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C'mon Bill, I read about the number plate scheme...that was just ridiculous and would have never worked, but I never saw the "firing squads" story?
How about Ken's involvement with the TdF, Tour of Britain and on a lesser level Hovis Freewheel? There was a huge promotion of cycling as a viable means of transport which went along with all these events? I thought TdF last year was huge for London and for cycling.
Hey, just trying to point out that he wasn't without blemish. Balance etc. I can't remember where the 'firing squads' story came from, but I suspect it was in the same interview as the number plates story. You're right it was ridiculous. But he did say it.
Boris is pro-cycling too! And he actually cycles too.
I am planning to write a letter to Boris tomorrow. We kind of have to get on with it, and the sooner we engage with him, and see what the nature of the man is the better. There's no point wearing sack-cloth and covering ourselves with ashes. Better to see what the possibilities are. As long as we keep our expectations very low, anything +ve will come as a pleasant surprise.
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Yeah, but did you notice that the turnout was up from 2004 25%?
I am kind of casting around for positives, but the increase in engagement in the political process has to be a good thing.
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It's a double-edged sword though. Essentially we've seen a bloc of right-wing voters stirred into action by an anti-social(ist?) bribe. This time it was the congestion charge issue, in the past it's been things like the right to turn social housing stock into personal capital. Or how about patriotic incitement to vote via invading teensy tiny islands on the other side of the world?
Sometimes I think it would easy for progressive-looking community-minded politicians/parties to manipulate their way into power by massaging the egos of the self-serving fuckwits amongst the electorate whilst quietly implementing the kind of policies they find the idea of so unbearable.
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The sad fact is that when only 46% of the electorate vote, the majority get what they deserve.
Crap that seems high! I would have expected less!
They should introduce a penalty similar to the one they have in Australia. You must pick up your ballot paper or you face a fine, I can't remember how much it was. Whether you then go on to vote is another matter, but still at least you must go to the polling station, so if you're there you do it...
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The above idea is stupid though, because then people effectively abuse their vote and just vote for someone either randomly, or what they're read in the (biased) press. I mean imagine if that was the case in London. The Evening Standard has given Ken a daily battering for ages. More idiots would have gone out and voted for Boris, BNP, etc.
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This is an interesting thread . . . however i voted for Boris, why, because my work involves me having to drive a commercial vehicle into the congestion charge for most of the year, and it hits me hard in the wallet, if there was a viable alternative i would go for it, but there isn't . . i agreed with the original CC, but the new proposals where plain stupid, as an environmental policy TFL's emission tax has a hole in it bigger than the one we are making in the ozone layer. If i drive a Van into the CC and park up after a mile, then i will have burdened the environment with 400g of CO2 . . if a Toyota Prius covers 10 miles from health food shop to shiatsu bar to Hemp U Like emporium it will have contributed 1040g of CO2.
The problem with Kens big idea is not that, at best, its was ineffectual or, at worst, damaging to the environment. The real problem is that it got past the planning stage in the first place. There are 2 scenarios; either nobody thought of this obvious flaw in the plan, in which case God help us all, or as is far more likely one of the bright young things at Kens elbow raised his hand in a meeting to point out this problem only to have his concern dismissed as an inconvenient truth.
Maybe its time to remember that in a world where those who could make a difference choose to levy petty penalties, its not big cars that will cause the planet the most concern, but small minded politicians.
I also voted Tory in the last general election because of one factor, that Labour wanted to cut the facilities at Charing Cross Hospital and the Tory's pledged to maintain it, i have lived in Fulham all my life and that hospital has saved both mine and my dads life, and is essential to the ordinary lives of many locals.
Most of the gestures i have seen from both sides are token - either go the whole hog and pedestrianize most of central London with goods access during restricted hours, bring all taxis (the heaviest polluters on our roads) into a decent emissions limit, and make Public Transport the only viable option, or carry on and put sensible road pricing options into action and make the citys traffic work while gradually phasing in emissions and traffic controls. The current restrictions are far more easy tax revenue for the government than they are beneficial restrictions that we the people can see and reap the benefits of.
