[davidjay]

Coincidentally, I logged on thinking about a few people I've known over the years who I clocked early on as liars - work has given me a better than average bullshit detector so I can invariably spot a wrong 'un from the off. Yet every single time I've warned people about a liar I've either been ignored, or disbelieved, or ended up the bad guy. I don't bother anymore.

There's an old saying that a liar has to have a good memory, but I'd say it's more important for them to be likeable. People have a strange fondness for what they would call loveable rogues, even while they're taking their last penny.

[MisterMuncher]

My 2007 Volvo is compliant, at the moment.
However, the rumour is that the rules will change in 2025.

The mighty D5 sadly doesn't conform to modern emissions standards, with is a shame as it's an everlasting gem of a thing. The "new" VEA engines are all pretty good, though. That diesel block will cheerfully cope with 350+ hp if you know the right man with the right laptop.

[Boiler]

Looking at the ULEZ issue and that compliant petrol cars can be as much as twenty years old, there must be a way for those caught by this to find a replacement car cheaply. I've noticed the more astute traders on AutoTrader now mark cars as "ULEZ compliant" in their adverts. A car does not need to be 'new' to get around this, for example this low-mileage Ford Focus locally:


ULEZcompliant Focus.jpg

Euro 4, so okay for London (I checked on the Tfl website). Fifteen years old, but that's nothing for a car these days.

Somehow, there needs to be a flow of vehicles between areas with and without ULEZ (for now). Or maybe a 'car exchange' scheme, rather than the scrappage schemes.

70k miles on a petrol engine is low mileage, in your opinion??

As my petrol BMW has done 331,000 miles without any attention beyond routine servicing, yes. I've had plenty of petrol cars into six figures, including a 130,000 mile Ford Ka. That Focus has done less than 5,000 miles a year. Just keep on top of oil and coolant changes and don't buy cheap oil. Also, make sure cambelts (if fitted) are changed according to manufacturer's recommendations.

[Boiler]

Things just start to go wrong at around the 70k mark in petrol cars.

Not my experience I have to say, and all the cars I've owned have gone well past that.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

My 2007 Volvo is compliant, at the moment.
However, the rumour is that the rules will change in 2025.

The mighty D5 sadly doesn't conform to modern emissions standards, with is a shame as it's an everlasting gem of a thing. The "new" VEA engines are all pretty good, though. That diesel block will cheerfully cope with 350+ hp if you know the right man with the right laptop.

My T5 was also awesome, but the turbo went...

[Tubby Isaacs]

I notice that the Greens got hammered in Brighton in the local elections after proposing to create an LEZ. I don't know how much that was a factor in the election but I'd guess it didn't help.

£12.50 v £0 for other cars which area also polluting, if not as much, does seem a bit unfair to me. But it's only a month till the extension starts, so I guess it'll come in. Starmer might be best employed finding a small tax increase somewhere on something nobody notices and funding more of a scrappage scheme,

[Boiler]

The only rumour about London, emissions and 2025 I've seen is the introduction of a ZEZ* in the central zone.

*Zero Emission Zone.

[Boiler]

Starmer might be best employed finding a small tax increase somewhere on something nobody notices and funding more of a scrappage scheme,

Scrappage schemes are monumentally wasteful though, with cars that are otherwise perfectly serviceable elsewhere being destroyed and benefit car manufacturers more than the environment. I think there's an airfield somewhere still full of cars that were never actually scrapped but were traded in as such.

[Tubby Isaacs]

So maybe a voucher to replace the car with a qualifying one? Sell the other one off to places where LEZ isn't an issue?

[Boiler]

So maybe a voucher to replace the car with a qualifying one? Sell the other one off to places where LEZ isn't an issue?

*Exactly* what I think should be done - a sort of "Exchange My Car" scheme or website for areas not going (or unlikely to go) down the LEZ route. Considering that on the current proposed trajectory there will be ICE cars and vans around until at least 2050, it makes sense.

