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news
Charlie MullinsPimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins suspended from Twitter after posting that “someone should kill” Sadiq Khan over ULEZ
Charlie Mullins, the Pimlico Plumbers founder who claimed in 2020 that “cycle fascists” were making van journeys longer, has been suspended from X, formerly known as Twitter, after posting a series of tweets attacking and appearing to threaten London mayor Sadiq Khan over this week’s expansion of the capital’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, writing that “it’s time to dump the Muslim mayor” and that “someone should kill him”.
Mullins’ racially charged tweets were posted within ten minutes of each other on Sunday night, two days before the ULEZ – inside which motorists are charged £12.50 a day for driving older, non-compliant, high-polluting vehicles – was extended to outer London, following months of political debate, protests, furious online discourse, and legal challenges over a policy described by Labour mayor Khan as “not easy but necessary to reduce the capital's toxic air pollution”.
Replying to tsuk78639968’s tweet calling for Mullins to stand at the next mayoral election, to “make London what it used to be”, the 70-year-old multimillionaire businessman tweeted: “I am on it, and it’s time to dump the Muslim mayor”.
Nine minutes later, Mullins replied to ChrisFi65328659’s post claiming that the “government is doing nothing to stop” Khan, tweeting: “Someone should kill him”.
The posts have led to Mullins’ account being suspended by X, due to a “violation” of the social media platform’s rules.
road.cc has contacted Mullins’ representatives about the suspension, but is yet to receive a response.
The posts, which have been described by other Twitter users as “racially motivated hate speech”, aren’t the first time Mullins has been put under the spotlight due to inflammatory comments concerning travel policies.
In 2020, the then-boss of Pimlico Plumbers, one of Britain’s largest plumbing firms, commissioned a Transport for London parody poster of a cyclist struggling to carry tools, which claimed that people on bikes were “taking f***ing liberties”.
An additional blog post, shared on the company’s website, then took aim at cycling infrastructure and “cycle fascists”, which Mullins’ PR team claimed were responsible for increasing the length of van journeys in the capital.
“I’ve had enough of cycle fascists whining about their precious road space when what they really want is to run all non-cycles off the road,” the blog, written in the first person as if by Mullins himself, said. “And I’m also sick of the bike bureaucrats who have taken over TFL, and who as we speak are painting great swathes of Central London’s roads blue, making it next to impossible to run any kind of service business.
“Businesses like mine, and many others that rely on the transport of large amounts of equipment, tools and goods about the city cannot operate on bicycles. It is a ridiculous proposition. Any fool can figure out it doesn’t work. And please don’t tell me to get a cargo bike because unless they are the size of a van or a lorry and can be made secure they are exactly as useful as a chocolate teapot.”
> Pimlico Plumbers worker caught using phone at the wheel by Cycling Mikey
The blog, which was subsequently watered down following an online backlash, concluded: “London is a city of commerce but that cannot continue if we hand the roads to these freeloading helmet heroes who believe they have a god given right to the roads to the detriment of all other users.”
Less than a month after that controversial blog post, Pimlico Plumbers then posted a video to Twitter calling for help in tracking down a cycling “criminal” who allegedly kicked out at a wing mirror on the Mullins’ Bentley.
> Pimlico Plumbers appeal to catch cycling ‘criminal’ – but get accused of faking footage
However, a number of users called out the footage as fake, with one accusing the firm of staging a publicity stunt and a “false flag” attack to whip up resentment against bike riders.
Mullins sold the company to US home services group Neighborly in a deal worth up to £145 million in September 2021, though his son remained involved as chief executive.
> Bike shop owner – who owns nine cars – says ULEZ expansion will cause “chaos”
These latest highly controversial posts from the London-born businessman, a former donor to the Conservative Party and business advisor to David Cameron and George Osborne, appear to represent the darker side of the politically charged opposition to the extended ULEZ, a scheme branded by Boris Johnson – who introduced the policy to London in 2015 during his stint as London Mayor – as a “mad lefty tax” on “hard-pressed motorists”.
At the end of July, a legal challenge launched by five Conservative-led councils, who claimed that the extension was “illegal”, was quashed by the High Court, while this week’s implementation of the scheme has been marked by confusion and misinformation.
> Bike brands bank on ULEZ expansion – but will enlarged clean air zone boost active travel?
Following the High Court ruling last month, Simon Munk from the London Cycling Campaign told road.cc: “It’s really good news that London’s ULEZ zone is now set to expand in August. London must act on pollution, at too high levels across the capital, and the expansion will be a positive step in not only delivering cleaner air but enabling people to use alternatives to cars.
“The legal action came primarily from councils that are among those who have done least on delivering action on air quality, climate emissions and walking, cycling and wheeling… We hope the leaders of the London boroughs involved reflect on what they have cost their own residents, and more, on how they now need to work with the rest of London on delivering cleaner air, lower emissions, and to enable residents to ditch car journeys whenever possible.
