Sadiq Khan’s spin doctors have been in overdrive this week, desperately trying to cover up his pay-per-mile plot.
But Londoners will not be fooled by his ridiculous attempts to gaslight and bamboozle them.
On May 2nd, we have our one and only chance to stop pay-per-mile in its tracks by voting him out. So, let’s look at the evidence.
Firstly, the case for the defence. Sadiq Khan pinkie promised not to bring in pay-per-mile in a flimsily worded letter just before the May 2nd election.
'Sadiq Khan’s spin doctors have been in overdrive this week, desperately trying to cover up his pay-per-mile plot'
PA
Apparently, we are expected to take Sadiq Khan at his word after he told everyone in 2021 that he had no plans to expand ULEZ to the whole of London and then did it a few months later.
If you doubt Sadiq Khan’s integrity for a second, you must be a ‘fake news’ peddler in his eyes.
That’s the defence. Now let’s look at the case for the prosecution.
When he was first elected, Sadiq Khan added pay-per-mile into his official Transport Strategy. In 2018, his then-deputy Mayor, Heidi Alexander, explained this to the London Assembly.
She said that the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, wanted to charge cars based on whether they travel during peak times, how old their car is, and how far they travel.
In 2022, Sadiq pulled the trigger. He ordered Transport for London chiefs to start working on a new pay-per-mile tax, which would force every single driver in London to fork out their cash and pay him for every single mile they drive.
He told the Evening Standard podcast all about his pay-per-mile plans, which would go on to cost £3 million of your money in development costs alone.
He put £150 million aside in the budget to start building a new technology platform, specifically designed to be turned into a pay-per-mile system.
He told the Telegraph in November 2022 that he wanted a ‘Singapore-style’ pay-per-mile system.
And in his own book, released last year, he promised to bring in smart road user charging (his word for pay-per-mile) before the end of the decade.
Page 186, if you are unlucky enough to have a copy.
This is why I don’t believe his denials. The stakes are too high to trust him.
Pay-per-mile would be nothing short of a disaster for our city. It would be ULEZ on steroids, forcing every single driver to pay for every single mile you drive.
If you have an older car, you pay more. If you drive on a busy route, you pay more. If you drive a long distance to work, you pay more. If Sadiq Khan decides to raise the base fee, then you will pay a lot more.
We cannot let that happen. Just imagine the devastation it would cause to families and to businesses. We must not put the livelihoods of Londoners in the hands of slippery Sadiq.
I will scrap both the ULEZ expansion and his pay-per-mile plans on day one. Your vote on May 2nd will help me do it.
Susan Hall is the Conservative Mayoral Candidate for London
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The suggestion by the Tory candidate that the Mayor has been 'working on a plan to impose' pay-per-mile in London is completely false, Sadiq has been clear that he has ruled out the introduction of a pay-per-mile road user charging scheme.
"But the Tories are deliberately trying to mislead Londoners by repeatedly saying this is not the case. The Mayor has now put in writing to the TfL Commissioner his clear pledge to Londoners: no pay-per-mile scheme will be introduced while he is Mayor.
"The election on 2 May is a close two-horse race between Sadiq, who is delivering transport improvements for Londoners, and the hard-right Tory candidate who has voted against Sadiq’s TfL fares freeze.”