I can understand the green issues of a number of us on here, and i always choose human powered transportation when i can, but i too live in the real world, and for one have had enough of political grand standing disguised as environmental policy's with revenues that have failed to ever be truly recycled into public transport, or environmentally friendly transport systems.
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This is lazy nihilism, summed up by the slogan 'don't vote; it just encourages them'. While you are staying at home, congratulating yourself on your perspicacity, the racists are out there knocking on doors and getting elected.
Of course the democratic process is flawed, but what's wrong with engaging with it, in the spirit of optimism? If you genuinely believe that nothing can be changed ever, why are you even bothering to participate in this debate?
most anything can be reduced to lazy slogans, its kind of fun.
the democratic process is not flawed, it is built around a logical fallacy, and must be scrapped.
speaking fallacys that last line is a good example of Ad Baculum
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This is an interesting thread . . . however i voted for Boris, why, because my work involves me having to drive a commercial vehicle into the congestion charge for most of the year, and it hits me hard in the wallet, if there was a viable alternative i would go for it, but there isn't . . i agreed with the original CC, but the new proposals where plain stupid, as an environmental policy TFL's emission tax has a hole in it bigger than the one we are making in the ozone layer. If i drive a Van into the CC and park up after a mile, then i will have burdened the environment with 400g of CO2 . . if a Toyota Prius covers 10 miles from health food shop to shiatsu bar to Hemp U Like emporium it will have contributed 1040g of CO2.
The problem with Kens big idea is not that, at best, its was ineffectual or, at worst, damaging to the environment. The real problem is that it got past the planning stage in the first place. There are 2 scenarios; either nobody thought of this obvious flaw in the plan, in which case God help us all, or as is far more likely one of the bright young things at Kens elbow raised his hand in a meeting to point out this problem only to have his concern dismissed as an inconvenient truth.
Maybe its time to remember that in a world where those who could make a difference choose to levy petty penalties, its not big cars that will cause the planet the most concern, but small minded politicians.
I also voted Tory in the last general election because of one factor, that Labour wanted to cut the facilities at Charing Cross Hospital and the Tory's pledged to maintain it, i have lived in Fulham all my life and that hospital has saved both mine and my dads life, and is essential to the ordinary lives of many locals.
Most of the gestures i have seen from both sides are token - either go the whole hog and pedestrianize most of central London with goods access during restricted hours, bring all taxis (the heaviest polluters on our roads) into a decent emissions limit, and make Public Transport the only viable option, or carry on and put sensible road pricing options into action and make the citys traffic work while gradually phasing in emissions and traffic controls. The current restrictions are far more easy tax revenue for the government than they are beneficial restrictions that we the people can see and reap the benefits of.
I can understand the green issues of a number of us on here, and i always choose human powered transportation when i can, but i too live in the real world, and for one have had enough of political grand standing disguised as environmental policy's with revenues that have failed to ever be truly recycled into public transport, or environmentally friendly transport systems.
The congestion charge was originally introduced to reduce the number of cars on the road in London. Carbon emissions had nothing to do with it. The decision to have higher charges for more polluting cars was a sop to the Greens in the Assembly.
And the hypothetical you give is a little specious: the main outcome of the reformulated policy would have been to persuade people to buy smaller cars, which would indeed have a beneficial influence on overall emissions levels. Of course heavier users are going to produce more carbon than lighter users, no matter what they drive - do you really think that nobody in the world is smart enough to work that out but you?
Oh, and how much carbon would have have burnt on your way into the CC zone, by the way?
