The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[Jareth]

Welsh Labour gov are making it 20mph soon rather than 30mph on all roads (I know this was raised earlier) - but again another example of Labour politicians making positive contributions to the issue of pollution and road safety. What a contrast to Starmer who would rather be perceived as on the side of the angry motorist. FWIW what's not to like about 20mph when your kid is about to start secondary school and is walking there on their own? 

[Demitri_C]

13 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

In London and the surrounds Planes are not the biggest polluters effecting people. 

I didnt say that. To clarify i mean as a whole planes are causing more air pollution than cars. The emissions are terrible.

37 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I can't keep up. You're complaining it doesn't affect people who don't drive those cars, which would make it a general tax rather than a targeted fee, but you're unhappy that it's a tax, despite arguing that it isn't?

There's no point it being much cheaper so it doesn't give people a second thought, is there, because then everyone will just pay it. Which is what the people you wouldn't want, because that wouldn't make people change their behaviour, it'd just be a money generator...

23 minutes ago, Genie said:

You wouldn’t need to go from a £2k car to a £30k one to avoid paying ULEZ charges. Something £3-£5k would do it I’m certain.

Also, I see very little support for Labour. Disliking the Tories is not the same as supporting Labour.

 

I dont think its that difficult to understand. Your opening statement doesnt make sense to me can you clarify what you mean "but it doesnt effect people who dont drivw those cars?" Ive said it hits the poorest mpre than the wealthy unless you can show me data that that is factually incorrect?

But then if uts not about money why does it matter if its cheaper? At least it wont hit the poorest where they will get a huge fine if they dont pay or unable to do so but have no choice to drive their non complaint car. This is a money generator i dont see how can you cant see that? As a person who has often moaned about the nasty tories and cost of living im actually very suprised you support this.

For me im not against protecting the environment but in a way that doesnt **** the poor over any further. The single mums, the ones who have disabilities or those that rely on others to take them around as they cant drive.

 

24 minutes ago, Genie said:

You wouldn’t need to go from a £2k car to a £30k one to avoid paying ULEZ charges. Something £3-£5k would do it I’m certain.

Also, I see very little support for Labour. Disliking the Tories is not the same as supporting Labour.

Mate you say anything about labour you get jumped on or laughed at in the politics thread.

Yeah you are right the problem is thw poorest people wont have the mkney to top up the money goven on the scrappage fee. Why not use the £12.50 he is raking in to help those who cant afford it?

 

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Welsh Labour gov are making it 20mph soon rather than 30mph on all roads (I know this was raised earlier) - but again another example of Labour politicians making positive contributions to the issue of pollution and road safety. What a contrast to Starmer who would rather be perceived as on the side of the angry motorist. FWIW what's not to like about 20mph when your kid is about to start secondary school and is walking there on their own? 

Reading comments about it, a large number of cars apparently either violently explode or are otherwise incapable of driving at 20mph.

[Demitri_C]

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

Diesel cars (older ones) don't have the technology in them which cuts out the hazardous to health particulates (soot, basically). Newer ones do. So older diesel cars are very polluting and harmful to health, newer ones much less so. If you do as you suggest (or ask) and simply ban diesel fuel at some point then loads of people are going to be left with cars they are unable to use, and a bill to replace them. You have identified that a bill to replace people's cars is a bad thing, haven't you?

Petrol cars are more of an issue with Nitrogen Oxide, which is also harmful to health, but a different pollutant from diesel particulates. Again, older cars are much much worse than newer ones. There is a legal obligation for towns and cities to remove air pollution. The question then is how do you do that - Smokeless zones for chimneys is one thing. Reducing the usage of old polluting cars is another. It's about reducing the use of cars without the modern tech that manufacturers were forced to implement in their cars to stop them emitting hazardous to health gases and particles.

So if we're all agreed that poisoning people and giving them Asthma and lung problems and stunting the growth of kids is bad, and removing the cars and woodfires and coal fires that create the pollution is good, the only question is how do you actually make that happen, right? How do you get people to use their polluting cars less?

