Sir Keir is once again sat rigidly on the fence over an enormous policy decision. After Labour’s Uxbridge by-election candidate turned against the ULEZ expansion earlier this week, there are growing calls within the party to ditch Sadiq’s money-grabbing scheme altogether. This morning Starmer was confronted about it on LBC with Nick Ferrari, and admitted his own Mayor’s policy is a huge cash grab “in the middle of living crisis“… yet insisted the Mayor simply had no choice:

“Let me start by recognising just how difficult it is… I do absolutely get that. It is a lot of money, and it comes in the middle of a cost of living crisis when every other bill is going up at the same time. I think it is important just to make clear there is a legal obligation on the mayor to take measures on air pollution…”

Starmer then tried selling the merits of the scrappage scheme, which won’t nearly cover the replacement costs for hundreds of businesses and families. He acknowledged this, and claimed Labour would somehow cough up more money if in government (does Rachel Reeves know about that?). In the meantime, he backs Sadiq imposing the expansion anyway, apparently because the Mayor has a legal obligation to do so. Sir Keir is a lawyer, so perhaps he can tell Guido which law requires nurses in Croydon to pay £12.50 to switch on their engines every day?