When is a rise not a rise? When you’re the Mayor of London talking about police numbers or the number of newly-built affordable homes. Take Boris Johnson’s convenient reliance on the number of police officers “in post”, as opposed to the number allowed for in the budget.

This means that he has found a method whereby he can claim that police numbers have gone up. However, that same method has been used by commentators to question the Mayor about his assertion. In short, Boris has used a low base line from which to proclaim that police numbers are on the increase.

In fact, police numbers went up in the first year of Boris’s term simply because he followed the predecessor’s budget on this. So, by November 2009, police numbers had reached their peak of 33,404. Then came a freeze on police recruitment which meant that numbers fell due to natural wastage. The result is police numbers are now significantly below what was allowed for in the 2010-11 budget.

The Metropolitan Police’s own figures show that there will be a loss of 581 officers between 2010-2012, from 33,091 to 32,510, below the peak level inherited as a result of Ken Livingstone’s budget. Yet this hasn’t stopped Johnson announcing that numbers are going up. Cunning or just bare-faced effrontery?

Now for the Mayor’s next trick: the affordable homes target and his pledge to build 50,000 affordable homes by the end of his first term. This is only just over a year away, Boris says he’s on course to meet this target and 30,000 homes have been started already. That’s good news – but only if your idea of “starting” to build a home is when you have the funds ready. If, however, your idea of “starting” coincides with the National House-Building Council’s definition – when the foundations are laid– then the figure is actually 19,000.

For the Mayor’s grand finale of number crunching, he unveiled some figures concerning bus crime which were so half-baked that they attracted criticism from Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, as “poor practice… undermining public trust in official figures”. The data was in the form of a spread sheet of numbers, waved under the noses of journalists at a mayoral media event and showing a jaw-dropping 30 per cent drop in bus crime from the end of the 2007 financial year to the end of the financial year in 2010. The Mayor’s press release made no links to figures relied on and Transport for London’s statistics at the time only included figures up to the end of the second quarter – July to September. A true comparison should have contrasted a like for like period.

If a press release quotes figures not as yet officially published, then this is misleading because they cannot be checked and would also appear to be a breach of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Boris claims a dubious exemption on the grounds that his statistics are not official ones. So there we have it: misleading and inaccurate and flawed number juggling. Few would deny that Boris has a certain oratorical flair. The same cannot be said for his numeracy skills. His number should be up.

Murad Qureshi is a Labour member of the London Assembly

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The package of deals from six vehicle manufacturers is being offered to 72,000 drivers of vans and buses who use the capital’s Low Emission Zone.

Larger vans and minibuses will be required to meet Low Emission Zone (Lez) standards from January 2012.

Labour and the Greens both made criticisms of Conservative Mayor Mr Johnson’s environmental policies.

Labour’s London Assembly environment spokesman Murad Qureshi said: "While welcome, this is all too little too late.

"We’re now years behind where we should be because the Mayor chose to put London’s progress on this into reverse almost as soon as he was elected."

London Assembly Green Party member Darren Johnson said: "By cancelling action against polluting vans in 2010, the Mayor of London stopped the one big measure which might have delivered cleaner air across London by now."

‘Tackle emissions’

The scheme currently requires owners of large lorries, buses and coaches to meet emissions standards.

But the extension will see vans and minibuses meeting the same standards or face a £500-a-day fine.

"Now is the time to help us tackle dangerous emissions to help those who most deserve our protection," Mr Johnson said.

Vehicle manufacturers Ashwoods, Citroën, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot and Volkswagen will offer various discounts on new vehicles.

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone introduced the Lez in February 2008.

Vans and minibuses were due to be included in the zone from October 2010 but last September the deadline was extended until January 2012.

Unlike London’s congestion charge zone, which is lifted in the evenings and at weekends, the Lez is in force 24 hours a day, every day. It also covers a larger area of 610 sq miles (1,580 sq km).

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Murad's recent visit to Earl's Court tube to view its archaic signal box

I welcome the latest news from TFL which actually addresses a  problem I’ve long known about and which will make a huge difference to thousands of commuters.  The District Line, particularly, Earls Court is in desperate need of upgrading.   This is a vital link for many living in the West of London which appears to have been neglected over the years with all the main focus on the upgrades to the Northern and Jubilee lines.

The new District Line timetable proposed by London Underground aims to deal with the bottleneck in the Earls Court area which by their own admission “is one of the most complex junctions on the Tube network”.  How then (or more importantly why?) has this part of the network been allowed to run with a signal box dating back to 1928!  It is this incredibly old signalling system which creates a mass of delays and problems which unfortunately I’m reminded of  regularly as I pass through Earls Court.   Therefore, I am pleased that the continual presssure  and reminder to the Mayor and TFL about this issue has finally brought about change.

