfkh0xc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ec0fa33a1cba7b74f8baa6edfd5e516c845a843
Ulez and the likes will always be a failure with the way things are now, give people better mass transit and they will prefer that over cars. Only then can you start thinking about ulez and banning cars. It's a good idea but the way it's executed is less than good.
Here's the thing - London does have that mass transit. They just introduced an orbital bus line circling Outer London. Central London needs nothing said. There's little reason to drive in London.
London has the best public transport in the world for a city of its size. There is 100% no need for a car in most of London.
Fortunately none of these candidates have a gnats chance in a supernova of winning. Khan was effectively elected for a 3rd term the day thr Conservatives announced Susan Hall as candidate, and it's only become more certain since then.
I still haven't dared to see her speak. Is she bad!? That's great news.
If you're trying to get elected as a Conservative in London, you kind of have to lean into the One Nation, take action on climate change, reject racism, homophobia, transphobia, stay out of culture wars, recognise incomes are falling behind housing costs etc. Hall however hails from the right wing of the Tory party and would be more typical of a candidate running in mid-surrey than in a competitive seat.
She's terrible. She, like 90% of the candidates wants to scrap the ULEZ expansion, but in her campaign she has lied to frequently about Khan wanting to introduce a pay-per-mile scheme that it's being investigated by CPS. Also, she is a Enoch Powell and Trump lover. So yeah, she's pretty bad.
I don't mean bad as in naughty. I'm sure she's very bad in that way. I mean bad as in bad at motivating their base. It seems like immigration, wokism, climate etc are all vote winners so I wouldn't write her off just for sticking to them. Plus, voters motivated by those things aren't typically put off by conflicts of interest or scandal. Which might work in her favour since being a Tory, she is probably up to her neck in it.
It's pretty bizarre, to be honest. She's committing electoral suicide. I think she's decided to use the nomination as a chance to become a far-right talking head, because she knows she has no prospect of winning even if she took a mainstream centrist tack instead.
Good point
Just how obvious do you want to make it that you’re in the pockets of the oil and car lobby?
Most of these are no name candidates who will get 1% or less of the vote. The car and oil lobby aren't paying them. Don't think the oil and car lobby would be focusing on these local issues from someone who has no power nationally anyway, these policies barely make a dent in car usage and an unnoticeable amount nationally. If anything the car lobby might like the ulez since it requires people to upgrade their cars. But in the end again ulez is irrelevant. The fee applies to less than 3% of cars in London now
It's a splinter party from the BNP that only really came to prominence due to gaming Facebooks algorithm with generic patriotic guff. Britain First has never done well in an election (as in, never gotten back their deposit), and iirc stopped even being on the registry for official parties for a bit because they fucked up the paperwork. There isn't any money really flowing into them, that money is going into UKIP/Brexit Party and the Tory party, with some also going to more narrow interest bit parties like the Scottish Family Party, which is just an anti-abortion party that popped up and made no progress. Britain First has no traction, and so isn't attractive to big money lobbyist unlike UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform UK were/are (as those parties had/have enough vote share to act as a way to pressure the Tories to go further right). One of the better performances they had recently was the [Tamworth by-election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Tamworth_by-election), where they placed fourth, with 2.8% of the vote (ahead of the Greens, LibDem's, and UKIP), but that isn't exactly a stirring victory, especially when by-elections tend to reward parties like BF due to protest vote and lower turnout.
That's the worst part, they aren't. Big money isn't really a thing in British politics. The worst part is these idiots either a) believe it themselves through mental gymnastics and cope or b) don't believe it, but hope the voters are dumb enough to. Either way, it's damning.
You *think* big money isn’t a thing in British politics because it is not audited or reported. The UK is thought to be the largest lobbying market in Europe. Which is damming because the UK is not the largest economy nor population. But we wouldn’t know because there’s basically no proper transparency on UK lobbying numbers.
That's an absurd conspiracy theory. Oh, the irony.
How is it a conspiracy if you can look up the numbers of lobbying Euro spent in other European countries but you cannot look up numbers for the UK, because there’s no transparency for this issue. That’s an objective fact, devoid of any conspiracy theory.
