Ken Livingstone writes in the egregious Comment is Free about his latest scheme to rip off people he doesn’t like:
Tomorrow, Friday August 10, we begin full public consultation on plans to charge the cars with the biggest contribution to global warming – such as the some of the so-called “Chelsea tractors”, some high-powered sports cars and expensive luxury vehicles – £25 to drive in the central London congestion charge zone.
Naturally, climate change is the excuse for this pernicious persecution of a group of people targeted because they drive vehicles that this nasty, venemous little man disapproves of.
London’s target to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2025 is twice that set by the government, but it is what the latest science dictates. It only took a five-degree drop in average temperatures to trigger the last ice-age. The implications of a five-degree change in the opposite direction don’t bear thinking about. We have no choice but to act.
Congestion charging in central London has cut traffic levels by 22%. But now also offers the opportunity to cut levels of greenhouse gas pollution.
Science, my Arse! This is religious fundamentalism of the worst kind. That climate change is occurring is a matter of observable fact, that it is anthropogenic is not proven.
This is nothing more than a vicious, mean spirited, hateful little man obsessed with the politics of envy misusing his position of power to target those whom he despises; people who drive big, expensive cars. He ignores the little matter that many of these vehicles, being of modern design and build are far more efficient than their predecessors and have a lower environmental impact than the terminally stupid Prius fêted by the enviroloons as a viable alternative vehicle. A vehicle’s environmental impact is not measured by stereotype – although the poisonous Ken is happy enough to engage in gross stereotyping; even resorting to the “Chelsea Tractor” slur. What a thoroughly fetid arsehole this man is.
Fuck Ken and fuck the sycophantic lunatic fringe kissing his arse in the comments section. This man is a prime example of the spiteful nature of socialism at its worst – bigotry personified. They presume that they are the ones to decide what “choices” people may have, not the people themselves.
I do hope Boris kicks the shit out of him come election time. Someone needs to.
Taken over the life of the vehicle, the Prius is an environmental disaster, with batteries containing all sorts of nasty metals and chemicals that must be recycled carefully – and that adds hugely to CO2 emmisions.
That is aside from the huge CO2 emmisions associated with changing you car often to get whatever makes you look caring this year, darlings.
Ken should be encouraging us to keep our cars longer and use ones that emit less (or how about motorbikes?) and get on our bikes and use the tube and trains if we have to spend any time in the stinking overpriced hell hole of a capital city we have. However, he discriminates against older vehicles for no good reason. I suspect he knows the people he sneers at won’t actually stop driving their tractors, so he’s just bleeding them in the knowledge they will pay up, rather than really trying to stop them driving entirely unsuitable vehicles in the capital.
Personally, I don’t like the SUV very much – they are big, ugly and entirely unsuited to city driving. But that’s just my opinion and no one is forcing me to buy one. The argument usually trotted out and it is repeated among the great unwashed currently working their tongues around Ken’s ring piece is that they are dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists. The reality is that they are no more dangerous to other road users than any other vehicle of similar size; delivery vans for example. This is all about envy, hatred and bigotry.