Former environment secretary Theresa Villiers is accusing Sadiq Khan of ignoring key data about the tube system’s pollution in his proposed extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across London. Sadiq Khan’s only defence for the money-grabbing move is that clean air will save lives. However, Theresa Villiers, the MP for the London suburb of Chipping Barnet, told Guido there is little evidence ULEZ will have health benefits. Villiers says Khan is “refusing to answer important questions about particulate pollution levels on our public transport”.

In 2019, a study by King’s College found pollution on the London Underground was around 15 times greater than at street level. The Committee for Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) said a one hour tube ride was as harmful to health as a full day standing by roads in Central London.

While TFL pledged to address this, many tube lines including the Northern and Victoria are currently exposing commuters to 8 times above the UK safe limit for toxic particles (PM2.5).Tanya Beri, founder of CAIR London- a mobile app showing the most polluting tube routes- said: “Above ground pollution is a serious problem but we cannot ignore the high levels of PM 2.5 Underground”. CAIR measured the platform at Walthamstow Central on the Victoria Line this January, finding it was a shocking 232 mg per cubic metres – over 9 times the UK legal limit of 25 mg per cubic metre, and over 23 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended safe limit for PM 2.5 which is 10 mg per cubic metre.

Fine particles are usually thrown into the air as wheels, brakes and tracks grind against each other. And the reason why they are so dangerous is because they are small enough to enter the lungs and human bloodstream. PM 2.5 has been shown to cause Asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological problems.

From August 29, drivers of the most polluting vehicles will be forced to pay a £12.50 charge when driving in outer London. The plans have sparked major backlash over the impact this will have on charities, small businesses, cancer patients, carers, elderly and disabled people, who may not be able to use public transport or afford to upgrade their cars to ULEZ compliant models. Villiers, the former Environment Secretary, is urging MPs to back a new law which would grant Westminster powers to overturn ULEZ.

“The Mayor’s approach to ULEZ and air quality has many inconsistencies… He tries to grandstand on these issues but there is no convincing evidence that his proposed ULEZ extension will have any significant health benefits. At the same time as pushing that unpopular measure, he is refusing to answer important questions about particulate pollution levels on our public transport.”

The Mayor’s office has given Guido no answer as to why they are driving people off the open roads into the even more polluted air of the London Underground. London’s Underground has been measured to be polluted at 9 times the UK’s safe legal limit…

Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers was on GB News and sent Guido this picture of the gender-neutral toilets at their Paddington studio – she was most disconcerted to find men coming in whilst she was touching-up her make-up. Opining that “This doesn’t seem entirely consistent with their apparent enthusiasm for fighting culture wars.” Did Ofcom force this upon them too?

The private sector seems to be solving the fellas-in-frocks in the same washroom as teenage girls problem with single cubicle washrooms. It is obviously more expensive to build single-person washrooms, the higher costs are less controversial than the alternative. Expect to see more of these in the future…

The Commons Standards Committee has found that Tory MPs Natalie Elphicke, Sir Roger Gale and Theresa Villiers should be suspended for one day over “an improper attempt to influence judicial proceedings”. Colonel Bob Sewart and Adam Holloway will also have to apologise to the House. The findings followed an investigation into their attempts to lobby judges ahead of a hearing in court of former MP Charlie Elphicke. They stupidly used Commons stationery to lobby the justices…

From the report:

The Members concerned had several avenues open to them by which they could legitimately have raised their concern over the issues at stake in the case. These included making representations to the court through the proper channels, as they were invited to do, and approaching the Government’s point of liaison with the judiciary, the Lord Chancellor. Despite having these alternative options, they chose to write privately to two senior judges to request their intervention in a decision that properly belonged to Mrs Justice Whipple and that would be made in accordance with the court’s normal processes. Their letters were, appropriately, disregarded and they were rebuked by the Lord Chief Justice. There is no suggestion that the Members concerned actually influenced the outcome of the hearing. But they sought to do so, and by acting as they did risked giving the impression that elected politicians can bring influence to bear on the judiciary, out of public view and in a way not open to others. Such egregious behaviour is corrosive to the rule of law and, if allowed to continue unchecked, could undermine public trust in the independence of judges.

We therefore agree with the Commissioner that, in sending their letters of 19 and 22 November 2020, Mrs Elphicke, Sir Roger, Mr Holloway, Col Stewart and Ms Villiers undertook an action which caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally, and was therefore a breach of paragraph 17 of the Code.

We further conclude, as a consequence of the above, that, by using House-provided stationery in order to do so, Mrs Elphicke, Sir Roger, Mr Holloway, Col Stewart and Ms Villiers also breached paragraph 16 of the Code.

Last year, Guido set an important test for the Brexit-EU trade deal on regulatory sovereignty: would it allow the UK to repeal the EU’s stupid directive forcing websites to put up those annoying “Accept Cookies” banners? It seems trivial, yet this small annoyance is indicative of the hundreds of thousands of trivial and anti-business regulations that have unaccountably poured out from Brussels for decades, rubber-stamped by a servile parliament. If we can repeal the Cookie Law, Guido argued, that will indicate a far deeper sovereignty that allows us to do so much more. Six months later, it looks like the cookie button is finally about to crumble…

Buried deep in a new report published by the Taskforce for Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform – the group investigating how the UK can capitalise on its new regulatory freedoms post-Brexit – is a paragraph explaining why the ‘Accept Cookies’ request is a waste of time: 

“Both behavioural science and common sense tell you that putting a ‘tick to accept’ box in front of someone at the point they want to access a website or service does not generate genuine informed consent, it just means people are likely to tick ‘accept’ without thinking…a good measure of whether reform is successful will be the end of pointless cookie banners.“

Finally, after five years of wrangling, the real Brexit victory is now imminent. Guido sends his warmest congratulations to the Taskforce leaders Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Theresa Villiers, and George Freeman, who should all be immortalised for their heroism if and when the pointless “Accept Cookies” buttons finally disappear. Guido has long-argued that you can and should set your privacy preferences at browser level, once, not on every site, every time. Boris says Downing Street will “publish a response [to the report] as soon as is practicable”. Guido waits with bated breath for the Prime Minister to fulfil his patriotic duty and show, by banishing the cookie, that Brexit really was worth it…