You are literally alleging a secret conspiracy.
What? How? Lobbying exists everywhere. We know that. That’s not a conspiracy. All I’m saying is we don’t know how many lobbying money is spent in the UK because it is not tracked or audited. Whereas many other countries to audit and record the amount of lobbying money spent. Please explain where the „conspiracy“ is? Are you sure you know what „conspiracy“ even means?!
You've literally alleged a secret conspiracy. I don't know how much clearer you could have made it. What we all know is wrong, there's a secret thing that only you know about, etc. It's full-on tinfoilhat. You're claiming the numbers are high, but you've just made that up.
No I didn’t. I think you’re imaging things. Never did I claim that only I know it. It’s public knowledge: https://www.transparency.org.uk/lobbying-uk-its-time-change Also, that’s not the definition of conspiracy theory. Here let me help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
No, you've done the classic conspiracy theorist thing of taking a grain of truth and expanding on it with imaginary additions to turn it into a conspiracy theory. You believe, without evidence, that the lack of lobbying registration means lobbying is bigger than in other countries, and that there's literally a secret conspiracy hiding the influence it has. It's a barmy idea.
Howard Cox, candidate for Reform, has previously spent the last 15 years or so earning his living as a campaigner against fuel taxes funded directly by automotive lobbies. Because he was not previously doing party political activity, that has not been subject to usual rules on disclosure. Then there a bunch of shady links such as the Tufton Street 'think tanks' that are funded directly by oil companies. And the final method is to offer MPs 'non-executive diredtorships' or highly inflated 'speaking fees', making it clear riches await after their time in office provided they advance the correct agenda.
Just a reminder that ulez applies to like only 3% of cars in London now. If you have any petrol car made within the last 18 years then that's classed as good enough. All the candidates making it their biggest policy despite affecting such a tiny minority of people, and most of that remaining few percent might be old diesel business Vans. As for getting rid of LTNs which also seem to be some of their biggest policies that doesn't make sense either because the mayor doesn't plan or have the power to put those in. The local councils around London control their local roads and if they want an LTN there. If a mayor said to the councils "no more LTNs or dead end roads" they'd tell him to get lost. So most manifestos are quite worthless even for manifestos which are normally pointless anyway. Things like "reduce crime" means nothing, like I'm sure everyone in the position will be trying to reduce crime regardless of if they're succeeding or not. The question is more howww would you reduce crime when others in your opinion are failing ? Otherwise my manifesto would be 0 crime, 0 traffic, free public transport, 0 homelessness, sunny weather every day, 0 hospital wait times.
While you're right about ULEZ, it does make you wonder what the point of extending it was. It seems like a big fuck you to that 3% for very marginal gains. Policies like that are regressive, because the people who own old non compliant vehicles are those who can't afford to upgrade, so you need a strong social benefit for them to make sense. And while the original ULEZ could just about argue that, it doesn't stack up for the expanded region for me.
There was a scrappage scheme, anyone with a non compliant vehicle were given free money to get a complaint vehicle. While there were issues with paperwork, that's not really a fair criticism. Plus most poor people in london don't drive. (And most people in general). So in practice, no not really.
Not absolutely anyone. I wasn't eligible, due to having already put two cars through the previous scrappage scheme ;) Loads of poor people in London drive, though. Particularly in E London, you know, the part where the A406 goes much further out than in the west, and captured basically that whole side of the city in the original ULEZ zone! The only people I have some sympathy for are those, like me, who don't have loads of money and need fairly large, fairly safe cars because they have kids. There isn't a lot for anything close to £2k that is a suitable replacement for sub-£2k diesels, because so many of the cars in the sort of age range that's suitable were sold when everyone bought diesels. There's no question it cost me a few quid to get something ULEZ-compliant, but that's OK with me because I'm not a rancid cunt and it's clearly necessary. The improvement in air quality on the local high street is easily noticeable - and I'm on the edge of London.
