sadoldgit

I’ve read some really dumb posts from you when you posted as Delldays. I’ve read some really dumb posts from you when you posted as Batman. Given the bar is so low, congratulations but you have just managed to come up with your most ridiculous post ever. Well done, your persistence has paid off.

Usual stupid, ill informed comment. If this is just a revenue raising exercise then perhaps you should aim your barbs at the people responsible for its operation. They seem to have missed a trick in only aiming for 10% of the traffic and once everyone is compliant they are stuffed. As for the poster who complains about paying to help keep the air cleaner for his dear old Grandpa when he goes to see him, given that your vehicle is part of the problem in the first place, perhaps you are the wanker rather than the bloke who is trying to improve Gramp’s living conditions?

I am not trying to ruin it for you. Good luck to you. My point is why say anything to the rest of us deemed not worthy of being included in the sacred circle of trust? He could quite happily message you with his sacred information but feels the need to dangle the carrot in front of the rest of us to make himself look important. Typical narcissistic behaviour and totally unnecessary but enjoy bathing in his reflective glory. You are all welcome inside the SOG Circle of Trust and at no extra charge. Here’s what I have been told. Some players are coming in. Some players are leaving. The moment the transfer window slams shut you will all know exactly who they are. Remember, you heard it from me first. 😘

Thank you for your input. It makes a pleasant change from the childish I Know Stuff But I Am Only Sharing With The Circle Of Trust bullshit. Here’s a tip to that poster, if you are supposed to keep this stuff to yourself and not share it on a football forum, keep it to yourself and don’t tell people on said forum that you will tell some but not others. The rest of us are grown ups, maybe time to behave like a grown up yourself?

Just like those damned people who fought against the slave trade, against shoving children up chimneys, who developed vaccines to improve public health and are working to find cures for cancers - just trying to show us what good people they are.🙄 Assuming you are a grandparent, would you criticise other grandparents for wanting their grandchildren to grow up in a healthier environment as just wanting to show what “good” people they are? Little wonder you swallowed the guff spewed out by Farage. He played on your nasty narrow view of other human beings. Enjoy your cynicism whilst you eye up the nine pinters down at your local ale house.

Others will beg to differ about the air quality Whitey but if you have lived in London you will know just how bad the traffic is outside the north and south circular roads. I spent many years living near and in Bromley and in Sidcup and for areas very close to the green belt the traffic was horrendous 20 years ago. I can’t imagine that it is any better now. As for the “punitive fine” you will only have to pay if your car is non compliant. If it isn’t, don’t think if it as a fine, think of it as contributing to the well being of our current and future generations 😉 Yes, it will be a pain for some, but major changes will always have a negative impact on an element of society but we learn to live with it and move on. I remember the fuss caused by smokers when smoking was banned in pubs. No one says anything about it now and we can all enjoy our drinks and meals without inhaling other people’s air pollution.

Of course it will. If you know anything about London you will know that the traffic in boroughs like Croydon and Bromley (outside the south circular road) probably have worse traffic problems than inner London boroughs. The air is already cleaner since efforts to improve it were brought into place but it still doesn’t comply with international regulations so more work needs to be done. I appreciate that Batman struggles with the concept of air that moves around but I am sure that you understand that the quality of the air doesn’t automatically get better it worse with side of the north and south circular roads. Funny that exactly the same people who don’t give a toss about the negative effects that Brexit have had on this country are getting their knickers twisted about a policy that will improve the health of tens of thousands of people and have an adverse financial effect for relatively few. The notion that it is just a money making scam is complete crap. If it was why the help in assisting people in the lower income brackets? Why the scrappage schemes? Surely they would make more money by making compliance as difficult as possible for as many people as possible? I heard that caller in the David Lammy show live and my first thought was that he wasn’t in the least bit being rational. Lammy didn’t press him on his claims and I think that was because he thought the bloke had lost it. How you can say that the ULEZ scheme is worse for you family than the horrors of the last 13 years of Tory governance god only knows. The energy price hike alone will have cost him more and I am sure the mortgage rates have also made a bigger dent in his finances. Perhaps it was the final nail in his particular coffin, but he can’t blame ULEZ for the state of his finances overall. So this man, who was at his wits end, was happy to vote for the same party who has shafted him for well over a decade because of a policy brought in to help make his family healthier in the long term 🤔. Sounds a bit cuckoo to me. Maybe when he calmed down a bit he realised that there is a bit of a difference between voting for a party to run the country based on wider factors rather than just one local issue.

