Sadiq Khan wins 2024 London Mayoral election

[El Pollo Diablo]

Result just in. Susan Hall is insane.

[dyqik]

WTF is that about using transferable votes that can't be transferred to the top two candidates?

That basically means that if you don't vote for one of the top two first, you can't vote between them. It completely nullifies the point of ranked choice/transferable votes, and gives the Tories a way to win on a minority of the vote if there are left wing protest votes.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Indeed - the Tories passed the Elections Act 2022 which insisted that the London vote be done by FPTP. The same is true of all post-2023 local mayoral elections and PCCs.

[IvanV]

Are there any sensible people of any substance left in UKIP the Conservative party?

There's a lot of people angry with Khan in the outer boroughs, especially over the ULEZ expansion. A sensible candidate would have had a chance. But apparently they can't find one.

And it's funny. I didn't really see a way back for the Labour Party when the Corbynistas took control. But once Corbyn was rejected, the moderates fairly quickly took it back over. In the Conservative Party, the right-wing take-over was much less heralded. Although Johnson and Truss have been spat out, the hard right seem to remain in charge. They've put someone relatively presentable people in no 10 and 11, but most of the rest of the cabinet isn't. The old moderate core have largely left, been deselected, or redefined themselves.

[calmooney]

That basically means that if you don't vote for one of the top two first, you can't vote between them. It completely nullifies the point of ranked choice/transferable votes, and gives the Tories a way to win on a minority of the vote if there are left wing protest votes.

If the by-election here in Uxbridge is anything to go by, the Tories are more likely to lose more votes to other right-wing parties/anti-ULEZ votes.

[discovolante]

Do you know, until this thread I was absolutely convinced the mayor of London could only serve two terms. I thought maybe there had been some kind of mega delay because of covid (and had forgotten about the 2021 election), and then finally looked it up. Huh.

[lpm]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

[TopBadger]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

I don't think so... I suspect Gaby has it correct...

An inconvenient truth: you can’t sell the green revolution to people who can’t afford it

[EACLucifer]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

I don't think so... I suspect Gaby has it correct...

An inconvenient truth: you can’t sell the green revolution to people who can’t afford it

It costs a f.ck of a lot to adapt a vehicle. That means once you've done it, you won't want to be replacing it any time soon, and vehicles used by disabled people often do lower milages than average. Again, that means you won't be replacing them quickly. And a lot of them are based on vans - which are often diesels and so have to be very modern to not be hit with significant charges. Though there's "grace periods", which means a bit of a delay before charges hit for some - only some - blue badge holders, there's no overall exemption.

And before some idiot pipes up about public transport, have you actually looked at the public transport system for disabled users in London? The London Underground lags almost every other metro system in the world for accessibility, and people there have told me there just isn't any point expecting to be able to get onto a bus, as they are often crowded - meaning no access to the wheelchair space - and the drivers are no better than anywhere else in the country, by which I mean they routinely ignore the law and f.ck over disabled users.

ULEZs make a lot of sense for commercial vehicles, for private vehicles, for the most part, natural attrition will do the trick, so long as new vehicles are required to meet high standards, and yes, there might be a tiny bit more pollution from a disabled persons van than another vehicle, but in the scheme of things it's a pretty small amount of relative pollution.

[IvanV]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

I don't think so... I suspect Gaby has it correct...

An inconvenient truth: you can’t sell the green revolution to people who can’t afford it

EAC makes a very good point relative to the disabled community.

More widely, there are many areas of extensive lower income in outer London, places like Hillingdon, Enfield, Barking, etc. Many people here depend on their not-very-new diesel van for their scant livelihood, or their old secondhand car for getting around by trips that are impractical by public transport. In outer London, a substantial fraction of trips are not practical by public transport, because a lot of trips go across public transport routes, which are heavily radial. Indeed, one reason that areas can have lower property prices and hence be occupied by the less well off, is that they are inconvenient for getting around and to places you want to go to.

I therefore tended to think that the Mayor would not be so unkind to these many people, many of them who probably helped vote him in, until there was a more extensive availability of pollution-compliant vehicles in the cheaper part of the 2nd hand market, and that they were already extensively owned by these people. There were support schemes when the inner London ULEZ happened, but the rate of car ownership is lower in these areas, less well-off people in inner London tend not to own a car at all. Vans were specifically supported.

TfL has said "over 90% of vehicles moving in outer London are ULEZ compliant", though it has refused to release the data that comes from. But poorer people drive less. And a material proportion will be people driving in from wealthier areas outside London too, as just beyond outer London there are extensive areas of better off people who drive in. The BBC reckons that there are about 700,000 cars in outer London that are not ULEZ compliant. And then there's the vans. And these are predominantly owned by less well-off people.

[jimbob]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

I don't think so... I suspect Gaby has it correct...

