BREATHE! BREATHE! BREATHE GODDAMN IT!

There is nothing more heartwarming, more magnanimous and – most importantly – benevolent than when those in high office exercise their political power for the protection of their subjects’ health and wellbeing. From today until eternity (hopefully), thanks to the visionary work of the Mayor of London, those tired, poor, huddled masses “yearning to breathe free” will, finally, be able to inhale and exhale without fear. All 32 boroughs within the jurisdictional grasp of His Excellency Mr Sadiq Aman Khan are now blessed with being Ultra-Low Emission Zones. A pervasive new network of cameras will ensure that those callous polluters will be subject to a green tax, lest they continue causing the deaths of thousands of their fellow brother and sister Londoners (unless, that is, they are willing to incur the daily levy for the opportunity to legally poison them). 

Older cars and vans – the kind driven by those silly plebeians for their work – will now be faced with a £12.50 daily charge, every day of the year, except Christmas Day (the Mayor is not insensitive to the Son-of-God’s birthday). For those living just outside the boundaries of the ULEZ zone, a mere millimeter traversed inside the protected bubble will incur a charge; for those within the ULEZ universe, if their old banger rolls out of the driveway, then that ain’t gonna be free no more! The Mayor had “no option” but to go ahead with his revolutionary plans. 4,000 Londoners die of air pollution every year! It is quite clear to anyone with even a passing familiarity with John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty (1859), that Mr Khan is merely ascribing to the liberal philosophy of the Harm Principle:

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” 

Those haters of the Mayor, and his environmental regeneration policy, can, in other words, suck it! But what of the fact that air pollution has been mentioned in only one death certificate in the last four years? What of the fact that academic studies on the capital’s air quality suggest that the air in London has not been purer since long before the Industrial Revolution in the 1760s? Not to worry, Mr Khan’s office has rebutted these pernicious claims with its own study. The findings of the Mayor’s own prestigious study vindicate the Mayor’s own policy: ULEZ’s introduction in central London, in just its first six months, led to a 36% reduction in nitrogen dioxide when compared to a similar period in 2017. Consequently, the expansion of ULEZ is a slam-dunk no-brainer! Amen! Thank you, and goodbye! 

Of course, the haters and losers had the audacity to question the reliability of the Mayor’s world-class internal study. They would not go away! A team of researchers at Imperial College London – a so-called “university” – examined this issue from publicly available air quality data (harvested from the multitude of sensors around London). Their findings? ULEZ had helped lower nitrogen dioxide levels by 3% (with a de minimis impact on ozone and particulate pollution). These conclusions were based on the original ULEZ zone, in the centre of London, where vehicular congestion has always been (and remains) very high. The rather unkind message from this independent study was that ULEZ is “not a silver bullet”. Extrapolating all this, it would suggest that the expansion of ULEZ into the leafier, more sparsely populated outskirts of London will have an infinitesimal impact. Ouch!

It’s all fun and games, until we recognise that the implacable Mayor – despite vociferous public and political opposition – has imposed a regressive tax on the working class through the mendacious fudging of “the science”. Any sober cost-benefit analysis would have yielded a clear answer: heavy costs, negligible benefits. Upon the release of Imperial College’s findings, Khan should have been crestfallen; he should have shown humility. Instead his office tried to discredit the findings. There was never – not once – any effort to commission a major independent study to confirm or deny the Mayor’s internal study. “Pay up or shut up!” is the only message booming out of City Hall.

Being an eco-warrior is fashionable it seems, even when it involves choking ordinary working people and businesses with the boot of government overregulation. But, having just published his book, Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency, only a few months ago, Mr Khan – a little man with big plans — could not suffer the abject humiliation of such a u-turn. God forbid!