Obviously, they need an alternative. That alternative is either going to be using public transport, or using cleaner cars, or walking or cycling, or car sharing journeys. There's not really anything else in terms of an alternative, is there?

Not using our cars saves money on fuel and wear and tear and tyres and breakdowns and Vehicle excise duty (car tax) and insurance, but then there's the flip side of the expense of using the bus or the tube or buying a new car, right?

The Government has given money to other cities to cover grants for people to replace their old cars. They haven't done that for London. But Khan has nevertheless provided money to help people replace cars, which is the right thing to do, isn't it? The ULEZ thing was brought in originally by Johnson after the Government was taken to court (and lost) over air pollution harming people. It was then tweaked and expanded by Khan, again under Tory government instruction (and the law) for central London. The Tory Transport Secretary then wrote to Khan and said he needed to expand it to outer London.

So, while I agree with you that he's not my favourite politician, he's basically got nothing else he can do. Legally he has to ensure lower pollution levels, the government instructed him to do it, and told him to expand it. The government's provided no money for him to help people with. How is any of this his fault? The government has also forced him to raised TfL fares.

I get the concern that some people are going to be inconvenienced by the charge and can't afford it. Why are people so skint? Is that Khan's fault? Did he crash the economy or was that Liz Truss. Did he implement austerity or was that George Osborne. Did he put up people's taxes, or was that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt?

I agree alot of that pete. Khans hit drivers hard here. The ulez expansion is the last straw thats why your seeing the unthinkable happening where a tory mayor might return.

I think with diesel if they started phasing them out likw from 10 years ago saying we will be doing this on this date to give people a  opportunity to save and get a new car.

The biggest problem today is the cost of cars. If they were affordable for the whole i think there would not be so many protests about this.

I note there is one is a clwan air zone in birmingham and its £4.50 cheaper than ours and doesnt cover all of birmingham. Its going to be expanded throughout all major cities i predict. Now with birminghams council going bankrupt im sure brums next

[Davkaus]

13 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

 

I dont think its that difficult to understand. Your opening statement doesnt make sense to me can you clarify what you mean "but it doesnt effect people who dont drivw those cars?" Ive said it hits the poorest mpre than the wealthy unless you can show me data that that is factually incorrect?

 

You complained that it's just a tax, which I'd argue it isn't. But you're also unhappy the wealthy (or even other poor people) who don't drive those cars don't pay. So if you don't want it to be a tax, but you also don't want people to be exempt unless they're driving the polluting cars (via, say, a general tax), what exactly do you want?

Do you want a much cheaper fee everybody pays? It sounds a lot like a tax. And while "why aren't the rich paying" sounds appealing on the face of it, what about other people who are struggling to make ends meet but who have traded in to get a compliant vehicle? Should they also be paying the same as someone who continues to drive a non-compliant old diesel? It seems fair to me that the people polluting are the people who pay.

Quote

But then if uts not about money why does it matter if its cheaper? At least it wont hit the poorest where they will get a huge fine if they dont pay or unable to do so but have no choice to drive their non complaint car. This is a money generator i dont see how can you cant see that?

Because if it's trivially cheap, everyone will just pay it, when the point is to encourage the changing of behaviour. The ideal outcome is almost nobody paying and air pollution dropping to a fraction of its current levels. If the goal was just shaking money out of people's pockets there wouldn't be a scrappage scheme.

Quote

The single mums, the ones who have disabilities or those that rely on others to take them around as they cant drive.

Disabled people are generally being taken pretty good care of, as I understand it. We've spoken before about people with adapted cars being exempt (no offence taken if you don't have all of our exchanges committed to memory ), but on top of that there's an enhanced scrappage payment of up to £10k for vehicles with adaptations for disabilities.

Some other people won't be quite as fortunate, but there legitimately are a decent number of cars available at under 2k that satisfy the requirements, and while they're not the best cars on the market, neither are the cars that need to be scrapped.

