Livingstone pushes forward with £25 congestion charge
Andrew Sparrow, senior political correspondent
Thursday January 31, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
The London mayor Ken Livingstone said today he hoped to approve plans for a £25-a-day congestion charge on the highest-polluting vehicles coming into the capital within a month.
Writing in the New Statesman, Livingstone predicted that the policy would be a key issue in the forthcoming mayoral elections.
He also defended his record running "a popular left-wing, reforming administration that has pursued groundbreaking policies in major areas such as equalities, the congestion charge, aiding the less well-off with cheap transport [and] climate change".
Livingstone unveiled his plans for a £25-a-day congestion charge for the heaviest 4x4 vehicles when he launched a consultation process on it more than a year ago.
But he appears to have timed it so he will be in a position to announce firm plans as the mayoral contest is intensifying.
"A key issue at the election is my proposal for a £25-a-day charge for the most CO2-emitting vehicles entering the congestion-charging zone and, after consultation, I will be able to take a decision on this in the coming month," Livingstone wrote.
"On the environment, the choice is even starker. [Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate] is one of the few politicians who supported George W Bush in opposing the Kyoto treaty."
Livingstone summed up his record by saying he had shown that "reforming left-wing politics can be extremely popular".
He did not directly address most of the accusations levelled against him in a Dispatches documentary last week presented by the political editor of the New Statesman, Martin Bright.
But he said that four days after it was broadcast an opinion poll showed his lead over his rivals had grown.
1 comentario:
...NUNCA!!!!!!
Además, mi Jeep es diesel, y espero que cuente.
No sé no sé..., me toca la vaina un poco todo este tinglado que se tienen montado con los 4x4s... Ya han terminado la terminal 5 de Heathrow, sin hacer ni puto caso al vecindario, que estamos bastante hartos de aviones en Londres por todas partes...
..Estando como está demostrado que un viaje de ida Londres-LA gasta polute -POR PASAJERO- el equivalente a seis meses de uso regular de un 4x4.
Vamos, que será lo que dios quiera, o rather, lo que quiera el populacho bajo la ilusión colectiva del espejismo que es la democracia, pero a mí me parece una medida populista, infantil, y de lowesr common denominator.
Y eso que me cae bien Ken Livingstone, pero cuando se pone radical con sus aspiraciones ecológicas, me saca del hígado. Vamos, si quiere ser tan ecológicamente correcto, que se vaya a vivir al campo, que Londres va a ser siempre Londres.
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