An inconvenient truth: you can’t sell the green revolution to people who can’t afford it

It costs a f.ck of a lot to adapt a vehicle. That means once you've done it, you won't want to be replacing it any time soon, and vehicles used by disabled people often do lower milages than average. Again, that means you won't be replacing them quickly. And a lot of them are based on vans - which are often diesels and so have to be very modern to not be hit with significant charges. Though there's "grace periods", which means a bit of a delay before charges hit for some - only some - blue badge holders, there's no overall exemption.

And before some idiot pipes up about public transport, have you actually looked at the public transport system for disabled users in London? The London Underground lags almost every other metro system in the world for accessibility, and people there have told me there just isn't any point expecting to be able to get onto a bus, as they are often crowded - meaning no access to the wheelchair space - and the drivers are no better than anywhere else in the country, by which I mean they routinely ignore the law and f.ck over disabled users.

ULEZs make a lot of sense for commercial vehicles, for private vehicles, for the most part, natural attrition will do the trick, so long as new vehicles are required to meet high standards, and yes, there might be a tiny bit more pollution from a disabled persons van than another vehicle, but in the scheme of things it's a pretty small amount of relative pollution.

See some of the posts by One off Dave for examples

[lpm]

Khan has clearly failed to get outer London voters on side. And Starmer joined in that failure.

It's a really worrying signal. Khan isn't in much danger of losing. But we can't accept Starmer's negligence in this by-election. Car culture in England is so dominant it's enough to chip away a few votes.

And the Conservatives are seizing on this as The Answer and will pander to car culture at every chance. They're not entirely stupid - they'll realise fighting for rich people's banking arrangements is a dead end and will quickly switch to fighting for motorists rights to pollute. Net zero will get sucked into this swamp as well.

[Woodchopper]

English voters, it turns out, are pro pollution.

I don't think so... I suspect Gaby has it correct...

An inconvenient truth: you can’t sell the green revolution to people who can’t afford it

Lots of good points made about disabled people, and they should be given exceptions.

But, looking at the constituency demographics, overall and compared to the rest of the UK, it has above average incomes, including disposable incomes after tax and housing, and more people working in higher skilled and better paid jobs.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcg ... %20Ruislip

So if the voters of Uxbridge and South Ruislip can’t afford the green revolution that isn’t a good sign that the rest of the UK will feel that they can.

[IvanV]

Lots of good points made about disabled people, and they should be given exceptions.

But, looking at the constituency demographics, overall and compared to the rest of the UK, it has above average incomes, including disposable incomes after tax and housing, and more people working in higher skilled and better paid jobs.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcg ... %20Ruislip

So if the voters of Uxbridge and South Ruislip can’t afford the green revolution that isn’t a good sign that the rest of the UK will feel that they can.

Those are averages. U&SR has the same average deprivation level as the UK as a whole. But it is more widely differentiated than most of the UK. There's some very rich bits that are uncommon in most of the UK, pulling income averages up. And then there's an extensive deprived bit, often living in places where Heathrow makes a lot of noise for them. Though perhaps not as bad as the eastern approaches to the runway in Hounslow.

But I agree with your final conclusion. The "odd" thing about the UK is that the poor are poorer than in our near peers on the continent. They have been suffering more from the recent economic difficulties.

[EACLucifer]

Lots of good points made about disabled people, and they should be given exceptions.

Any system relying on exemptions must a) have exemptions that are no more complicated than the system itself and b) take into account cars used for the benefit of mobility impaired people* as well as those owned and kept by them or it will harm mobility impaired people.

*I tend to talk about working age disabled, but frankly most of the stuff I talk about is as relevant or more relevant for people elder people with mobility impairments.

[bagpuss]

Lots of good points made above about the problems with the ULEZ extension.

Fundamentally, I think that most people agree the ULEZ extension is at least a reasonable thing to do, but as even a Green party politician said on the Today programme this morning, you have to work with people to make them happy to make changes* and there seems to be a lot of agreement that this has been implemented badly. Not giving people enough notice, not making the scrappage scheme good enough, not enough consultation.

ULEZ in Central London was a no-brainer. Public transport, despite how much Londoners moan about it, is actually brilliant there - and it's not all radial routes, either. ULEZ in the outer boroughs needed more planning, more thinking about how to implement it without f.cking up people who are totally reliant on their non-compliant vehicles to get to/from their jobs or travel around as part of their jobs. Either a longer lead-time, or a better scrappage scheme, or both, was needed.

As Ivan says, the constituency has some very wealthy areas and some very not wealthy areas. And funnily enough, those not wealthy areas tend to coincide with the area where there are no tube or overground stations.

There is also a large hospital in the constituency that serves people from a large area of North West London, and also some of Buckinghamshire. A lot of the hospital workers there will have limited ability to use public transport to get to/from work (night/early/late shifts and commuting by bus often don't work well together) and we all know that many NHS staff are not well paid and will probably have older, crappier, non-ULEZ compliant cars.

