Filed under: Life Under Boris
The black cab is one of London’s most famous icons. Along with Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and the Routemaster bus, it regularly features in stock footage for films set in the capital and retains a nostalgic appeal for many people, particularly visitors to London.
However, figures from Transport for London show a different side to the story. They reveal that, in 2007-8, the 21,000 black cabs in London produced almost the same amount of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) as the capital’s 46,000 private hire vehicles (PHVs) and even more of the emissions (PM10 and NOx) that are responsible for air pollution. So it is quite clear that black cabs have an adverse environmental impact, both on climate change and air quality, out of proportion to their numbers.
When Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London the annual licensing inspection for cabs was tightened up and in October 2007 an additional mid-year test was introduced. Nearly 40 per cent of cabs failed the test, with excess emissions a major factor. Despite this, Ken’s successor, Boris Johnson, has scrapped the mid-year inspection for black cabs – while retaining them for the less-polluting PHVs.
When I raised the issue of the pollution caused by black cabs at Mayor’s Question Time this month, Boris admitted that emissions of small particulates (PM10) were especially problematic for Londoners suffering from respiratory illnesses and said this issue needed to be “addressed”. But he refused to consider reinstating the twice-yearly checks.
The reason is not hard to find. Some of Boris’ most effective allies during his mayoral campaign were black cab drivers. According to his campaign office, they distributed over seven million receipts with the slogan “Back Boris” to their passengers – a figure equivalent to the entire population of London. In exchange, Boris made a number of promises to the cabbies, including the abolition of the six-monthly test.
It was not as though Ken had treated black cab drivers badly. He gave them exemption from the congestion charge, the right to use central London bus lanes and an increased night-rate tariff. But, unlike Livingstone, Johnson appears happy to sacrifice Londoners’ health and the struggle against climate change for short-term political gain.
Black cabs are a permanent and necessary part of London’s transport network and no one is proposing to replace them with PHVs. However, as things stand, for the eco-conscious Londoner who needs to use a taxi service, a licensed private hire minicab is the greener option. Black cabs need to clean up their act. The Mayor should take a lead on this crucial issue and do everything he can to reduce emissions – rather than pander to drivers’ convenience in pursuit of electoral advantage.
Published in Tribune, 31 July 2009
August 3, 2009
Today at the launch of Client Earth outside City Hall, I expressed concern that London’s hosting of the 2012 Olympics may have been undermined by Boris Johnson’s regressive environmental decisions.
The International Olympic Committee’s evaluation of London’s bid (pdf here) expressed concern about London’s “increasing levels of ozone pollution” but said that “legislation and actions now in place, such as the ‘low emission zone’ and ‘congestion charge’, are aimed at correcting that trend and ensuring all air pollutants are within World Health Organisation and EU target levels by 2010″.
Since this evaluation was made, Boris Johnson has been elected Mayor, and London’s measures to tackle its poor air quality and ozone pollution have been rolled back. The Congestion Charge Zone will be halved in size and the third phase of the Low Emission Zone, which was due to prevent the most polluting vehicles from entering Greater London, has been indefinitely suspended.
A recent London Assembly report into the city’s air quality, Every Breath You Take (pdf here), found that it could be responsible for up to 3,500 premature deaths and 12,000 children being hospitalised for respiratory failure. It has been reported that the Government is considering countermanding the Mayor because his actions may have undermined their fight against a possible fine of £300 million for failure to meet EU standards on air quality.
It’s bad enough that over three thousand Londoners have their lives cut short each year because of the state of our air. The last thing we want is for this still to be an issue when the world comes here in three years time – as it was in Beijing and Athens. If the Mayor continues down this road, that sadly could well be the case. At the least, the Mayor should now reverse his short-sighted decision to cancel the next phase of the Low Emission Zone.
July 27, 2009
On a number of fronts, it has become all too clear what the environment strategy Boris Johnson is offering to Londoners actually consists of: a bit of charm with a lot of hot air, bluster and the hope that no one looks too closely at the details.
At a recent conference on eco-vehicles, London’s Tory Mayor declared that the capital’s car owners had responded enthusiastically to his personal appeal to “go electric”. In reality, many had already committed themselves to the introduction of electric vehicles in response to the congestion charge and the low emission zone, which penalise polluting lorries and vans. Both these initiatives were introduced by Johnson’s Labour predecessor, Ken Livingstone.
Next it was revealed that a report Boris commissioned from consultants Ernst & Young on the potential of London’s low-carbon economy had cost £85,000. This expensive report says nothing new. It is no more than a re-hash of information already in the public domain. It could easily have been produced in-house by the Mayor’s environment team – which he is now proposing to cut by half. Evidently, Boris prefers outsourcing to private companies, irrespective of the additional cost to Londoners.