The One Foot in the Grave star, Richard Wilson has done well to document a chronic and abysmal problem for commuters on a train service which I’ve long known about and highlighted.  Namely, you’d be lucky to get a seat on some of the First Great Western services.  Richard’s “Train Journey’s from Hell” aired on Channel 4 this week and documented a typical train journey for thousands of commuters using their trains, in this case the Reading to Paddington service.  In fact, a recent  Freedom of Information request made to the Department of Trasport exposed that First Great Western topped the league of the most crowded train services and operated 7 out of the top 10.

As far back as 2007, I tabled a motion  (para 10.16) about Great Western’s service, specifically referencing the problem of overcrowding.  It was, I’m pleased to say unanimously agreed.  Yet passengers, who in the main are simply trying to get to work, are still unlikely to get a seat. 

So when The London Assembly’s Transport Committee heard from Transport for London about the impact of Crossrail around West London, it was useful to have the opportunity to raise  this issue with them again and question how these services would be improved by the introduction of Crossrail?  The reply came from the Managing Director of London Underground Mike Brown.  In short because, some of the most crowded services also happen to be the long distance ones, they won’t be improved by Crossrail, but I’m told steps like the electrification of the Great Western main line to Newbury and Oxford and a new fleet of intercity trains will help alleviate overcrowding.

Hopefully the continued focus on the plight of First Great Western’s customers will eventually achieve a better deal for them.  I certainly intend to keep track of progress.

Labour’s vice Chair of the Environment Committee on the London Assembly, Murad Qureshi AM, said:

“At first sight, it appears from this so called “launch” that Boris has come up with entirely new funding and a new concept.  In fact, the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWaRB) has been around since 2008 and there is a substantial sum of money which is simply being passed on from them to this new management fund.  Basically, the Mayor has now decided to pass the buck to an external body to spend the money for him…………questions need to be asked about why this funding has laid idle until now when the recycling economy offers so much potential in terms of both environmental and financial benefits”

The Mayor announced funding of £70 million which will finance a low carbon waste and recycling infrastructure.  The fund will be managed by asset managers Foresight Group and is made up of £35million from the London Green Fund and £35 million from local authority pension funds and other unnamed “investors”.

One of the major contributors to the London Green Fund will be LWARB who are providing £18 million towards one tranche of £35m and whose job it is to manage and provide initiatives for waste recycling for the capital including the delivery of waste infrastructure.

Ends

Notes

Murad Qureshi is a London-wide Assembly Member and is Vice Chair of the Assembly’s Environment Committee

For further information please contact Nikki Salih on 020 7983 4400

Britain has staved off the threat of £300m fines over air pollution in London. The European commission has agreed to give the UK a time extension to meet a key air quality directive, subject to short-term action taken by the UK.

Critics point out the extension offers only a temporary reprieve for the UK and should serve as a "big wake-up call" to Boris Johnson, the London mayor, and the government.

The commission’s environment commissioner, Janez Potocnik, said on Friday morning that the extension on meeting limit values for PM10s – dangerous airborne particles that contribute to thousands of premature deaths in the capital each year – has been granted until 11 June.

But that is on the condition that Boris Johnson’s air quality strategy is revised by June and submitted to the commission for scrutiny by November this year.

London is the only region still in breach of the directive on limit values for PM10s, six years after the standard was first agreed in Europe.

Potocnik said short-term measures will have to be introduced to control "or, where necessary, suspend activities", which contribute to the risk of the limit values being exceeded.

"Air pollution from PM10 has serious impacts on human health. That is why EU legislation sets strict standards. The commission expects member states to clearly demonstrate that they are doing their utmost, in the interests of their citizens, to comply with the standards in the shortest possible time."

Johnson, the Conservative mayor, published his third and final draft of his air quality strategy for the capital in December in the firm belief that it would meet the limit values for PM10s by 2011, despite critics who claimed the plan was "not fit for purpose".

Johnson published figures showing the health impact of poor air quality, which in 2008 contributed to 4,300 premature deaths.

Simon Birkett, the founder and director of Clean Air in London, said: "The mayor has stumbled and fallen after backward steps on air quality. This is a big wake-up call to the mayor and the so-called ‘greenest government’ in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics."

He added: "Clean Air in London hails the European commission’s temporary and conditional time extension as an ideal mechanism to maximise pressure on the UK to comply with health-based laws. It requires urgent air quality action in London and ‘freezes’ the current enforcement process."

The commission began legal proceedings against the UK in January 2009 for failing to meet air quality standards that came into effect at the end of 2004.