You really are dense. Everything is a money grab. We live in a capitalist society don’t we? To do things it cost money. As already said, clean air doesn’t come free. As part of the process the public transport services need to be improved. That costs money. The air quality in the underground in London needs to be improved. That costs money. The £12.50 will help but that disappears if everyone drives compliant vehicles, which of course is the aim. So not the greatest money grab really is it given 90% of vehicles are already compliant. Hopefully the daily charge will encourage more people to change their vehicles or to use public transport. For someone who lives in London and has children, I assume, I am surprised that you are not in favour of the cleaner air this Tory driven initiative has provided for your family. Your typical Batman jibe about killing granny for £12.50 shows just how ignorant you are. Go and do some research about the effect that the particulates have on developing lungs. You might not give a stuff about the health of future generations, but fortunately others do. We have spent years being poisoned in pursuit of cash. We are now having to spend cash in dealing with that poison.

Not if everyone drives a compliant vehicle. And if the money raised is ploughed back into matters that help the environment, where’s the problem? Perhaps this is being looked at the wrong way? The government are happy to provide other cities around the country with money for a decent scrapage scheme, why not London? It couldn’t possibly be to cause problems for Labour could it in the run up to the mayoral election next year? Why does Khan have to find the money himself when the government are helping out other ULEZ schemes? Cleaner air means healthier inhabitants and less of a drain on NHS resources. Fewer days lost by employers by sick leave. Doesn’t it seem logical that those causing the pollution pay extra if they don’t change to compliant vehicles? Boris Johnson clearly thought so when he was mayor. The issue here shouldn’t be whether it is extended or not. It should be about the help, or lack of help, given to those who need to change their vehicles in order to comply with the new regulations.

The implementation of ULEZ into outer London areas has been found as lawful by the courts. Clearly a big issue but if it helps to prevent the 4000 deaths a year in the capital due to air pollution and won’t affect 90% of current drivers whose vehicles are compliant, isn’t this a good thing?

Even Morrissey managed to put some words together that didn’t want to make me smack him in the mouth for a change. It is not often I agree with him but his tribute to her was spot on.

The situation re house prices is very different now to back in the high interest rates of the 1980’s and I think there is a huge difference between playing the market and trying to get your foot on the housing market. The ratio between earnings and house prices has grown enormously during this period and the situation has been exacerbated by the shortage of rental properties. People are not playing the market nowadays, they are just trying to get a roof over their heads. The interests rates are incidental. People will look to get a mortgage be they low or high because very few have the resources to buy a house without borrowing. Yes, there is always a risk when you take out a mortgage (at any interest rate) and I am not suggesting that the government should bail people out, but there is clearly a huge issue now with the lack of affordable housing and the shortage of rentable properties, and that is where the government can step in and make a difference.

You would think that the Home Secretary would have more important things to worry about given the rise in knife crime, the state of the Met and the lack of progress in stopping the small boats. What’s the betting though that she keeps her job in Sunak’s next reshuffle.

Bless that you are pretending not to understand that London, London’s traffic and London’s air pollution don’t just begin and end at the North & South Circular roads - unless I have missed the building of a giant dome a la Springfield over the inner London boroughs? Like the previous poster, you need to reread the full article from The Guardian. You have completely missed the point.

He clearly didn’t bother to to read the article properly, or if he did then perhaps he had the same mindset as Braverman. As stated, this man is not a threat to society and his one misdemeanour concerns a drug a lot milder and more widespread than that used by a number of MPs (Michael Gove being one). It is also below the threshold of non readmittance. Braverman (and Turkish it would appear) are trying to tell us that this man is akin to Pablo Escobar 🙄. Nasty, nasty people with a deeply unpleasant agenda. Who separates a parent from their child under such flimsy circumstances?

Many other posters have been writing about this issue yet you single me out for your comment. If it so boring why waste your precious time reading it when you could be down at your local ale house eyeing up the nine pinters? As said previously, this country is rapidly going down the toilet thanks to the way the government have governed over the last 13 years, and that includes Brexit and the implementation of Brexit. I am sure that you are aware that local services are dependent on funding and as we know, local services are being cut back due to our economic situation.

Suella Braverman, yet again, shows us what a despicable, heartless person she is. This is the person lining up to be the next leader of the Tory Party. Don’t let anyone tell you that this isn’t a far right leaning party. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/23/suella-braverman-refuses-plea-of-man-barred-from-uk-to-be-reunited-with-son-siyabonga-twala

