The political right is out of ideas and even the ideas they do still support (such as neo-liberal capitalism, i.e. the rich get richer while everyone else gets poorer), aren’t exactly very crowd friendly. So, while they have every intention of quietly pushing policies that serve the 1% while in power, they need to get into or hold onto power in the first place. Hence the plan is to fight various culture wars on invented controversies that appeal to their tribal base. And one of these culture wars appears to be the concept of Ultra Low emission Zones (ULEZ’s) that several cities are introducing. Which may have played a role in them retaining Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat in a recent by-election.
Much like the 15 minute city concept, which is the subject of various right wing conspiracy theories, the same is true of ULEZ’s. Firstly, its not a new idea dreamt up by the woke blob (whatever that means). They’ve been in operation for decades across 250 European cities. Its estimated that ULEZ’s have reduced air pollution by up to 50% in some cities and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. In fact the original low emission’s scheme around London was introduced in 2008, followed by the stricter ULEZ zone around central London introduced in 2015 by then London mayor Boris Johnson.
So the Tories have fought an election to retain Boris Johnson’s seat, by opposing a flagship policy that he himself introduced! Plus, as this is a matter for the London council, the new Tory MP has zero say in the matter. If you want an example of how utterly bias the Tory client media is, well there it is. The mental gymnastics Tory journalist minds have to go through would leave Simone Biles dizzy.
It also goes to show how naive Starmer is (aka Sir Kid Starver as he’s now called) with his policy of appeasing the Tory media in the hope of appealing to Tory voters. Well he only lost the Uxbridge seat because enough people disgusted by Starmer’s recent policies flip flops came out and voted lib dem or greens in protest. Fact’s do not matter to the Tories. Their voters are a crazy cult of sheeple with the memory of a goldfish and the collective intelligence of a small lump of putty. They are mugs who will fall for whatever lies the Tory client media tells them.
But I digress, an exaggerated claim is that the ULEZ will ban all fossil fuel powered cars from city centres. Not true, they can still enter, but in the case of London they have to pay a fee of £12.50 per day. Also this applies only to “heavily polluting” vehicles. That is defined as any petrol powered car that doesn’t meet Euro 4 standards (that would be any car built before approximately 2006) or any diesel powered car that doesn’t meet the Euro 6 standard (so only diesel cars built before approximately 2015 will be effected).
Now granted if you have an older car, you will be effected, but you are talking a very small number of people who own very old cars (and I’m guessing that if you have a car that old, you probably don’t drive very often, so how often will this charge effect you?). For diesel drivers it might seem a bit unfair, but this is the fallout from the VW dieselgate scandal (VW being just the ones who got caught, its not like the rest weren’t up to the same tricks). Governments had been considering bringing in new legislation to curb pollution from diesel vehicles, but were reassured by the apparent improvements in diesel emission levels. Of course, once this was shown to be a fraud, diesel vehicle owners found themselves on the wrong side of the legislation. But this is the fault of the car makers (who are in some cases behind this anti-ULEZ lobby), not governments.
And this also applies to owners of vehicles such as work vans or SUV’s. Which again, will in many cases have to pay the relevant fees. Now as regards SUV drivers, I don’t have a lot of sympathy. If you can afford to buy one of these and drive it around London, you can afford to pay the relevant fee for the privilege (frankly, I’d charge you double just for complaining). For van drivers, this is a bit more of a issue, but then again its not coming out of the blue. These proposals have been in the works for 15 years. If in that period you bought a non-compliant van that’s on you, not the council. Hybrid and all electrical vans have been on the market for a good few years now. And while the capital costs are a bit higher, the fuel economy and lower running costs means they tend to pay for themselves over time.
Which is sort of the point here about ULEZ’s, nudge theory, giving people a gentle nudge in the right direction. The issue I have with those opposing ULEZ’s is, what do they propose as an alternative? As I mentioned in my previous post about 15 minute cities, the status quo isn’t an option. Traffic volumes are getting higher, induced demand means adding more lanes doesn’t help, so congestion is just going to get worse and worse as is pollution. And we are discovering more and more that pollution is a lot worse for human health than previously thought, on par with tabacoo smoking. If the NIMBY’s have their way city centres will just become increasingly unlivable places, leading to urban decline, as has happened in quite a few US cities where the car lobby held sway (notably Detroit, which is less a city now but an urban wasteland). And while the rich can retreat to their country estates (Johnson now lives in nice big house in the home counties), the rest of the people won’t have that luxury.
So councils have to do something to stem the rot. If the NIMBY’s brigade have a better idea (one that isn’t completely mad of course), they should share it with the rest of us. But of course the instigators of such campaigns have no good answers. Like brexit, or playing the race card (then watching the economy crash and migration rates skyrocket), its a means to an end. A way to distract the public while they loot the country. An opportunity to manipulate the lazy, the selfish and the gullible to vote against their own interests.
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