“ULEZ expanding is another step in the right direction for a healthier, cleaner, greener London.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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103 comments
Best of luck getting his account back. I joked years ago that America should united and euthanize Trump...got a perks ban 🤣
It's a hard problem - how to not-tolerate the seriously intolerant. So easy to slip into their modes and practices.
Even a seemingly standard, democratic and traditional process to rein-in the intolerant loons can go seriously awry if the loon has somehow acquired lotsa loon-fans. The legal cases agin' the Trunttosser seems to be generating even more avid support for the monstrous creature! The legal prosecutions play to that commonly-found righty-tighty whinge-bellow that they're a poor persecuted underdog.
Personally I'm guilty of hoping that the Trunter will drop dead of self-indulgence but even that is a suspicious meme to house in one's noggin. Anyway, a more practical solution to such intolerant monsters is probably that they become more and more excessive to the point that even their loon-fans have second thoughts, so they fail.
For many monster-loons, failure is the spell that will do for 'em, at least in terms of their ability to themselves cast spells on the foolishly hypnotised loon-fans. Good and pungent mockery is often a catalyst that will induce their failure.
*********
I'l do a Godwin now.
That Hitler owed a portion of his success to his claim to martyrdom via a gaol sentence imposed by the already enfeebled German authorities of the time. Ranting Adolf emerged even stronger and more righteous in the eyes of many, acquiring another herd of loon-fans. "Poor Adolf, gaoled just for sayin' things".
They'd have been better off taking the mick out of him, a procedure many intolerant monsters find the most uncomfortable experience they ever have. They are "serious men & women". Being laughed at pricks their big bag o' importance-gas. They gurn, flabber and often end up looking even more ridiculous, as the scales fall from a few of their observers' eyes.
Consider the Boris Bokum arc from popular posh-yob to abhored evil-klown. His japes and quips strayed far beyond the pale. Instead of him guffawing at us, we laughed incredulously at him, before booing him orf the stage.
Certainly had my popcorn out reading through this LOL!!
As if we didn’t have enough clowns in public life, here comes Charlie Mullins (2018)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/25/as-if-we-didnt-hav...
picture is from a May 2023 Daily Mail story - here's a flavour:
"The former boss and founder of the multi-million-pound plumbing empire said he tried to let another car past during traffic chaos caused by closures and diversions in London's West End at the weekend for a cycle race.
[wouldn't you just know it]
The entrepreneur has other things on his mind after popping the question to singer Rachel, 32, last year, for what will be his third marriage.
The couple live together in a £10million Thames-side apartment in London. Mullins sold Pimlico Plumbers last year and is pursuing a career as a media personality
He said he was often mistaken for Rod Stewart, adding: 'People do recognise me for the hair these days and call me Rod, which I don't mind at all.'
Mr Mullins has just filmed a pilot for a show called the Naked Millionaire, in which he has to build a business from scratch. There is also a possible reality TV show in the pipeline for him and his fiancée."
Dear Charlie, I found one that better suits you:
How to judge other persons? No easy matter, since all of us are filled with human nature, a very queer stuff that's not just highly variegated but a fantastical shape-shifter, leaping easily between angel and devil in a second, then back again, often via 13,890 conditions between the two. However .....
Being cyclists and therefore needing to judge the possible intentions forming and morphing within others about us, especially others with lethal weapons at their disposal (cars, vans, lorries and big fists sometimes clutching a knife) we must reduce those other humans to manageable sets defined by, "Most likely to do X".
The cyclist's 6th sense develops. We can read lotsa signals given off by them others, especially the ones in cars.
See that CH4 RLE? That sorta badge is a signal that often indicates a certain, er, solipsistic mental state that frees the incumbent from the normal reining-in of human nature's worst indulgences. The personalised number plate, in many cases (not all) tends to indicate that the owner harbours a tendency to regard others without such a thing, especially cyclists with no number plate at all, as not-persons - The "Others I hate 'cos I just do".
Ole CH4RLE seems to have decided that Muslim mayors are not-persons - some sort of vermin to be extermnated by like-CH4RLE persons like hisself, a glorious crusader agin' the monstrous regiment of not-CH4RLEs.
Anyroadup, if you see him comin' at you in his Big Blue Status Symbol, I advise a quick scuttle out of his sight line. If he gets you, he will be defended by that Loophole and the victory celebrated by The Daily Hate Mail, not to mention The Dictator (editor: Joseph Goebbels Ghost).
But you never know ..... that gasguzzler must put out a lot of gunk so perhaps CH4RLE will become so filled with particulates that he'll have a volte-face, welcoming a full-ULEZ and calling for a different sort religious adherent to be murdered instead? (He's a leopard with certain indelible spots, after all).
**********
Meanwhile, we can all continue this thread and supply the creature with the oxygen of publicity to counter those particulates he seems to enjoy generating and breathing-in.