Our nearest High Street is in Ashford. There is a large shopping mall with a reasonably priced multi storey car park and from the mall you exit straight into the shopper friendly pedestrianised High St. There are plenty of large car parks within walking distance of the town centre, all reasonably priced. No ULEZ. All this is great if you want nail bars, fast food outlets, phone shops, charity shops and coffee shops. The big shops in the mall all left some time ago - Debenhams, Next, M & S, all gone. The town centre has been in decline for the last 20 years and it is nothing to do with an anti motorist policy by the council or ULEZ. Another localish High St is in Tenterden. You can park free in the street for an hour. You can park free in the Tesco’s car park for two hours and walk through to the shops. There is a reasonably priced car park in Waitrose which again is a very short walk to the shops. Guess what? All of the banks bar one, and that is due to close soon, have shut up shop. The place is full of charity shops, coffee shops, empty shops or short lease shops. Even Laura Ashley bailed out, if that shop can’t sustain a business in an affluent town like Tenterden, there is a problem The places that are doing best are the large outlet centre just by Ashford International station and the many small retail parks dotted around the town centre. Once upon a time you could get everything you needed in your High St. Now you get most of you stuff online or at shops away from the High Street. Batman may yearn for the good old days, but shopping has changed dramatically and dumping ULEZ plans and reducing the price of parking will make no difference. People don’t go to the High Street in the numbers they used to because they find what they need elsewhere. Why get in your car when you get most of what you need delivered to your door?

I’m guessing that Turkish doesn’t have any mates on holiday in Rhodes at the moment. 😎🔥

Apart from more people shopping online these days there are other reasons that the High Streets are dying. Large out of town shopping centres have been attracting shoppers away for years. Over inflated shop rentals and business rates have forced many people out of business and resulted in High Streets full of little than charity and coffee shops. Parking issues and ULEZ come well down the list when you look at the decline of our High Streets.

Pretty much like you prattling on about anti-semitism on the Boris Johnson thread when it should have been on the Israel thread. And, of course, crap public services have nothing to do with Tory policies over the last 13 years do they? It’s almost as if the country hasn’t gone to the dogs at a rate of knots since Brexit 🙄

Bottom line is that we all want cleaner air, we all want better services and infrastructure, we all want a better NHS, we all agree that more homes need to be built, but we don’t want to pay more for these things or the houses built next door. Agree that there are issues around public transport in the outer areas of London. It needs improving and it needs to be cheaper. Mind you, that is also a national problem. In my area of Kent the local bus services are already very poor and the KCC have recently announced further cuts to the services in rural areas. You are stuffed here without a car. We have got rid of one car and trying to work around just using one car hasn’t been easy.

Being righteous has nothing to do with it. Don’t you want to live in a better world? People are trying to do the right thing so why not support them? You just sound like the other reactionary idiots on here. You don’t have to be bright not to want to breath polluted air which is one of the (many) reasons I moved to the countryside when I could. As for living next to a coal power station and being ok, some people smoke all their lives and live to a ripe old age, but we know smoking does terrible harm to the lungs and many will have health problems or die prematurely because they smoked. As you say Whitey, London air is cleaner than it was in the 50’s and 60’s thanks to the various measures to clean it up but it is still not where it should be under international law. Sadiq Khan was talking about the problems on the Tube the other day and that is being looked into but that doesn’t mean that reducing car emissions is any less important. If being a self righteous prick means that the right decisions are made for the right reasons, why not be a self righteous prick?

What about the daily impact of breathing polluted air, especially for children and developing lungs? Apparently, despite best efforts and a vast improvement in air quality , London’’s air still doesn’t satisfy the international legal level of acceptable pollution. Listening to Khan he is aware of the financial problems faced by many and has put plans in place to help ameliorate the problems for many. He has been hindered in his plans in some ways by being told he will have to find the money for the scrapage programme himself. The government have given subsidies to several other cities for scrapage so you have to wonder whether some petty politicking is going on and if the same would be the case if it was a Tory London mayor. Having said that, the speed with which he is pushing through ULEZ in the outer London area probably needs to be reviewed. If you unhappy about cycle lanes in Southampton I suggest that you take that up with the local council as I don’t think that has much to do with Labour’s performance in the Uxbridge by-election. Incidentally, I was born and raised in London and had to walk to school for 3 days during in the smog outbreak in 1962. It was a thick, green colour (hence the name “pea souper”), you could barely see your hand in front of your face and god knows what it did to our lungs but it was responsible for over 700 deaths from bronchial conditions. Fortunately we no longer have smogs (thanks to the banning of coal fires) but their is still a major problem with asthma and other bronchial problems amongst children caused by car emissions.

Where do these people think that money for Universal Credit, the State Pension, Eat Out To Help Out, foreign aid, state subsidies for business ventures etc. come from? In this case the government are happy to provide subsidies for people to change their cars to more environmentally friendly vehicles in Birmingham, so why not London? Also Sadiq Khan was told that he had to implement ULEZ by Grant Shapps so for Sunak to try and make political capital out of it is a joke. He is desperately trying to give some spin to a night when his party has been smashed in two safe seats and barely held on to a constituency that has never been held by Labour.