Ken’s “Green Credentials”

Whilst we are talking about Ken’s eco trip to Davos, I am indebted to “London Salmon” who spotted the following in the ES magazine, and to which I have added my own comments:

1. Ken announced that he was installing solar panels on City Hall, at a cost to the London taxpayer of £500,000, which would only reduce bills by £10,000 a year, meaning there will still be £350,000 to make up when the lease runs out.
2. Staff at City Hall flew abroad more than 500 times last year, mostly on Ken's orders. These included many trips to Brussels, which could have been made on Eurostar at half the environmental cost.
3. He flew all the way to Cuba, en route to Venezuela, only to be stood up Hugo Chavez; (as Ken was not seen as an electoral winner). All at the bargain cost of £35,000.
4. He has introduced road charging, yet installed over 1,000 new traffic lights that keeps more vehicles in the "low-speed, stop-start mode at which carbon emissions are highest." Congested vehicles are polluting vehicles – puffing out their emissions at pram, pavement and pedestrian level.
5. He has made the cost of public transport more expensive, discouraging people from leaving their cars at home.

The voting system on the Greater London Assembly means that Ken needs to keep the support of the Green Party in order to get all his plans through. The Green Party are on side with agreements to fund some of their projects including £50,000 to help campaign against the Thames Gateway Bridge.

We all know that Ken’s plans to raise the congestion tax on larger family cars are just another ploy to extract more money from Londoners, and to penalise large families – when tax is used as a deterrent it is iniquitous and just another sign that Ken hates cars and the freedoms that they bring us to choose how, where and when we travel.

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