Conceptually, there could be someone driving a much more expensive car than 2k which is not compliant (I wonder if there are any numbers on the average scrapped car book value...), that might find themselves considerably out of pocket. That's a bit of a shit situation, I'll grant you, but I don't know how plausible it is. I guess the question is how much can we justify publicly financing people getting a better standard ulez standard car rather than just a ulez compliant car.  I can already imagine the "Benefits scroungers claiming 30k for new car" headlines 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Davkaus

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I agree alot of that pete. Khans hit drivers hard here.

It’s like you're agreeing with a lot of something you didn’t read

[ml1dch]

16 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

But then if uts not about money why does it matter if its cheaper?

Every time you have this discussion on here (and it seems to be about once every four or five days), somebody points out that if it's cheaper then it stops being a deterrent, and the whole point is that it's supposed to be a deterrent - do you just not accept that, not read it, not understand it - what?

If you make it cheaper, people still use their cars. Thus defeating the whole point.

I look forward to this exchange happening yet again next week. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by ml1dch

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I think with diesel if they started phasing them out likw from 10 years ago saying we will be doing this on this date to give people a  opportunity to save and get a new car.

You mean like they have done?

[chrisp65]

56 minutes ago, Genie said:

You wouldn’t need to go from a £2k car to a £30k one to avoid paying ULEZ charges. Something £3-£5k would do it I’m certain.

Also, I see very little support for Labour. Disliking the Tories is not the same as supporting Labour.

I didn’t know about this £2000 grant if you scrap your badly polluting car.

I googled up ULEZ compliant used cars for sale and you could get one (it might not be brilliant, it might not be what you want) for less than £2000.

There was a bloody compliant 2.0 litre convertible Beetle for £2,400 I actually started reading up the details on!

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I didn’t know about this £2000 grant if you scrap your badly polluting car.

I googled up ULEZ compliant used cars for sale and you could get one (it might not be brilliant, it might not be what you want) for less than £2000.

There was a bloody compliant 2.0 litre convertible Beetle for £2,400 I actually started reading up the details on!

I’ve had an eye on something a bit cleaner than my current car and I learned you can get a Range Rover Evoque 150ps 2.0L Diesel FWD which is compliant, and only £35 a year road tax. A clean 2016 model with 50k miles can be had for less than £14k. I thought that was crazy.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

planes are causing more air pollution than cars

Not true. Obviously a jumbo jet causes more pollution than a Nissan Micra, but that’s not the point anyway, Dem. And not the one you’re making and not relevant to air pollution on Hackney high street or wherever. Collectively aircraft are less polluting of air quality and mostly at altitude where there aren’t many schools and houses.

Tackling aviation emissions needs to happen as well, both for people near airports and for climate change, and guess what. That’ll cost people money too. Internal flights should probably be banned, for example, and international flights taxed differently.

But as far as extending the ULEZ, completely irrelevant. The argument (if made) “I have to pay 12 quid to go to Peckham in my diesel Escort, but an airbus A300 is more polluting” is ludicrous. Unless the Airbus A300 is also going through the streets of London with only one or two people on board in which case, yeah, make the passengers pay an extra 12 quid.

[Rodders]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

Welsh Labour gov are making it 20mph soon rather than 30mph on all roads (I know this was raised earlier) - but again another example of Labour politicians making positive contributions to the issue of pollution and road safety. What a contrast to Starmer who would rather be perceived as on the side of the angry motorist. FWIW what's not to like about 20mph when your kid is about to start secondary school and is walking there on their own? 