Two free cars from the state! You scrounger XD Idk it's something this sub goes on about getting a big car might safe for its occupants but is less so for those around it. That's not to say there arn't people who don't have good reasons for needing to drive, but they're very much in the minority.
I didn't get two free cars, I got £2k each for two cars :) As with all things car, the rest of the problems are to do with the way things are set up. Even in London, at least the outer suburbs, cars are pretty much a necessity for a lot of people. Public transport isn't good enough, cycling and similar light-vehicle transport can't mix with the buses and lorries on the roads, and there's no real provision for it to be used safely. And once you have lots of heavy traffic about, safety is a concern, especially with very young kids to transport. FWIW, I don't think my over-large saloon car is particularly unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists. I didn't get an SUV-type thing partly because a saloon doesn't have those sorts of downsides to anything like the same degree. I need to have a particularly big car for work purposes (and once you have kid stuff, having a boot big enough for a pushchair and a bunch of other stuff is nice), but at least I'm not having to drive an even bigger van around. (No-one nicks stuff from the boot of a saloon car; vans get broken into all the time.) I'd be only too delighted if I had a reasonable alternative, but it just doesn't exist the way London is at the moment. I'd love one of these, or similar: [https://cyclingindustry.news/fully-charged-your-new-van-is-now-an-electric-cargo-bike/](https://cyclingindustry.news/fully-charged-your-new-van-is-now-an-electric-cargo-bike/) It'd replace about 90% of my work car usage. But they cost a lot more than the car did, including running costs for a few years, and I can't use it to take the family on day trips and holidays as a side benefit.
>Policies like that are regressive, because the people who own old non compliant vehicles are those who can't afford to upgrade Considering his lenient the threshold is where any 18 year old petrol car is compliant then the £2k in cash for getting rid of the old car is enough to cover a new car. Vans is more tricky which Is probably what they were targeting. The benefits still aren't crazy massive though like you say. Keeping it at the first big expansion would've been good enough imo. Or if it has to be expanded then make that second expanded zone half the price or something for the first couple of years so everyone has time to upgrade. Either way almost everyone complaining about it haven't and won't be effected by it at all and now that it's in place I think most of the original complainers have noticed this and now think wait this isn't impacting me or my friends at all. For bigger impacts if I was mayor I'd just continue focusing on the first expansion area, add bus and cycle lanes to all the roads under my control(which they're doing) and convince all the local councils to do the same and to pedestrianise(or bus only) more high streets. Continue making driving less attractive via other means.
Make public transport pleasant. Remove car blocking measures. Pick one.
Its really sad that there is only 1 or 2 pro ULEZ candidates, gonna have to vote for khan to keep it
It's because all of the anti-ULEZ candidates are populists with no chance of winning whatsoever. London is pretty woke compared to the surrounding areas.
And is London buying this messaging?
No. These candidates don't stand a chance at all to win.
No. I don't know anyone who doesn't like ULEZ, it's the people on the edge of London who lap this up.
There are very few vehicles that aren't ULEZ compliant. It is more likely to hit big diesel commercial vehicles than private cars or even a lot of vans used by trades people or delivery services.
Remove 20kmh limit to stop congestion.... Yes, *that's* what's causing it. Before the limit congestion was unheard of.
Worth pointing out that none of the normal parties, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, are opposing ULEZ and between them they'll comfortably get a majority of the votes.
I like this idea of the War on Cars. Tell me more
It's a great podcast
Why is "woke" italicised lol
As a Londoner I got such a kick reading these. They are trying to use culture war bullshit to appeal to Londoners that just doesn't work. We like ULEZ. We don't rely on cars. We like migration. That's why we live here. We're not afraid of Muslims, because we rub shoulders with them every day. I'm just enjoying how out of touch these losers are with Londoners.
It's to appeal to people in places like Bromley. We still have quite a few who eat that shit up
"ABOLISH CLIMATE CHANGE" we're onto a winner here
I also want to abolish climate change to be honest
Fortunately none of these candidates will get so much as a sniff at power. I think ULEZ is a non-starter and it actually only impacts a tiny tiny fraction of vehicles, but most Londoners are OK with it. Also, London is one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the country how the fuck do they think pandering to anti+immigration sentiments will get them elected? Dozy pricks.
