29 July - There are worse boroughs than Bexley
It may have been a mistake to allow @tonyofsidcup to
preach about the
wonders of ULEZ without dissecting every statement but in general BiB
prefers to let people have their say rather than, in Twitter parlance, block
them. It was surprising to find when constructing an Index to ULEZ blogs just
how many there are and most being against the ULEZ charge because it is quite
clearly nothing but a tax raising measure. If the issue was air quality Khan
would have banned all petrol and diesel powered cars or done the same as in
Glasgow; ban all non-compliant cars.
Sadiq Khan is not an honest man and four London boroughs sought to overturn his
ULEZ consultation in which he disregarded some 5,000 valid opinions and still failed
to find majority support. The boroughs’ Judicial Review failed but even if it had not Khan
would most likely have ignored it because that is the way he is.
There have been outrageous claims that a million pounds of taxpayers’ money was
flushed down the legal plug hole while the known figures point to the cost being
no more than a few pennies per household.
Why am I drifting towards defending Bexley Council’s leadership when its democratic record is so
abysmal? Beyond doubt, vindictive and criminal at times.
Two reasons right now.
@tonyofsidcup has shown me his latest letter to Teresa O’Neill and he wants you to see it. I do not like it very much,
but sending it is his prerogative and ‘cancel culture’ is something else I do not like.
Taking,
as I do, an opposing view on ULEZ, I find @tony obsessive in his support for it on Twitter in particular. He never fails to contradict anyone, high profile or not, who thinks
otherwise and repetitively flings mud in the direction of the Conservative
Mayoral candidate Susan Hall. Now there is a letter to the Leader of Bexley Council in
another attempt to put her on the spot.
I have every reason to criticise Teresa O’Neill whenever
possible but in practice it is her spiteful nature rather than her political leanings which earn the criticism.
Her “moral judgment” has often been in doubt and @tony thinks
it is again for not acknowledging “the health hazards of air pollution”
and he goes on to cite ְ“Imperial College London’s estimate of excess deaths” without reference to the
statisticians who have poured scorn on those estimates.
Referring to the premature death of James Brokenshire MP from lung cancer and implying that ULEZ would have
saved him looks like quite a stretch to me and perhaps in rather bad taste.
The other reason is that compared to Greenwich, Newham, Waltham Forest,
Redbridge and Enfield, the only other London boroughs I know reasonably well,
Bexley is a rather green and pleasant land where the Council is not too
obviously setting out to spread misery as widely as possible.
The relative freedom from 20 m.p.h. speed limits and
roads restricted by excessively wide 24/7 bus lanes makes Bexley a more pleasant
place to be where road accidents remain among the very lowest in London. Quite a
lot lower than in Enfield, Greenwich, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest
despite the lack of Safe School Streets which even the Labour representative at
the most recent Transport Users’ meeting said were unnecessary and the Cabinet Member confirmed that
no school is requesting them.
There are lots of reasons why I would like to see the back of Teresa O’Neill but
fighting ULEZ which makes it one of the few manifesto promises she has ever kept
is not the reason why she should go - as @tonyofsidcup has told her she should.
Comparing her to “a schoolboy who has failed to do his homework” is the sort of
language that one might get away with on a blog not noted for its political
correctness but may not be appropriate in a formal letter which one hopes to be taken seriously.
Maybe mine is a minority view but I am not inclined to let @tony go completely unchallenged.
His letter to Teresa
O'Neill is here. (PDF) Will she respond? Will @tony let me see it if she does?