I can't imagine there's any significant opposition to the idea of 20mph I'm the areas around schools, narrow residential areas where 30 would be daft, but the uniform imposition seems daft. If you want to encourage public transport use, have buses and trains that work. In Cardiff they've cut a number of bus routes and lengthened times for example. Obviously that's due to financial pressure coming from London to make cuts and is not an easy decision to make, but it just makes these other rules seem ad hoc and not joined up. Ultimately for 30mph on broad roads with low risk people are going to ignore it. So if you want to enforce it youre now having to cost up however many road cameras, to do so. Its just going to piss some road users off and be counter productive. It will just be so fecking tedious. It's an arbitrary approach to road safety. Encourage considerate driving sure, there are some weapons on the road who need their licenses revoked, be forced to pass new tests.  Better doesn't automatically equal slower. 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Rodders

[Wainy316]

What’s the big deal anyway?  Is this any different to what’s been in effect in Brum for yonks now?

[Jareth]

1 hour ago, Rodders said:

I can't imagine there's any significant opposition to the idea of 20mph I'm the areas around schools, narrow residential areas where 30 would be daft, but the uniform imposition seems daft. If you want to encourage public transport use, have buses and trains that work. In Cardiff they've cut a number of bus routes and lengthened times for example. Obviously that's due to financial pressure coming from London to make cuts and is not an easy decision to make, but it just makes these other rules seem ad hoc and not joined up. Ultimately for 30mph on broad roads with low risk people are going to ignore it. So if you want to enforce it youre now having to cost up however many road cameras, to do so. Its just going to piss some road users off and be counter productive. It will just be so fecking tedious. It's an arbitrary approach to road safety. Encourage considerate driving sure, there are some weapons on the road who need their licenses revoked, be forced to pass new tests.  Better doesn't automatically equal slower. 

 

Have to say I'm well up for having a camera on my house to catch the people who will inevitably go faster. I drive at 20 through a high street near work for about 10 years - it's dull but there are narrow pavements and there is a school - I think we will all get used to it.

[VILLAMARV]

8 hours ago, Rodders said:

In Cardiff they've cut a number of bus routes

Have they ever rebuilt the bus station?

[Demitri_C]

11 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Every time you have this discussion on here (and it seems to be about once every four or five days), somebody points out that if it's cheaper then it stops being a deterrent, and the whole point is that it's supposed to be a deterrent - do you just not accept that, not read it, not understand it - what?

If you make it cheaper, people still use their cars. Thus defeating the whole point.

I look forward to this exchange happening yet again next week. 

Do you have evidence its every 4 or 5 days or you just making it up? 

May i remind you who tagged me in the post? Id suggest if you dont want to discuss ulez dont tag me in posts about khan

Also again people are still driving their cars but paying alot more so its not stopping them driving the cars. Not sure how thats so difficult to understand?

10 hours ago, blandy said:

Not true. Obviously a jumbo jet causes more pollution than a Nissan Micra, but that’s not the point anyway, Dem. And not the one you’re making and not relevant to air pollution on Hackney high street or wherever. Collectively aircraft are less polluting of air quality and mostly at altitude where there aren’t many schools and houses.

Tackling aviation emissions needs to happen as well, both for people near airports and for climate change, and guess what. That’ll cost people money too. Internal flights should probably be banned, for example, and international flights taxed differently.

But as far as extending the ULEZ, completely irrelevant. The argument (if made) “I have to pay 12 quid to go to Peckham in my diesel Escort, but an airbus A300 is more polluting” is ludicrous. Unless the Airbus A300 is also going through the streets of London with only one or two people on board in which case, yeah, make the passengers pay an extra 12 quid.

I disgaree its irrelevant 

As you have alluded to plane emissions are damaging to the environment and yes internal flights should be banned along with private jets that are fllying within the country. How is it not true that plane emissons are not damaging to air pollution? Its relevent to ulez as its anothee form of vehicle that damaging air quality. Have you seen how many flights go out of Heathrow? Your telling me thats not as big a issue as cars? Id happily pay more for planes than cars as yoi need cars more than planes.

