The 'Bladerunners' are right

It's a way of saying it... but it's hard to argue that the timing for introducing ULEZ is worthwhile given that the vehicles it targets are in the last 3rd of their service for the majority of their owners and will be shuffling off to the scrapyard in the sky soon enough anyway.

Furthermore...

With any argument which says "all these things have to be done to lower pollution" so is with ULEZ that by creating the bureaucracy, buying and installing a ton of cameras and computer equipment and paying people to operate them you are creating pollution. All the effort put into running the scheme (effort = pollution) must be subtracted from the diminishing difference between compliant and non-compliant vehicles. i.e. for ever camera erected Londoners could make 3000 journeys in a non-compliant vehicle and we'd still be breaking even.

That's not the point I'm making though. It just seems to me like they didn't properly ask people about this and now we've got real vigilantes hacking down cameras. Quelle surprise.

Arguably it's not public infrastructure if the means by which it came into being aren't of the people.

What do you mean 'how long did that last' ?

They're still being attacked: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2022/12/...

I think it does only count when it suits. Cuts both ways, doesn't it. Since people are objecting to it now but it is going to be implemented before the next election the mayor and his supporters are saying the will of the people doesn't mean anything because we're doing it and you can't stop us.

Sean Bailey was a terrible candidate, the charisma of an old mid-sized Mitsubishi.

I think with issues of this nature where something really significant is going to happen there is a tendency for British public to get hoodwinked into going along with it because really they're used to nothing really changing so it is a surprise when issues like this come up.

Brexit is a perfect example of this. People voted time after time for political parties, both Labour and Conservative who brought us tighter and tighter into the European Union to the point where I sovereignty had all but completely disappeared.

You could use the same defence but in the end the will of the people was at odds with what the officials and politicians were doing. They knew this as they always dressed it up as a financial benefit because they knew that was an easy sell to voters.

Morally speaking it's about 'choice'. You can choose not to be on Facebook. You can choose to leave your mobile phone at home. I don't think the banks allow tracking, I'm of the understanding they only reveal account information when they're trying to smear a politician or if the police are undertaking a specific investigation.

Being monitored, everyone.. not just those with non-compliant vehicles on every drive you take in London straddles a breaking point. I think it's a big step from having a smattering of cameras dotted about, on high streets in particular. From that to a situation where you create a little log file on Kahn's computer every time you leave your house is a bit too much.

The pandemic was only 2 or 3 years ago and you've already forgotten...

It's probably Sadiq

Probably the most naïve post I've read in years.

You can change things in politics but if you look at something like Brexit as a gauge for how much effort it takes you can see why politicians not listening and doing virtually the opposite of what the electorate wants and doubling-down on negative policies that nobody asked for results in vigilantism.

To overturn the actions of politicians of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and the 2000s took 25 years by parties like UKIP, millions of pounds in donations, cost thousands of people their careers, millions of people were branded racists, permeant fractures in countless numbers of family homes all across the country such was the division it caused. Then the court cases, resignation of prime ministers and probably the loss of life perhaps of Jo Cox and other many lesser known individuals all because they wanted to do what they wanted to do and didn't care what people thought.

It's no way to run a country.

ULEZ is on a lesser scale, far smaller but it has the very same flavour. It's no surprise Kahn is an arch remainer.

Indeed. It's as if ULEZ would suddenly be fine if only he could make me look bad by calling me names to degrade my reputation and lower my standing so that facts would no longer be facts.

As someone pointed out earlier... ULEZ does not directly effect you if you're not in London but if you ever want to drive to London and have a non-compliant vehicle you will have to pay. That's taxation without representation as you didn't get a vote on it and it's effectively a tax.

I have paid the full £27.00 whatever it costs to drive my old London taxi into London last year... it's a lot of money in charges for a single drive into the capital. The fact that ULEZ applies to vehicles which are historic but not old enough to be classed as such is a big mistake. It forces a lot of people to sell younger classic cars and that's not what the policy is designed to do. The result of this oversight is well of resentment built up in the community of Londoners who are car enthusiasts - i.e. millions of voters. For example, if you have an old Subaru Impreza turbo from 1994... it won't be classed as historic for another 15-odd years so in the meantime you cannot drive it without having to pay £12.50.

All other wrongs aside... it's electoral suicide