Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment June 2022

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

17 June - The answer to all life’s ills is increased taxation

You probably know that if the Mayor of London has his way, the poorer members of society will have to pay £12·50 a day to move their car from its parking place. Three local MPs, David Evennett, Louie French and Gareth Bacon, are campaigning against its impact on local residents, their visitors from outside and couriers delivering goods to their houses. Meanwhile Labour MPs are wholly in favour of hitting the people who can least afford it. It is a strange upside down world in which we now live.

Bexley Council was asked how many of its residents would be directly affected by the extension of ULEZ but they didn’t know with their FOI officer merely saying two weeks ago that “we have no data to provide in response”.

Fortunately TfL appears to have put in a little more effort into researching the pros and cons of the new tax. They were able to say that 105,249 cars and 9,893 vans were registered to Bexley addresses and 26,743 and 5,487 respectively would not comply with the regulations.

Bexley Council recently updated its website as follows…
Council website
KhanToday Bexley’s FOI office has provided information on how they came to that conclusion; there is an element of guesswork involved.

The calculation is based on three year old figures and averages for the whole of London where 19% of vehicles are considered non-compliant. 19% of an estimated 115,000 vehicles in Bexley is 21,850.

TfL’s figures were not qualified in any way, it is perfectly possible that their figures are based on similar guesses.

The only way to justify the infrastructure required to police every road in London is to move it towards a London wide pay per mile charge. As always every change to motoring law is about raising money and the worshipping of Lycra.

On the other hand on both my walks over the Harrow Manorway flyover this week I have been very aware of the smell of burnt dinosaur juice. Fortunately the Mayor acknowledged this week that 20% of new cars sold in London are plug-ins. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to recognise that the pollution problem is diminishing daily. But to do so would thwart his tax raising instincts. Maybe he is a closet Tory.

Note: All the above data has come through the former Independent candidate for Sidcup, Dimitri Shvorob.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one