Most people use planes for holidays.  We use/need cars daily we need them more. So hitting people with expensive fees is not the way.  I also said a suggestion before about raising the age of people able to drive a vehicle. Make it 19 for example- maybe that will encourages younger people ro rely more heavily on PT or cycling ans they might not want to drive later 

Again it hits the poorest more

[Demitri_C]

11 hours ago, Davkaus said:

You complained that it's just a tax, which I'd argue it isn't. But you're also unhappy the wealthy (or even other poor people) who don't drive those cars don't pay. So if you don't want it to be a tax, but you also don't want people to be exempt unless they're driving the polluting cars (via, say, a general tax), what exactly do you want?

Do you want a much cheaper fee everybody pays? It sounds a lot like a tax. And while "why aren't the rich paying" sounds appealing on the face of it, what about other people who are struggling to make ends meet but who have traded in to get a compliant vehicle? Should they also be paying the same as someone who continues to drive a non-compliant old diesel? It seems fair to me that the people polluting are the people who pay.

Because if it's trivially cheap, everyone will just pay it, when the point is to encourage the changing of behaviour. The ideal outcome is almost nobody paying and air pollution dropping to a fraction of its current levels. If the goal was just shaking money out of people's pockets there wouldn't be a scrappage scheme.

Disabled people are generally being taken pretty good care of, as I understand it. We've spoken before about people with adapted cars being exempt (no offence taken if you don't have all of our exchanges committed to memory ), but on top of that there's an enhanced scrappage payment of up to £10k for vehicles with adaptations for disabilities.

Some other people won't be quite as fortunate, but there legitimately are a decent number of cars available at under 2k that satisfy the requirements, and while they're not the best cars on the market, neither are the cars that need to be scrapped.

Conceptually, there could be someone driving a much more expensive car than 2k which is not compliant (I wonder if there are any numbers on the average scrapped car book value...), that might find themselves considerably out of pocket. That's a bit of a shit situation, I'll grant you, but I don't know how plausible it is. I guess the question is how much can we justify publicly financing people getting a better standard ulez standard car rather than just a ulez compliant car.  I can already imagine the "Benefits scroungers claiming 30k for new car" headlines 

Hows it not a tax

Erm have i said that or have i said it effects the poor more than the rich?? For a person who often moans about the rich being protected by the nasty tories its hilarous your actually mocking my point. Unless you can prove to me that the eich have more non compliant cars?

Do you agree that a rich person if they do not have  a ulez compliant car can easily change it than a poor person? Thats my point hits poorer families

Answer me this as ive asked this and no one has answered this to your point if its cheaper eveeyone will just spay it as you say what happens if you cabt afford a newer car even with scrappage scheme but need your car?? Oh thats right your stuck paying the ridiculous fee! You seem to not be showing much compassion for the poorer families.

As ive said can you gurantee on these 2k cars that may make you compliant (for now) that khan wont change the vehicles age latee on then you hav eto change it again khans a notorious liar so you will need more than 2k to buy a car thats alot newer to be on safe side 

Last paragraph is the only part we sort of agree with in thia crazy debate

[Danwichmann]

13 hours ago, blandy said:

Tackling aviation emissions needs to happen as well, both for people near airports and for climate change, and guess what. That’ll cost people money too. Internal flights should probably be banned, for example, and international flights taxed differently.

 

Are you just talking about the UK here? Because it makes sense there, but banning domestic flights in places the size of China, Russia, Canada or countries with lots of Islands simply isn't going to work. 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Danwichmann said:

Are you just talking about the UK here?

Yeah, or Great Britain, to be precise.

[chrisp65]

5 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

Have they ever rebuilt the bus station?

Nope, and no obvious plans to.

Cardiff council is a bit of a special case, sort of borderline corrupt when it comes to anything planning related but nobody’s ever quite managed to pin anything substantive on them.

Every dodgy planning application you can call exactly how it will pan out, and that’s how it will pan out, 100% of the time.

The lack of a transport hub for a City that wants to have tourism, sport, music as its main focus is not incompetence, it’s got to be something a bit more sinister than that.