This was followed by the publication of the Mayor’s Annual Report for 2008-9, in which he confirmed what many had suspected was his motive for suspending the third phase of the low emission zone, despite the disastrous impact of this on Londoners’ health. In his view, it was an “onerous environmental regulation” on small vans and businesses – in other words, on “white van man” in the London suburbs and the core supporters of Boris Johnson.
Then came the results of an investigation by the London Assembly into the Mayor’s environmental spending. This found that less than a third of the total will be spent on tackling climate change and less than 4 per cent on reducing waste. Most of the money will be used to fund initiatives which Boris claims will “make London a greener and more pleasant city”. Unfortunately, the environmental benefits of these initiatives are questionable.
For example, the Mayor’s cycling programme has a budget of £111 million and accounts for half of the Greater London Authority’s total environmental spending. Yet the scheme is likely to have only a minimal effect on car usage and consequently carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution levels.
Boris was in his element at the Green500 awards, where even Chelsea Football Club received recognition for its environment efforts. The Mayor charmed his audience with warm words about “London’s top organisations truly grasping the nettle to become greener”. This easy-going affability is one of Boris’s great skills as a politician. But problems as profound as those concerning the urban and global environment require something more serious. Such “greenstanding” at an awards ceremony is no substitute for an effective programme aimed at combating poor air quality and climate change.
First published in Tribune, 3rd July 2009
July 6, 2009
During the same week that London Mayor Boris Johnson celebrated his first anniversary at City Hall, a report from the environment committee of the London Assembly, appropriately entitled Every Breath You Take, highlighted how bad the air quality in london was getting for its residents.
It confirmed that premature deaths and years of life lost caused by pollution in the capital is three times higher than claimed, confirming the city has the worst pollution levels in Britain and some of the worst in Europe.
This at the same time as the Government is under pressure to improve air quality as a result of European Union proceedings which began earlier this year following this country’s failure to comply with the directives on levels of PM10. This could mean Britain being fined up to £300 million.
So what’s the Mayor of London doing? So far, we’ve only seen backward steps from Johnson on this. Behind his charm and bluster, he has been actively dismantling measures to reduce pollution in London. He claims to be supporting 90,000 small van drivers by cancelling the next phase of the low emission zone, but he has lost sight of the approximately 107,000 people made ill in London each year by pollution levels. This is on top of Johnson’s plans to scrap the western extension of the congestion charge.
So there is a worrying disparity between the Government, which is legally bound to reach air quality standards, and the mayor and local authorities, which merely have to show they are “working towards” targets.
In the meantime, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has submitted an application to extend its deadline by 2011 to avoid the fines. DEFRA is also looking seriously at its powers of direction over the London Mayor, following his decision to suspend the third phase of the city’s low emission zone. This would mean the Mayor would be directed to implement alternative measures to meet the air quality limits set out in the directives. And the expectation would be that he would put in place other measures Designed to deliver equal, if not greater, benefits to improve air quality than the third phase of the low emission zone, at the least.
So the showdown with DEFRA and the Mayor of London is very real. Unless Johnson can implement a big new idea to slash pollutants within the next 12 months, DEFRA will have to use the power of direction on the Mayor, as his decision to cut down the congestion charging zone and the scope of the low emission zone are proving to be ruinous for london’s environment.
Over to you, Hilary Benn.
Published in Tribune, 18 May 2009
May 21, 2009
During last year’s London mayoral election, Ken Livingstone argued that underneath Boris Johnson’s affable, buffoonish persona there was a hardline right-winger. Johnson’s writings for the Tory press over the years certainly provided material to substantiate that charge.
Here was a man whose response to the emerging environmental crisis was to applaud George Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, assert that there was “no evidence that the planet is suffering from the extreme weather patterns associated with climate change” and dismiss concerns over global warming as the modern equivalent of “a Stone Age religion”.
One of the few politicians since Enoch Powell to regard “piccaninnies” as an acceptable term, Johnson attacked the Macpherson inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s murder as “Orwellian”, reacted to the July 7 bombings with the provocative and divisive comment that “the problem is Islam” and denounced multiculturalism for undermining “Britishness”. The fascist British National Party found sufficient common ground with Johnson to urge its supporters to cast a second-preference vote for him at the 2008 mayoral election.
