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…
Today 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.