In a now-deleted tweet calling for urgent action, Sadiq Khan called London the “18^th most polluted city in the world”, citing air quality, light pollution and congestion. Not only is Khan’s self-flagellation alarmist, it also suffers the disadvantage of being wrong. Publicly over-exaggerating the inadequacies of his own environmental record seems to be a price Sadiq is happy to pay to further his punitive green policies. To recap: he’s been in charge for six years…

London is nowhere near 18^th most polluted city in the world, on any of these measures. IQair ranks London as the 3739^th in the world on air pollution. It is ranked 55^th out of just 404 cities on congestion, and the UN reports mean noise pollution as joint 28^th out of the 61 cities measured.

Guido isn’t sure where Sadiq got his facts. It could be from London’s air pollution being ranked 17^th of 29 European Capitals in 2019, or from a deliberate misreading of the aforementioned UN report. Sadiq’s constant love of speaking hot air probably doesn’t help the statistics…