The UK government turned down a first request for an exemption in December 2009 on the grounds that insufficient information had been provided to allow the commission to assess whether the limit values for PM10s could be met by the deadline.

It issued the UK government with a second and final written warning last June to clean up London’s air or be taken to the European court of justice and face fines of up to £300m.

Just days before losing power, the Labour government reapplied for a time extension, granted on Friday.

The decision states that the government’s re-submission "satisfies the conditions set in the directive", with the caveat of short-term measures being put in place.

"It is up to the UK to decide which specific actions to introduce," the commission says. "These could include measures in relation to traffic, construction work, ships at berth and the use of industrial plants or products and domestic heating. London’s air quality plan will need to be revised by 11 June 2011 to include the short-term measures and submitted to the commission."

City hall claims the commission has not seen the full range of measures drawn up because the government submitted its application in May 2010.

A spokeswoman for the mayor said: "This is a welcome recognition of the serious steps that the mayor has taken to reduce PM10 pollution in order to confront the legacy of poor air quality he inherited and that led to this issue being taken to the European commission in the first place.

"We look forward to working with the government to further reassure the commission, and more importantly people in London, that we have robust, sensible and proportionate measures in place to reduce pollution levels ensuring that the capital is as healthy and clean as possible."

The decision gives the UK only breathing space, since the commission has not withdrawn the previous written warnings and can take the government to court if it fails to reduce pollution this year in a fast-track process that could lead to an estimated £300m fine.

Darren Johnson, a Green party member of the London assembly, said: "The reason the European commission have taken the unprecedented step of requiring a set of emergency plans to be drawn up is that they simply don’t trust the UK government and mayor to protect the health of Londoners.

"This country negotiated and agreed these limits on pollution over a decade ago, but politicians at all levels of government have subsequently failed to act. By refusing to withdraw the written warnings the commission has shown that it is prepared to take a tough stance on a problem."

Johnson was heavily criticised by opposition parties for unravelling environment policies put in place by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, such as his decision to delay by 15 months the introduction of phase three of the Low Emission Zone (Lez), which fines the most polluting vans, and the scrapping of the western extension of the congestion charge zone last Christmas.

But some have sympathy for his claim that the previous Labour government failed to do enough to ensure London was in compliance with air quality directives in the first place.

Murad Qureshi, Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly, said: "If Boris Johnson hadn’t halved the size of the congestion charge zone, cancelled taxi inspections and suspended fines for the most polluting vehicles, London and Britain would be in a much healthier state today. Dirty vans and minibuses would have been off our roads by now but for the actions of this mayor. He has taken London backwards in the fight to improve the city’s air and should take urgent action now to put this right."

Mike Tuffrey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly environment spokesperson, said: "The case for urgent action on London’s appalling air quality never rested on the views of the EU commission. Londoners’ health is at grave risk and that alone is the reason action [is needed] to tackle air pollution. We need a Clean Air Zone for central London, as cities like Berlin do, and rapid action to clean up buses and taxis. Now more than ever the mayor must act."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/britain-300m-fine-london-air-pollution

I was able to show some solidarity with the Arab awakening during a recent trip to Tunisia, when it all started. It appears young Arabs now aspire to the symbolism of Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian graduate fruit seller whose produce was confiscated because he lacked the correct permit. His attempted suicide (he has since died) set off protests over unemployment across North Africa.

Whether it’s a young Egyptian who occupies Tahrir Square or a young Libyan defying the madness of Muammar Gaddafi, their actions are all essentially taken in the name of their own liberation.

Yet while they have successfully managed to eliminate the physical dictators such as Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, we have yet to see the “dictatorships” removed.

In Egypt, the military council is still in charge. It has made changes to the government and in the make up of the cabinet in order to appease the protesters. The military council has been running the country since February 11 and will do so for six months or until the end of parliamentary and presidential elections.

Despite an announcement that a referendum on proposed constitutional reform will be held on March 19, the military have yet to remove the emergency law sand state they will not remove them until the streets finally clear. So the very laws that fuelled the protests are still in place.

In Tunisia, the new administration has been given just two months to implement reforms before March 15 to pave the way for elections in July.

After suffering under a presidential dictatorship and de facto one-party rule, most leftist and Islamists are yearning for a parliamentary system. They want power to be handed over to a caretaker team of independent technocrats.

They also want the National Council for the Defence of the Revolution to be officially  recognised and given the right to monitor the new government pending elections.

This Arab awakening won’t go away and may be extended to other parts of the Middle East – to Arab monarchies such as Saudi Arabia. The best thing Britain can do is stay out – a warning David Cameron would do well to heed.

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