I hope you’re sitting down – because I’ve got some surprising news for you. Sadiq Khan has been caught telling porkies.
This time, it’s by the Advertising Standards Authority. You know, those people who make sure dodgy salesmen don’t flog you a fib on the radio?
It turns out they’ve nobbled him for something we’ve known for a while. His Ulez expansion, which is nothing but a tax grab, is not a miracle cure to save thousands of lives after all.
Rather than some mystical snake oil that cures all ills, Ulez is an expensive tonic that has no impact on air quality.
'His Ulez expansion, which is nothing but a tax grab, is not a miracle cure to save thousands of lives after all', says Susan Hall
PA
And after peddling this false claim with a taxpayer-funded ad campaign costing you £9 million, which is two thousand years’ worth of Ulez fees for a single person, he doesn’t even have the decency to apologise for it.
Sadiq has been caught flogging snake oil door to door, and won’t even fess up and say he was wrong. He has no respect for the truth, for the office he holds, or for the people he is meant to serve.
This is not the first time he has been caught telling untruths. For the election in 2021, he said he had no plans to expand the Ulez to the whole of London. Guess what? Just months later, he decided to expand it.
He has taken politics into the gutter, using taxpayers’ money to dupe and manipulate people. It is shameful and it has to stop.
The truth about the ULEZ expansion is it is about filling his coffers at City Hall. The £30 million he miraculously found to buy off his party’s trade union paymasters did not come from nowhere.
You are paying for it, every time you give him £12.50 per day or pay one of his ludicrous fines. Neither did the £150 million he is spending building technology for a new pay-per-mile tax, which will charge you for every mile you drive. He is denying this one now.
But we all know that for Sadiq that’s just par for course. He denied he would ever expand the Ulez didn’t he? And then he did it anyway.
Don’t be surprised when he U-turns on his pay-per-mile denial immediately after the election if we’re unlucky enough to be stuck with him for four extra years. The good news is that with this week’s ruling, he can’t hide behind dodgy ads anymore. And come May 2nd, we can be rid of him once and for all.
The minute I step into the Mayor's office, the Ulez expansion is gone. No ifs, no buts.
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Sadiq Khan’s war on motorists will also come to an end. I will do everything I can to help councils remove LTNs and I will tackle 20mph limits on main TfL roads. And his pay-per-mile plans will be chucked.
It is time we had a Mayor who doesn’t treat Londoners like mugs.
Londoners deserve someone who's actually on your side, ready to deliver the genuine change London urgently needs.
That is what I plan to deliver this May.
Susan Hall is the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London.
Discussing the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling, a TfL spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the ASA has upheld the complaints made against some of our advertisements. We believe that the information, which was based on robust scientific evidence, was clearly presented.
“The ASA did not challenge the science. Its ruling centres around a minor technical point in some ads. We will take this into account when drafting the wording and referencing in any future adverts.
“The science is absolutely clear about the significant harm of air pollution on people’s health. It is also clear from robust scientific assessment, that the central London Ulez was key to almost halving the nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions in the original Ulez area.
“Scientific analysis based on modelled scenarios and estimates is standard practice in the scientific community and central government.”