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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

This is, of course, not what happened. It's not even all that unpopular. Only about half of Londoners even have a car in the first place.

When I say radicalized, I mean this guy: https://www.cps.gov.uk/national-news/news/updated-sentence-m...

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There's also this:

    > "The ULEZ camera had already been cut down"

The camera was already useless. Detonating an IED served no purposeful protest, and endangered property and lives.

There's also a huge racial undertone to the whole London anti-ULEZ 'debate' as Sadiq Khan is a muslim

Those opposing ULEZ conveniently ignore the Conservative government led by Boris Johnson (ex mayor of London) made ULEZ implementation a key requirement for supporting TfL funding during the pandemic

Despite anti-ULEZ folk claiming it's hugely unpopular Kahn convincing won the next mayoral election including some boroughs that were affected by the ULEZ zone expansion

> huge

I think you overstate this. While there are wingnuts on Twitter who hate Khan for who he is, massively more people hate him - any politician, not just him - for dipping into their pocket and taking their money. "For the greater good".

Even the most beloved politican on the planet will become the most hated as soon as the propose increasing taxes, or increasing household costs. Which is why they're always looking for the sneakiest way to do it.

> Those opposing ULEZ conveniently ignore the Conservative government led by Boris Johnson (ex mayor of London) made ULEZ implementation a key requirement for supporting TfL funding during the pandemic

Alternatively, the central authority with all the money (Johnson's government) tells the devolved authority (Mayor of London) it doesn't like handing out free money, so what if our lockdown has decimated your cashbox income... so in exchange for money now to keep the lights on during this pandemic, I demand you make more of your own money in future, by fining people and by driving up public transport usage in your area. Also, I know how unpopular it is, which is why I delayed it when I was Mayor of London, so good luck at the polls ha ha!

> some

"some" indeed.

> “some” indeed

Well he flipped one of them from Conservative and didn’t lose any of the ones that had previously voted for him and his vote was up overall

On the other hand, the Uxbridge and Ruislip by-election. Should've been a shoo-in for Labour, given it was disgraced Partygate BoJo stepping down. Labour won another by-election on the same day. But not this one. Reason? Most likely local anger over ULEZ expansion, even though that's the responsibility of the (Labour) Mayor, not the Labour Party generally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Uxbridge_and_South_Ruisli...

> Both Labour's leader, Keir Starmer, and deputy leader, Angela Rayner, blamed opposition to ULEZ, with Starmer suggesting the Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan should rethink the policy. Khan defended the policy and Starmer soon sought to heal the rift. The defeated Labour candidate, Beales, also criticised the ULEZ policy.

So someone paid the electoral price for Khan's policy, it just wasn't him.

Labour increased their vote in the 2023 Uxbridge and South Ruislip by election but not by enough to win… they then won it a year later

Yes, in 2023 ULEZ was a campaign issue but so was it when Khan was reelected mayor and Labour won a general election

ULEZ is fundamentally a good thing whether you like it or not

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