My speech at the ULEZ rally this weekend
There was a rally at the weekend in Trafalgar Square to protest against Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan’s, ULEZ expansion. ULEZ is a tax on old vehicles. Anyone driving a diesel registered before 2015 and a petrol car before 2004 in the area below (Greater London and its outskirts, basically) has to pay a £12.50 daily charge.
The tax is justified on the grounds of clean air, but it has been repeatedly proven that the data cited is specious.
ULEZ is the worst sort of tax. Never mind the damage it will do to local business, especially shops (yet another reason to use Amazon rather than the High Street), it hits the poor hardest. They are the ones who can least afford a new vehicle. Khan does not care. He has a different agenda.
It also makes life so much more difficult in those outer parts of London where public transport is crap. And then there are the fines …
The extra charge will hit anyone who wants to drive somewhere, whether to do a job, visit a relative or friend, go to the shops, to the park, to the gym, to the hospital. You name it. So the effect will be to inhibit rather than incentivise activity. Dimlo.
It was interesting to note how much passing traffic honked their support, including lots bus drivers, which surprised me.
Anyway, here is the speech I gave. I must have got out of bed the wrong side that morning, as it is very negative. (I normally try to be positive).
Sadiq Khan is the worst sort of politician.
He does not listen to those who have a different worldview to him. Instead he smears them. They are far right. They are conspiracy theorists. They are racists.
He is supposed to represent all Londoners, but he is not interested in your concerns, if they are different to his. You are just an enemy.
Like a devious and conniving solicitor, he is the master conflator, dealing in half truths, omission and straw men.
London is the greatest city in the world, he says, but look at what it has become under his watch: the knife crime capital in the world.
Locals are priced out, taxed into oblivion, then besmirched if they dare speak out.
How is buying a brand new car, that requires tonnes and tonnes of cobalt and lithium and copper and nickel and other metals we barely know the names of - neodymium, dysprosium - to be mined, which means tank after tank of oil, and tipple after tipple of coal must be burnt, sending plumes of black smoke into the atmosphere, risking lives, often of children, in some far flung corner of the planet, then the ecological cost of transporting it all to Chinese factories and back again …
How is that more environmentally friendly than simply keeping the car you already have? The car that functions perfectly well as it is.
How is that green?
The environmental movement has been hijacked by crony capitalists
People ask what is our system of rule? Is it really a democracy when a mayor can impose new taxes with no democratic mandate?
Maybe it’s a bureaucracy or a kleptocracy, or a technocracy. I’ll tell you what our system of rule is - it’s a hypocrisy. We live under a hypocrisy.
London is open, he says. No it isn’t.
And what will he use all this new tax money he collects from you for? More hypocrisy is what.
There will be more waste. More stupid schemes that impinge on your freedom. More imposition of the Khan worldview that is so different to yours. More rainbow flags on the tube, celebrating the new religion called diversity that will tolerate no dissenters. More planning, more bureaucracy, more corruption, more incompetence. More state.
The state will keep growing. It is always growing.
And if you dare speak up, well then you are a far right, racist homophobe, fascist, anti-trans, conspiracy theorist bigot.
Sadiq Khan hates you.
He will not be satisfied until the London, probably even the England we once knew and loved, is gone.
That is all you need to know.
Sometimes I forget that the insanity is not limited to the U.S....thank you for the reminder, and the excellent synopsis of the one-world government's B.S. I honestly believe that if we had journalists that spoke the truth, the world would be (if not a better place) at least more comprehensible.
I was driving in Scotland today, and was surprised to discover that Aberdeen have introduced a low emission zone,.. ‘ABERDEEN !’ ... a relatively isolated, coastal City, with relatively light traffic and an almost constant North Sea breeze blowing over the wide,’ low rise’ streets.
It must have, the cleanest air, of any city in the UK, ...
No way is this about health, if it was health that they were concerned about they would be creating UPFZ’s (ultra processed food zones) where that food type would be banned.
If it’s not about health, it can only be about control and/or money.
Wish I’d made it to the protest, well done to all those that did.