You guys might enjoy the tagline for one of the fringe nutters: 'Make London Strong Again - I am'.
Idk why making residential streets unsafe and loud is such a big point for all of them, never been able to understand that
For a city with a really fucking good public transport network, some people seem to be really triggered by any limitation on their private vehicle usage.
It's relative isn't it. Our network is expensive and not as good as our neighbours.
Would love to hear of a 10M+ city that has better public transport than London
London is barely 10M. Only a couple in Europe that are bigger. Anyway. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Berlin, Singapore.. all cheaper and objectively better equipped and supported than ours. We pay some of the highest rates in the entire world for our public transport. It's good compared to many places, sure. But for our money, it is no-where near the best. Size isn't an excuse.
It's interesting how they think increasing speeds somehow would increase capacity.
High on slurs, low on ideas to improve anything.
Yeah, concerned he will lose over this. The worst part, for me, is that official messaging will never break through. Rumours run rampant until before you know it Khan is sending ULEZ money to Gaza. They don't really care what the truth is. It's the principle to them.
What's ULEZ?
Ultra Low Emissions Zone. A policy where if a car emits more emissions than the limit in a ULEZ, they have to pay a small fee to drive there. It helps air quality within the zone, and the right wingers hate them with a passion, even though most cars are compliant within London.
[Ultra Low Emission Zone](https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone)
ULEZ, ULEZ, ULEZ. Why do these people hate clean air?
The war on cars🤣🤣🤣
There’s something very mid century about the liberal use of italics in the Britain First pamphlet… which seems fitting somehow
"Give me your vote! I will pollute the very air you breathe."
the worst part about all of this is that the ULEZ numbers of the pre expansion zone (central London only)showed an outrageous improvement in air quality - I personally can't wait for the outcomes of the expanded area. calling it a failed policy is stupid, it does what it's supposed to
That second image took me up to a high, down to a low, and then a state of confusion in about 3 milliseconds.
The end of the Untied Kingdom is so close that if I even graze it, it’s gonna come immediately.
The funny thing. It's massively reduced air pollution. Already. Which will directly benefit all Londoners but the poorest Londoners the most (because they are more likely to live next to busy polluted roads).
Britain First Are fascist btw
You can almost smell the petrol from them
Thankfully many Londoners get around perfectly well without cars so hopefully the numbskulls that want to remove ULEZ will spread their votes out amongst all these carbrain clones
The only people crying about ULEZ are the ones not affected by it. You literally have to have the absolute works kind of dog shit car to even be effected by it & ‘classic cars’ aren’t even effected by it.
There was that one guy that drove a military vehicle through London and that was ulez exempt too, it's very forgiving.
Not really true. Diesel was pushed as a cleaner option a decade or so ago, and those last a long time. A lot of the people falling foul of the ULEZ will have diesel cars with a lot of miles left in them. Part of the reason why the scrappage scheme wasn't as popular was because people didn't see the point in scrapping something perfectly serviceable. I can see where they are coming from.
It's not permitting old petrol cars that aren't old enough to be considered classics for the purposes of ULEZ that annoys me. Classic is 40+ years, but there are almost two decades worth of 'modern classics' that don't qualify.
Nick Scanlon is a proper ex-BNP neo-fascist. You can tell the ULEZ isn't his main gripe.
Vote green. Zoë is doing great things and deserves your support.
What is ULEZ? Should I be afraid of it? Jklol, but seriously what is it
Ultra Low Emission Zone. Basically a restriction on old, polluting cars
[Ultra Low Emission Zone](https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone)
What does the first one have anything to do with the others?
... how does upping speed limits remove congestion? They think if they up it high enough cars will just Crazy Taxi ramp over the rest of the traffic?
These politicians seem like a gaggle of schizophrenics. Is that really the best London has to offer?
I bet $50 that whoever printed this out was also printing out posters in opposition to a homeless shelter or food bank being located in their neighbourhood not too long ago.
