July 08

Pollution multiplication

The Speaker objected mildly to a word I used today. Just in case he did, I made it the last word in my question so that he could not stop me in mid-flow.

The innovation of topical oral questions proved its value today. I did not have a clue last week what Transport question I intended to ask when I saw I had Topical Question number 3 today. This morning I did.

What an outage! Mayor Boris Johnson carefully manicured press release announced that he was handing over� �400,000 to Porsche and dropping Ken Livingstone?s great scheme to discourage the most polluting cars from entering the heart of London. Guto Harri spun the calamity to present it as a sane policy. Porsche will give their money to charity (they can afford it) and London will avoid the setting-up costs. They will also lose the �millions in income.

The Question I asked was

?1500 people died in London last year from effects of air pollution. For the first time in 50, the works of cleaning up London?s atrocious air has been put into reverse this morning� by the mayor?s decision to encourage more polluting, gas guzzling Chelsea tractors to pollute the air we breathe. What can the Government do to protect Londoners from the anti-environment excesses from Boris the Buffoon??

The Speaker intervened to say ?Members should use moderate language.? My friend David Taylor said ?That was moderate?. I thought so too and entirely justified. The answer from the Minister was that this was a devolved matter.

Later David Taylor said he had a couple of e-mails threatening to sue me. They were from fully-paid up buffoons.