Since taking office last May, he has changed his tune. Like Groucho Marx, Boris has his principles and if you don’t like them, he has others. As a journalist on the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, he was happy to cater to the reactionary prejudices of his readers. As London Mayor, he now presents himself as an enthusiast for the capital’s multi-ethnic diversity and a born-again environmentalist. This is in line with David Cameron’s strategy of rebranding the Tories as progressives who have renounced bigotry and embraced green issues.
However, with a few exceptions, notably his backing for the London living wage and support for an amnesty for irregular migrants, Boris’ conversion to progressive politics remains on the level of rhetoric. His political practice is very different.
Nowhere is this clearer than on the environment. Despite his election pledge to “take action to make London the greenest city in the world”, his decisions in office point to someone who is more concerned about the rights of private vehicle drivers than the environmental damage they cause. Despite the fact that 1,000 people die prematurely in London each year because of poor air quality, he has suspended the third phase of the Low Emission Zone, scrapped Ken Livingstone’s £25 congestion charge on gas-guzzling vehicles and intends to halve the size of the Congestion Charge Zone. His plan for “restructuring” City Hall, which proposes the deletion of more than 140 posts, will reduce the environment team by half. And while Johnson uses his own enthusiasm for cycling to advertise his green credentials, this hasn’t prevented him from cutting the budget for cycle lanes by £10 million.
Johnson’s proclaimed admiration for multi-ethnic London has also proved at odds with his actions. The Rise music festival was stripped of its anti-racist message in 2008, and this year the Mayor’s office announced that the event would be abolished entirely. Further, another consequence of his proposed restructuring is that the stakeholders team who liaise between the Mayor and London’s minority communities will be restructured out of existence.
When we come to Johnson’s transport policies, we find that he has raised fares, wasted money and abandoned essential infrastructure projects.
In January, tube and bus passengers saw their fares rise by an average of 6 per cent and for some by a whopping 11 per cent. Johnson has made much of his decision to freeze the Greater London Authority element of London council tax in this year’s budget, which will save the average household in the capital just £6 a year. At the same time, thanks to his fare increases, the average Londoner will be between £100 and £300 a year worse off.
He has pressed ahead with his expensive and counterproductive plan to phase out articulated buses. Transport for London figures show that converting the first three bendy bus routes to double and single-deckers will cost over £3 million extra per year. The number of buses required to maintain current capacity on these routes will increase from 47 to 76 during peak hours, meaning longer journey times, more congestion and more pollution.
Johnson has also dropped support for the Thames Gateway Bridge, the Docklands Light Railway extension to Barking and Dagenham, the Greenwich Waterfront Transit and the Brixton to Camden Cross River Tram – all projects that would have helped poorer parts of London.
Johnson’s housing programme is equally regressive and there is little chance of his stated objective of 50,000 new affordable homes by 2011 being achieved. He has scrapped Ken Livingstone’s target for 50 per cent of all new housing to be affordable, and is instead negotiating individual borough targets which allow Tory councils to evade their obligation to provide sufficient numbers of new affordable homes. In addition, Johnson has shifted the emphasis from social rented housing towards part-buy part-rent schemes aimed at middle-income families. This is at a time when a third of a million households are already on the social rented waiting list – a figure which will inevitably rise even higher during the recession.
As an unabashed free-market enthusiast who dismisses criticism of the bankers or proposals for tighter controls over the financial sector as “neo-socialist claptrap”, Johnson has failed to develop an interventionist response to the economic downturn. His “Economic Recovery Action Plan” consists of little more than re-announcements of old initiatives, mostly those of his predecessor, and support for the work of central government and others. He has been criticised by major retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Selfridges and John Lewis, for not acting quickly enough to help business through the recession. And he has axed nearly £6 million of funding to projects working to give vulnerable Londoners the necessary skills to find employment when the economy revives.
Johnson has tried to cover up his real politics with gimmicks and spin, but Londoners are beginning to see through this. His attempt to promote himself as a defender of women’s rights at the recent launch of his domestic violence strategy fell flat when critics pointed out that his election promise to provide £744,000 to fund four rape crisis centres had been ditched, with only £233,000 being pledged – not even enough to keep London’s one existing centre open.
In short, if we look behind Boris’ new “progressive” image, what we see at City Hall is very much a traditional right-wing Tory administration. When it comes to social provision or economic regulation Johnson adheres to the Thatcherite view that the least government is the best government and he pursues a cost-cutting agenda without concern for its impact on services or the environment, while at the same time penalising the poorest sections of society. One year of Boris Johnson gives us an indication of what we can expect from four years of David Cameron, if the Tories win the next general election.
Published in Tribune, 1 May 2009
May 3, 2009
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