Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.
The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.
Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.
There seem to be a number of ideas around the ULEZ, some of which are perhaps reasonable and worth discussion (e.g. the costs of upgrading or renewing existing vehicles, challenges involved with certain commercial vehicle types) and some of which are, frankly, unhinged (e.g. conspiracy theories that the whole thing, ULEZ, 15-minute towns, LTN and so on are part of some elitist plot to limit individual freedoms).
I find the conspiracy folks and their freedom particularly odd.
It has always been the case that your freedom to swing your arm ends where my face begins; freedom is not without constraints.
So on the one hand, those who subscribe to the conspiracy theory want the freedom to pollute.
On the other hand, there is a fair amount of overlap between this conspiracy theory and the desire to limit the freedom of cyclists by removing cycle lanes and introducing licensing and taxation.
Internal consistency and clarity of thought are not particular strengths it seems.