* In fact, C114 RLE with a fixing strategically located so as to both (a) better represent the intended personalisation; and (b) although perhaps not intentionally, confound anyone who might want to report driver of said vehicle.
C114 RLE with a fixing strategically located so as to both (a) better represent the intended personalisation; and (b) although perhaps not intentionally, confound anyone who might want to report driver of said vehicle
Of course it's intentional! There are loads of intentionally misplaced fixing bolts in Lancashire, designed to lead to a mis-identification
I'm a very firm believer in the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover". It's obviously impossible to discern a person's political persuasion, or their attitude to Brexit, or their personal beliefs or ideologies, merely by looking at a picture. That would be absolutely ridiculous.
Oh, wait.
Why do you assume he supported Brexit? He didn't. You obviously are judging a book by its cover.
Damn - well, It looks like the cover gave most of the rest of it away. "Never Judge 9o% of the contents of a book by its cover", how's that?
I have been told multiple times that "all racists voted for Brexit".
This doesn't seem to fit that pattern does it.
I wouldn't want to speculate about Brexit etc but the photo suggests that he is a rich (flash) bastard who has screwed lots of people many times over the years and doesn't GAF about anyone or anything except himself.
He must have been like a pig in shit playing "business advisor" for the clueless Eton boys Cameron and Osborne.
I'm particularly keen to hear his thoughts on climate change ..... I need a good laugh
Funny isnt it, I logged on this morning expecting to read about bicycles...and here I am reading about ULEZ and a death threat.
Not really relevant is it, but well done - some good bait to get people like Rendel frothing and foaming.
When Costa coffee first appeared on our high streets I think they used to have bands performing at their outlets. I seem to remember seeing Frothing and Foaming at one of these early gigs although I may be mistaken. They did a great version of Under the Bridge - you'd have liked that one.
A common misunderstanding - but I'm surprised to see it repeated here. Frothing and Foaming were actually a barbershop quartet and were employed to promote members of the Barber Shop group's salons. Are you thinking of the association between Clickbait with Jessops?
Extreme metallers Death Threat apparently did try to offer their services to advertise the Coop funeral homes but this proposal was quickly buried.
It's very confusing - at one time there were two bands with the same name which resulted in a lengthy court case. I can't remember who won. In fact nobody can.
The Lawyers won, as they always do
.
The Lawyers' second album is worth a listen.
Ah, "Finger my briefs." Now there is a blast from the past.
Well, that's my morning taken up. I was going to read over this appeals submission but instead I'll send my secretary out for some safety pins and zips and relive some of my youth.
As in Jonny Fingers of the Boomtown Rats??
Seconded! Though I wouldn't bother with The Accountant's recent follow ups. Same tired old tunes under a different name, and bar the odd die-hard fan didn't find favour with audiences or reviewers.
Frothing and foaming was actually in the original Beach Boys lyrics for Barbara Ann (original couplet "You got me frothin' anna foamin'/Squealin' anna moanin', Barb'ra Ann...") but it was banned as the authorities feared it would exacerbate the growing problem of over consumption of espresso by teenagers.
When I was at school, our A-level maths teacher decided to have some sick time with a trifling condition called a heart attack, being diligent students we didn't see the point of revising the work he had taught us the week before so we started singing Barbara Ann a capella while unsupervised in the classroom. This was going well until the headmaster walked in on us, I don't think he was a Beach Boys fan! As an aside, the maths teacher was the real life husband of Nora Batty.
As an aside, an ex-girlfriend of mine was a massive Red Hot Chilli Peppers fan. I used to wind her up by saying I preferred the All Saints version of "Under the Bridge".
I can understand that, although Richard Hawley did play guitar on it.
In fact, it's that political, I notice it has even made an entry line into the "POLITICO London Playbook" - solid reading too for a good, daily non-biased politics overview.
I remember Politico playing our student union in 1986/87. They were a bunch of PhD students from the Social Sciences faculty, a sort of in-house band. Did a lot of Smiths covers.
It's funny because I was roundly castigated in these pages (mainly by people who are now banned) some months ago for suggesting that there was a racist, violent and Islamophobic element to a significant minority of the protests against the ULEZ, with particular reference to the poster below which apparently in no way at all is intended to represent a target on Khan's forehead and can't possibly be interpreted as such. And here we are. I'm sure Mullins is just an outlier, a bad apple, and in no way representative of the views of other protestors...
I honestly can't recall a single issue in my fairly long lifetime, not even Thatcher and the poll tax or Blair and the Iraq war, that has attracted such villification of the politician rather than the policy. Go to at any anti-ULEZ demonstration and count the proportion of posters that are "Khan Out" rather than "No ULEZ", it's quite instructive. Just what could it be about the Pakistani heritage Muslim mayor that engenders such passionate ire, one wonders...
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