LITTLEJOHN

WHy doesn’t genghis Khan just cut out the middle man and glue himself to the centre lane at Hyde Park Corner? London’s two-bob chancer of a mayor has already done far more to bring traffic to a standstill than Extinction Rebellion and those Insulate Britain headbangers put together.

He clearly won’t be satisfied until cars powered by internal combustion engines have gone the way of the woolly mammoth. Until then, though, he’s hell-bent on squeezing motorists until the pips squeak — which is what former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey once promised to do to the rich.

The difference is that genghis is screwing the poor and the middle class, thanks to the extension of the £12.50-aday Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ).

On a black day when petrol and diesel prices hit a record £1.43-plus a litre, Londoners living in the vast area inside the North and South Circular Roads woke up to find themselves the thick end of £4,500 a year worse off — out of taxed income — simply for the crime of owning a vehicle not considered ‘ULEZ compliant’.

They include people who bought a diesel car or van before 2015, on the advice of the government and the usual ‘experts’, who claimed diesels

were kinder to the environment than their petrol equivalents. gordon Brown even used the tax system to encourage the purchase of diesels.

Now, after a 180-degree handbrake turn, diesels are the spawn of the devil and we must all be punished for being responsible citizens and doing as we were told.

THE imposition of yet another crippling tax on drivers comes as London, and the rest of Britain, is spluttering out of its Covid-induced coma. Just as shoppers and tourists are returning to city centres and staff venture back to their offices, however reluctantly, Khan has decided to cut them off at the knees.

The irony is that most of the congestion in Central London has been artificially created by Khan himself. Under cover of Covid, he declared war on motorists by closing main roads and creating a network of cycle lanes.

The effect of this was to deliberately manufacture traffic jams. Take last weekend, when I was coming home from the Albert Hall along Park Lane at around 11pm. Cars were being funnelled into a single lane.

The other three lanes, designated for bikes, empty buses and black cabs looking in vain for fares, were deserted. We sat there, along with hundreds of others, pumping out the very exhaust emissions genghis says he wants to eliminate.

Why would anyone bother driving into town for a dinner or a show, unless they are minted? The new ULEZ charge could be the kiss of death for an economy only just being weaned off life-support.

Khan says people should walk, cycle or use public transport instead. yeah, right.

As I wrote in May last year, how many laydees who lunch want to clatter across London in the rain in their new Jimmy Choos? Who is going to turn up at The Savoy for a black-tie dinner on a pushbike? That was the column in which I first dubbed Khan ‘genghis’ because he had decided to do to London what his namesake had done to Asia and China in the early 13th century.

Lay it to waste — along with the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Londoners such as builders, plumbers and gas fitters who can’t afford to find an extra £87.50 a week for the privilege of trying to earn a living.

As for using public transport, Khan is currently flogging off car parks at outer London Tube stations to property developers. Until now, these have been used by commuters and shoppers to leave their cars and take the Underground into town. In future, they’ll have no alternative other than to drive. Which, presumably, is the plan. Once they cross into the ULEZ zone . . . ‘Kerching!!’ Another £12.50 in Khan’s coffers. Sorry, but this is all about money. The alleged ‘climate emergency’ is simply a convenient smokescreen.

Forgive me if this column seems somewhat Metrocentric. But where London leads, the rest of Britain inevitably follows. Low-emission zones are already being introduced, or planned, in glasgow, Bath, Birmingham, Manchester, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Sheffield and all points north, south, east and west.

It would be easy to blame Londoners for voting Labour. But, shamefully, Khan has been encouraged, and indeed bankrolled, by XR poster boy grant Shapps — a nominally Conservative Transport Secretary — who bunged councils millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money towards anti-car activism, such as setting up hated Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.

The entire political class is in the grip of Net Zero nonsense, regardless of the devastating consequences for the people they are paid to represent.

Broadcasters give the ‘climate emergency’ proselytisers a free run to peddle their propaganda.

S

O THE points I’ve just made never get put to the likes of Khan on the mainstream media. There are honourable exceptions, though, such as LBC’s Nick Ferrari.

Bruce Springsteen once sang about learning more from a three-minute record, baby, than you ever learn in school.

Similarly, you learn more from a three-minute phone-in than you ever learn from 24-hour rolling news.

yesterday, Ferrari’s excellent breakfast show on LBC was bombarded with callers, from firefighters to carers, in absolute despair at the new charge and wondering how they could afford to go on working for a living.

Not that Khan would have been taking any notice. He refuses to face Ferrari, or his listeners.

The sad fact is that genghis cares more about appeasing the likes of XR and polishing his Net Zero credentials than serving the hard-pressed, hard-working people of London.

Instead of preening himself on Tv yesterday morning, he should have been with Insulate Britain in Bishopsgate, glueing his face to the Tarmac.

I can think of a few million motorists who would cheerfully buy him a tube of Bostik.