You then say:
"either go the whole hog and pedestrianize most of central London with goods access during restricted hours, bring all taxis (the heaviest polluters on our roads) into a decent emissions limit, and make Public Transport the only viable option, or carry on and put sensible road pricing options into action and make the citys traffic work while gradually phasing in emissions and traffic controls. The current restrictions are far more easy tax revenue for the government than they are beneficial restrictions that we the people can see and reap the benefits of."
Pedestrianising central London - are you joking? Road pricing while phasing in emissions and traffic controls - erm, congestion charge? If that's not a form of road pricing, what is?
"I can understand the green issues of a number of us on here, and i always choose human powered transportation when i can, but i too live in the real world, and for one have had enough of political grand standing disguised as environmental policy's with revenues that have failed to ever be truly recycled into public transport, or environmentally friendly transport systems."
Let me see - erm, over the last 8 years we've gone to having fewer cars, more buses, more cycles on the roads. More cycle lanes at that, whether you like them or not. I'm confused. Is that not transport policy in action? Maybe it's not as noticeable over in Fulham?
Stupid thing is I don't particularly like Ken (though I would have rather have had him than Boris). But I don't see how we're ever going to have a decent debate about transport and environmental policy in this country when people so willfully close their eyes to the facts in the name of partisan political purity. No hint of difficult political choices - always compromises - that the rest of us have to make in our reality-based world.
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Road pricing while phasing in emissions and traffic controls - erm, congestion charge? If that's not a form of road pricing, what is?.
Well, technically it's not. True road-pricing would charge per distance travelled. Like motorways in France.
The C Charge is a one-off charge, which is a regressive tax, and provides an incentive to drive more once you have paid the charge. Road-pricing would make more sense, as more miles travelled = higher tax. However, this is technically a very hard tax to enforce at local level, as it requires tracking of vehicle movements - probably via GPS and chipped vehicles.
But the best tax of all, if your aim is to reduce petrol consumption, is a tax on fuel.
Oh wait, we had one of those - and it was sunk by lorry drivers and their mates. Anyone with an eye on the proven reserves of oil companies and OPEC will know that the price of petrol is only going to go one way - ever increasing demand + limited and falling supply = higher prices. OK, there may be some evidence that the current price is being driven by some speculative trading, but the long view is that there is only so much oil in the ground. So a government that encouraged its economy with incentives to use less fuel now, before the price goes to $200/barrel, would be doing everyone a favour. But was the public encourage to see the big picture? No, instead we were subjected to a lot of nonsense about how petrol is essential, that people's livelihoods depend on cheap petrol etc. Of course, the economy, as currently configured, depends on cheap petrol. All the more reason to make radical changes now, while we still can.
Green taxes have poor credibility right now. Look at the fuss over rubbish charges. People hate them. The principle is clear, land-fill is a limited resource, and consumers need to produce less waste if we are ever to get to grips with the problem. But how to encourage them to do so? Education is good, but taxes do change behaviour, if they are correctly framed.
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most anything can be reduced to lazy slogans, its kind of fun.
the democratic process is not flawed, it is built around a logical fallacy, and must be scrapped.
speaking fallacys that last line is a good example of Ad Baculum
Yeah, whatever. It's not a fallacy, mate, that's what happened. The NF and BNP both increased their number and share of the vote. You encourage people to stay at home, they encouraged people to get out and vote.
So what are you doing to bring about the scrapping of the fallacious system that we have now? Apart from stirring up apathy and nihilism?
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Well, technically it's not. True road-pricing would charge per distance travelled. Like motorways in France.
The C Charge is a one-off charge, which is a regressive tax, and provides an incentive to drive more once you have paid the charge. Road-pricing would make more sense, as more miles travelled = higher tax. However, this is technically a very hard tax to enforce at local level, as it requires tracking of vehicle movements - probably via GPS and chipped vehicles.
But the best tax of all, if your aim is to reduce petrol consumption, is a tax on fuel.