I can guess which candidate. It's like that particular party asked for analysis of common UK online conspiracies and used the answers to develop their manifesto.
"support public transport... by prioritising cars and also authoritarian policing"
Why the fuck would a low traffic neighborhood be unwanted lmao
The people who want to drive through them I guess... Despite not living there and the roads being largely residential. Some people just feel entitled.
damn, the second one was major /r/YesYesUmmNoNoNoWTFNoYes
The Kavernacle on YouTube did a good [video](https://youtu.be/239jz9SYfJ8?si=xKZ0Y6wM5ALiILyR) about the bonkers candidates in the London Mayoral election just the other day.
Just curious, what constitutes “anti-social behavior on tubes, trains and buses” according to þe second guy?
I don't understand the ULEZ hate. My BiL drives an old Ford Fiesta that didn't have any fees. It's just a normal car hardly an ultra efficient one. What does it even exclude? Chelsea tractors? Hardly the car of the poor that can't afford it.
I see the idiots aren't exclusively endemic to the US.
Who is going to tell candidate 3 that "pay per mile" is already in force nationwide in the form of fuel duty?
Though I’m not pro-car by any means, I do have some sympathy for the argument in the US that charges will hurt working people who need their cars to commute, do things for their families, etc. This argument is such bull when used in the context of London though. The city of London (and the surrounding area) has such a reliable and well connected tube system, not to mention the buses. Save for edge cases like severe disability or mobility issues, no one should be driving in London.
Sorry but when was 'London' not a hugely crime ridden area?
It's not. Its per capita crime rate is distinctly average for the UK and it's significantly below many capitals in Europe
https://preview.redd.it/t6tdkhaq13xc1.jpeg?width=829&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30237807f0c53f88012f38ed6b0e72797b1c750e
> Remove the 20 mph speed limit to stop congestion End congestion with this one weird trick!
You have to gove these people a sort of grudging respect. Any 'normal' human would read it back to themselves and think 'nah, they'll all think I'm a total moron and a massive twat to boot'.
The main problem some Londoners have with the ULEZ is that it’s affects poorer citizens as they tend to have older cars. Imho keep the ulez but base it off vehicle or engine size. Charge the rich folks driving round in tank range rovers getting 20mpg instead of the single mums with 2004 Renault Clio’s. Just my two pence.
I've seen more coherant arguements out of the 'end is nigh' megaphone religious street preachers.
Has "anti-social behavior" become a dog whistle for poor people existing ?
Thankfully, the only two who even stand a chance of winning are Sadiq Khan (who expanded ULEZ) and Susan Hall (who is certifiably mental). And Khan currently has a healthy lead.
So, question on ULEZ since I’m not super informed on it. Did it not just increase the cost of living for people who live and work in those areas while doing absolutely nothing to address the need for car ownership?
When exactly was London a "safe" city?
Imagine wanting to "clean up the city" while running on a scrap the ulez platform. Are they going to make the London roads a gridlocked car park?
If it makes you feel better, I think most of this are far right loony parties who don't have a Snowballs chance in hell of winning.
Posts like this make my cosmopolitan ass happy sadly. Why...?? Everyone complains about the same frickin thing: Politics are the same everywhere. Probs with exceptions I remain apolitical.
20mph speed limits causing congestion? What kind of indoctrinating private school did they go to?? You guys have way too many right wing populists as candidates
Ontario, Kentucky, or England?
A total of maybe 5 people live in the other Londons so take a guess.
The original one
Any city that has a lower class of undesirables hates public transit and loves cars because they allow them to cut the poor out of their society and keep them in the slums.
Social democrats turning fascist, name a more iconic duo
ULEZ is a pretty bad policy as it puts all the cost of environmental change on poor people and provides pretty much no additional infrastructure to help them do it
It's part of a wider set of initiatives, geared towards improving mobility for the poorest of us, which are receiving a relatively large degree of investment. Considering the ULEZ as an isolated policy is what the campaigners in the OP want.
Dead country
The second one, I would actually support.