Or, buy a 40+ year old car now and be ULEZ, VED *and* MoT exempt! In a few years' time cars with modern safety features like airbags will be in that arena.

[Youngian]

I think there's an airfield somewhere still full of cars that were never actually scrapped but were traded in as such.

Perhaps the French will take them, any old banger qualifies for an EV conversion. It’s not far from Uxbridge to zones 1 and 2. Although Boris fans will have had other ‘legitimate concerns’ about Sadiq Khan.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm learning from the Guardian BTL Brains Trust that the real issue was Starmer not persuading Greens. There were only a few hundred more Greens than the Tory majority. Funnily enough these come from Jez fans, who I'd guess don't argue that Jez should have been more right wing in 2019 to get all the Lib Dem voters. They'd point out rightly that this wouldn't have happened.

I've no idea what the Greens think they're doing in some of the General Election seats they stand in. No fan of Laura Pidcock, obviously, she would be within her rights to be a bit non plussed that Greens ran against her in NW Durham. But the Greens are nearly always going to run in by-elections, as it's a very rare opportunity to get publicity. And some people are always going to vote for them. Not every single person is interested in tactical voting, but clearly there was a lot of it in Uxbridge, and that's a positive (even if the vote wasn't).

[Youngian]

Most Green supporters know how to vote tactically, the rest are dustbin voters ‘shaking things up’ especially when their neighborhood’s a shit hole.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, I think Labour in Uxbridge probably did well on tactical voting, just like they did in Selby, and just like the Lib Dems did in Somerton and Frome.

[Abernathy]

Rawnsley’s account makes Labour’s campaign in Uxbridge sound like a royal fuck-up. Talk about dropping the ball. We really should have won that one, and would have if we had only got to grips properly with the ULEZ issue. Yet again, it appears that the Tories were allowed to get away with rank mendacity :

Tory campaign literature suggested that everyone in Uxbridge, not the minority with the dirtiest vehicles, would be paying £12.50 a day to drive. “We had people with a Tesla in the driveway saying it was outrageous that they would have to pay,” reports one Labour campaigner

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisf ... qW6GXtkjuQ

[Youngian]

Better to get stung now and learn rather than at the GE. And let Sadiq lead instead sticking this on him. He’s the only winner we had when the party was going down the toilet. And he faced darn sight worse Tory dirty tricks than this bullshit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Rawnsley’s account makes Labour’s campaign in Uxbridge sould like a royal fuck-up. Talk about dropping the ball. We really should have won that one, and would have if we had only got to grips properly with the ULEZ issue. Yet again, it appears that the Tories were allowed to get away with rank mendacity :

Tory campaign literature suggested that everyone in Uxbridge, not the minority with the dirtiest vehicles, would be paying £12.50 a day to drive. “We had people with a Tesla in the driveway saying it was outrageous that they would have to pay,” reports one Labour campaigner

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisf ... qW6GXtkjuQ

Welcome to test match cricket.

Jez played the same game with the dementia tax, scaring old ladies in small houses in Halifax. I don't think the potential backlash is about how many drivers pay it. I think it's about the people who do- strivers with not very much money trying to go about their work.

[Boiler]

One thing that is worth noting is that the charge stops/starts at midnight so it is quite possible to get charged £25 on a ten minute journey.

I'm not terribly convinced that folks without Euro 4/Euro 6 vehicles are a minority either. Like I said earlier, pity the poor sod delivering for Uber Eats or parcels for Evri.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That sounds like very poor design. Is air quality that bad at night anyway? Why does it apply then when the Congestion Charge doesn't?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lots of people in the media are eliding air quality with climate change. It's not a climate change policy, that would involve petrol duty rises for every non-electric car, and not just in London. Nobody seems to be suggesting that. Macron got killed on it, with a lot of leftwing people joining in. And Corbyn (rightly, I think) didn't promise it.

I increasingly think this was a bad priority for Khan, as I think free school meals for all primary school pupils is. I like that he sticks it to Kippers, but I think his political genius may be overrated.