Oh wait, we had one of those - and it was sunk by lorry drivers and their mates. Anyone with an eye on the proven reserves of oil companies and OPEC will know that the price of petrol is only going to go one way - ever increasing demand + limited and falling supply = higher prices. OK, there may be some evidence that the current price is being driven by some speculative trading, but the long view is that there is only so much oil in the ground. So a government that encouraged its economy with incentives to use less fuel now, before the price goes to $200/barrel, would be doing everyone a favour. But was the public encourage to see the big picture? No, instead we were subjected to a lot of nonsense about how petrol is essential, that people's livelihoods depend on cheap petrol etc. Of course, the economy, as currently configured, depends on cheap petrol. All the more reason to make radical changes now, while we still can.
Green taxes have poor credibility right now. Look at the fuss over rubbish charges. People hate them. The principle is clear, land-fill is a limited resource, and consumers need to produce less waste if we are ever to get to grips with the problem. But how to encourage them to do so? Education is good, but taxes do change behaviour, if they are correctly framed.
Technically you're right on the road-pricing, but in the absence of tracking it was a policy with a similar objective that had an appreciable effect on the level of congestion in London. In Singapore (where I grew up) they had quite a good system for charging for city use, but politically I don't see tracking being easy to introduce here - I mean, this is a country in which speed cameras have to be announced in sufficient time for you to be able to slow down to the legal limit!
Re. the commodities markets - it's not just speculation (which is hard to measure) but also a function of weakening currencies - nominal gains in dollars (and pounds, increasingly) are more dramatic than the nominal gains in oil prices in euros. Which is partly a function of our weakening economy. There's a bit of a feedback loop, actually, as traders have been using commodities as a way reduce their exposure to currency depreciation. Anyway, enough commodities mkts stuff.
What's interesting to me is that Japan responded to the OPEC price shocks of the previous generation by reducing the energy intensity of their economy dramatically, while the US didn't. Japan uses about 25pc less energy than the US per unit of GDP produced - and that's after they slowed down a bit during the late 1990s when oil was dirt cheap.
The UK is quite good in terms of the energy intensity of the economy, but you're right that we could do more. One thing that would help dissuade people from driving so much is if we didn't intervene to keep down fuel prices, but left people exposed to the market. That'd force them to adapt by consuming less fuel. I find it incredibly ironic that the people most averse to this idea are generally against government intervention in the economy...
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The congestion charge was originally introduced to reduce the number of cars on the road in London. Carbon emissions had nothing to do with it. The decision to have higher charges for more polluting cars was a sop to the Greens in the Assembly.
No shit - That is why i agreed with the initial charge - it was an inclusive tax rather than an exclusive tax, and worked well at deterring people from making unnecessary trips, and opting for public transport where possible - the proposed changes are bollox as outlined in my original rant, because they do little to deter car use in central London, because everyone will be running around in their Lexus hybrids, rather than looking at alternative transport.
And the hypothetical you give is a little specious: the main outcome of the reformulated policy would have been to persuade people to buy smaller cars, which would indeed have a beneficial influence on overall emissions levels. Of course heavier users are going to produce more carbon than lighter users, no matter what they drive - do you really think that nobody in the world is smart enough to work that out but you?
**No i dont - which is why i said ** either nobody thought of this obvious flaw in the plan, in which case God help us all, or as is far more likely one of the bright young things at Kens elbow raised his hand in a meeting to point out this problem only to have his concern dismissed as an inconvenient truth.
Oh, and how much carbon would have have burnt on your way into the CC zone, by the way?
Well my daily drive takes me 150 m into the congestion zone from fulham to The Boltons, where the veichle is parked up off road. That would be a £25 daily charge for a minute amount of polluting - begining to see my point?
You then say:
"either go the whole hog and pedestrianize most of central London with goods access during restricted hours, bring all taxis (the heaviest polluters on our roads) into a decent emissions limit, and make Public Transport the only viable option, or carry on and put sensible road pricing options into action and make the citys traffic work while gradually phasing in emissions and traffic controls. The current restrictions are far more easy tax revenue for the government than they are beneficial restrictions that we the people can see and reap the benefits of."
