‘Electric cars, ULEZ and ICE bans: these topics are taboo for Keir Starmer and the Labour party’

The contempt of the political establishment for humble car users is slumping to an all-time low. With the July 4 date of the general election now looming, respected pollsters and commentators are already saying ‘game over’ – with the likes of Sir John Curtice stating that Labour has a 99 per cent chance of succeeding the Conservative regime.

But who and what’s more pathetic: the outgoing Prime Minister suddenly pretending he’s on the side of motorists and their passengers? Or the incoming PM who struggles to acknowledge their existence?

In recent days I heard Rishi Sunak whisper: “We’ll focus on drivers and their priorities, not continue the war on motorists. It’s this [Conservative] party that is, unashamedly, on the side of motorists.”

Yet, like you and me, he knows his half-hearted, embarrassingly insincere, last-gasp effort to allegedly befriend car users is too little, too late.

Labour Leader Keir Starmer adopts an equally contentious stance by saying even less about cars, the hundreds of thousands of Brits who make and sell them, plus the tens of millions of drivers and passengers who use them daily.

Thus far, the most high-profile interest he’s shown in motoring matters was (in his previous state-sponsored job as a lawyer) reportedly putting a £2,000-a-week chauffeur-driven car on his taxpayer-funded expenses – at a total cost of £161,273 over the months/years he languished on the luxurious back seat. This despite living just four miles from work!

Out of touch? Living in a world that’s very different from ours? Many workers struggle to earn £2,000 a month, never mind spending two grand a week on chauffeur services.

Does Starmer have a clue about the magnitude of the car-related issues he’ll soon be forced to have a major say in? For example, the electric car marketplace is stalling badly and requires a major rethink or reset from, among others, him and his incoming Government. Is he aware that Ford (the company that halted car production in the UK under the previous Labour regime) has recently revealed it’s losing $100,000 (£79k) on every EV it builds and sells, and that such loss-making lunacy is utterly unsustainable?

How does he intend to make up for the loss of Honda’s Swindon plant (during the reign of the current lethargic Conservative Government), its recent razing to the ground and its thousands of factory workers being thrown on the scrapheap – at a time when Honda’s investing an eye-watering $64billion (£50bn) on EVs that won’t be built in Blighty.

Starmer recently published a 28-page report on railways for the comparatively few. But he’s avoiding all of the topics affecting the motoring masses: car-related taxation/duties/tolls; consumer choice; fuel (petrol, diesel, electric, hydrogen); congestion and ULEZ charges; ICE bans; motor manufacturing and jobs; motor cars; motorists; parking; roads/road safety; and vehicle pricing/availability.

To him and his party these topics are taboo. If he’s afraid to bring them into the mainstream, he’ll be about as effective a Prime Minister as Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak.

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