I had a nasty feeling that ULEZ was going to be a deciding factor in this particular by-election and I'm actually pleasantly surprised how close Labour came to winning it. It's a shame that the Tories are able to loudly proclaim it a win, although anyone with a clue will laugh at them (as someone indeed did laugh at Greg Hands on the Today programme this morning)**.




*His phrase was something like "go with the grain of people" and he cited the example of insulating people's homes which isn't just a great thing environmentally, but has immediate benefits for the people living in the home and paying the energy bills too, so you don't have to push people too hard to get onside.
**Incidentally, Nick Robinson seemed to be having great fun interviewing him this morning - it's been a long time since I heard a Today programme presenter stomp all over a Tory politician trying to avoid answering questions and turn the conversation to the mostly irrelevant thing they want to say. But Robinson was cutting in all over the place and insisting he answer questions. Lovely job.

[dyqik]

One thing worth knowing is that the rate of expansion of the ULEV zone is a Tory policy, imposed by Grant Shapps. Khan's plan was for a significantly slower expansion, but the rapid expansion was made a condition of CoVID funding.

[bagpuss]

One thing worth knowing is that the rate of expansion of the ULEV zone is a Tory policy, imposed by Grant Shapps. Khan's plan was for a significantly slower expansion, but the rapid expansion was made a condition of CoVID funding.

Is that right? That is indeed worth knowing. Rather surprising that in all the talk about it today, no-one has mentioned it.

[dyqik]

Also, there are 20,000 students enrolled at Brunel University in Uxbridge. But it's summer.

[dyqik]

One thing worth knowing is that the rate of expansion of the ULEV zone is a Tory policy, imposed by Grant Shapps. Khan's plan was for a significantly slower expansion, but the rapid expansion was made a condition of CoVID funding.

Is that right? That is indeed worth knowing. Rather surprising that in all the talk about it today, no-one has mentioned it.

https://twitter.com/garius/status/16823 ... gNHjg&s=19

And

https://twitter.com/garius/status/16822 ... Z6jUA&s=19

[lpm]

The idea that mobility impaired people should get an exemption for polluting is silly.

They can get the less polluting cars, same as anyone else. It's not exactly a high hurdle.

Air pollution hurts the poor the most and car culture hurts the disabled the most. The obsession with potholes drains away all funding for pavement and safety improvements.

This by-election has ended all hopes of banning pavement parking in various areas of the country. Local politicians will be too scared of the backlash, given how voters have signalled their prioritising of cars over people.

[dyqik]

And direct evidence:

https://twitter.com/MarcDavenant/status ... rs3dg&s=19

[dyqik]

This by-election has ended all hopes of banning pavement parking in various areas of the country. Local politicians will be too scared of the backlash, given how voters have signalled their prioritising of cars over people.

That might be true if all politicians and their strategists were idiots and ignored actual polling in these issues, rather than a one-off by-election timed by the ruling party for maximum advantage.

If this by election was held in three months time or three months ago, you'd be talking about how successful the anti-car policies were.

[lpm]

We live in a world of narratives. The story is set.

Keep places planned around cars 1, Create places planned around people 0.

[EACLucifer]

The idea that mobility impaired people should get an exemption for polluting is silly.

They can get the less polluting cars, same as anyone else. It's not exactly a high hurdle.

f.ck off you patronising f.cking c.nt. This is b.llsh.t.

Getting a car that can carry a wheelchair is a massive hurdle. Absolutely massive. I just checked Autotrader. 486 out of 450190 vehicles they have for sale are wheelchair accessible. That's a tenth of a percent.

Of that 486, 1 is electric, 2 are petrol hybrid and and two are petrol plug in hybrid, 98 are straight petrol and 383 are diesel. That's because wheelchair accessible vehicles are adapted from small vans.

For a new conversion, you are looking at upward of five grand just for the most basic of conversions, as well as often a waiting list.

Or to put it another way, changing car means more effort and significantly more expense for mobility impaired people and those supporting them than it does for other people - a much higher hurdle.

In addition, the options for non motorised transport for mobility-impaired people are radically reduced due to the difficulties accessing busses especially when crowded, the refusal of the London Underground to make stations accessible, failure to provide assistance to get onto trains, or worse, off them meaning one gets trapped, constant failure by virtually every authority involved to meet the most basic standards whether its for access to trains or just getting around the urban environment where dropped kerbs and similar are considered as niceties rather than necessities, minicab firms can't be arsed providing accessible vehicles and so on. One point I often have to make is that my wheelchairs with their big front wheels to help the climb weren't modified that way to get me onto footpaths, they were modified that way just to get me around town without having to stick to a few well known routes where I know where all the dropped kerbs are.

It's also impossible for two wheelchair users to travel together on British busses, or by taxi, and for most trains they'd have to travel in separate carriages. It is however possible to adapt a van to carry two wheelchairs or scooters, especially if it is one modified for a disabled person to drive from the wheelchair.