Pedestrianising central London - are you joking? Road pricing while phasing in emissions and traffic controls - erm, congestion charge? If that's not a form of road pricing, what is?
What i am talking about is sensible road pricing that includes all vehicles and takes into account their use, necessity to local business, and time spent on the road - not a blanket tax that penalizes more people than it benefits. The west end could easily be pedestrianized, with electric trams servicing the major arteries such as oxford st and picadilly - if you can be bothered to google it you will see that there have been numeroud positive studies into this.
"I can understand the green issues of a number of us on here, and i always choose human powered transportation when i can, but i too live in the real world, and for one have had enough of political grand standing disguised as environmental policy's with revenues that have failed to ever be truly recycled into public transport, or environmentally friendly transport systems."
Let me see - erm, over the last 8 years we've gone to having fewer cars, more buses, more cycles on the roads. More cycle lanes at that, whether you like them or not. I'm confused. Is that not transport policy in action? Maybe it's not as noticeable over in Fulham?
I am not denying that thing have got better, but it has been a very poor return on the promises that were made . . . the only decent cycle lane i have seen is on New Cavendish St where it is barrierd in, otherwise i cant see them because they have cars in them or are just red paint on a pavement - until they are effectively enforced they are of little benefit. The bendy buses are rubbish, we have more buses but not a comparable uptake in bus usage, and the western extension has merely resulted in turning Hammersmith and Fulham into a rat run, ever seen Barons Court/ West Ken between 4 and 8 in the evening, more like a car park than a road network.
Stupid thing is I don't particularly like Ken (though I would have rather have had him than Boris). But I don't see how we're ever going to have a decent debate about transport and environmental policy in this country when people so willfully close their eyes to the facts in the name of partisan political purity. No hint of difficult political choices - always compromises - that the rest of us have to make in our reality-based world.
And that pretty much what i was saying - to me there is little real difference in having Boris or Ken at the helm, whoever we got would be stuck in a bureaucratic mire, and we will continue to see progress on traffic systems and public transport with either as we live in an age that demands it, but until the government nationally gets its act together theres not much change going to happen round here, so i did the sensible thing based my vote on which candidate would have the greater effect on my daily life
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Yeah, whatever. It's not a fallacy, mate, that's what happened. The NF and BNP both increased their number and share of the vote. You encourage people to stay at home, they encouraged people to get out and vote.
So what are you doing to bring about the scrapping of the fallacious system that we have now? Apart from stirring up apathy and nihilism?
lets see the BNP won one council seat, which they normally cannot fill, I hear the jack boots coming.
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Chris, either answer the question or naff off.
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I don't feel white men would be of any use for radical change as we are the embodiment of reactionism
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I don't feel white men would be of any use for radical change as we are the embodiment of reactionism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc&eurl=http://stuartdreeve.blogspot.com/
There is more than one way to read history. Which means there's always something else that can be done. I think, at any rate.
Basically, white people aren't all reactionaries the same way Muslims aren't all terrorists.
Edit to add - posting that video might have been a bit oblique. Basically part of what I'm trying to highlight is that going out and reframing the history, questioning the dominant narrative, can help undo some of the errors of the past. You can't do that without including white people in the process, 'cos they're sure as hell part of the story too.
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I don't feel white men would be of any use for radical change as we are the embodiment of reactionism
More apathy dressed up as considered opinion.
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A Sad Day For London
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@jonaent_(Jon)
C'mon Bill, I read about the number plate scheme...that was just ridiculous and would have never worked, but I never saw the "firing squads" story?
How about Ken's involvement with the TdF, Tour of Britain and on a lesser level Hovis Freewheel? There was a huge promotion of cycling as a viable means of transport which went along with all these events? I thought TdF last year was huge for London and for cycling.