Peter Gammons, the UKIP candidate in next month’s London mayoral election, has been roasted on Twitter after posting a video promising to rip out low traffic neighbourhoods if elected – with a number of users of the social network pointing out that the Mayor of London has no such powers.
Dr Gammons – he has a PhD from Canon University, Florida, and on his personal website describes himself as one of the world’s “most famous and in-demand inspirational and motivational speakers” – said last November when he was selected as UKIP’s candidate that if elected, he would “put a stop to [Sadiq] Khan’s war on motorists.
“I am passionate about supporting London’s taxi drivers and will launch a full review into reopening roads which Khan has closed,” he added.
Yesterday, he posted a video to Twitter filmed at one of the entrances to the Northfield LTN in the London Borough of Ealing, pledging to scrap such schemes if he were elected mayor – but as a number of Twitter users pointed out, ignoring the fact that Gammons lies a very distant fifth place in the polls, there are a couple of flaws in that pledge.
First and foremost – and a pretty much insurmountable hurdle, one might think – is that the Mayor of London has no such power, with the installation or removal of LTNs a matter wholly within the remit of the borough in question.
(Curiously, in the case of Ealing, opposition to LTNs now unites a UKIP mayoral candidate with the local Labour MP, who has consistently criticised the council, controlled by her own party, for such interventions).
> Labour MP says low-traffic neighbourhoods “have left women feeling unsafe”
Gammons insisted that his motivation for posting the video was to support people who lived in LTNs.
Yet when Felix Lowe – whom you may know from his Blazin’ Saddles blog on Eurosport and book Climbs and Punishment, and who lives in the very LTN where Gammons’ video was shot – replied outlining the benefits of the scheme to locals, he was blocked, as were others expressing support for the measures.
Another Twitter user, with tongue firmly in cheek, provided examples of long-standing LTNs in West London which would no doubt have to go too, should Gammons become mayor.
And this post in response to Gammons’ video highlights one of the reasons why now more than ever before LTNs are needed, with modern technology directing motorists away from main roads and through what had often been quiet residential streets to avoid congestion.
While Gammons is firmly opposed to LTNs and the emergency cycleways that have appeared in London over the past year or so, he does have his own rather singular views on the type of infrastructure that best suits people who choose to get around the capital by bike.
“I want to get London moving again,” he said when his candidacy was announced. “There are over 2 million miles of unused tunnels, streets, and chambers beneath London. This abandoned network was secretly built by the Ministry of Defence, Post Office, and BT.
“I want to convert these disused spaces into walkways, safe cycle lanes, and create the world’s first underground ‘Pod’ transport system. This ambitious project will speed up the city and clear up London’s congestion – an issue that consecutive Conservative and Labour administrations have failed to solve,” he added.
This week, an opinion poll put Khan on course to receive 51 per cent of first choice votes, with Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey a distant second on 29 per cent.
Green candidate Sian Berry and Lib Dem Luisa Porritt are joint third with 8 per cent, with Gammons lagging well behind in fifth place with just 1 per cent of respondents saying he would get their first choice vote.
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19 comments
To steal from Private Eye
He will be mayor this year - playing dick whittington in the christmas panto.
''As Mayor'....can I just stop you there, Mr Gammons. You are not going to be Mayor. Just like you don't have a proper PhD. It is a fantasy.
Notice in his tweet 'if you disagree that's fine, if your pleasant. If not your blocked' (sic)
What always gets me about Kippers is a) how thick they are and b) how thick they are. And why can they never tell the difference between 'your' and 'you're' ?
He's got a degree and he wants to invent the London Underground? Bit weird.
Apparently he's a phd.... Or was it an aphid? Need to get to specsavers
Gammons has a PhD from a university that isn't officially recognised.
He also appears to have radioactive teeth.
He once cured 18,000 people.
I think Canon University is what they call a "diploma mill"
Gammon is cured; was he causing an epidemic?
It's deeply disturbing that 29% of people are intending to vote for Shaun Bailey. He's so laughably wrong on everything I wouldn't be suprised if he came out as an alternative comedian running a spoof campaign.
From his election website:
"We face a new challenge today as extremists are trying to force their ideologies on us."
Hmmmmm. No mirrors in his house do you think?
And "3. AN EFFICIENT LONDON – To stop the expansion of bike lanes, make TfL profitable, protect London’s Black Cabs and stop congestion charge expansion and LTNs."
Quickly followed by "5. A GREENER LONDON"
And "Personally, I am very much a centrist and will represent all Londoners in a way no one else can." Unless you want an LTN or ride a bike.
And either he's had plastic surgery or the picture they use on that site is from twenty years ago.
That headline... chapeau!
2 million miles of unused tunnels, streets and chambers under London, you say?
So, let me get this straight - if London is 20 miles across from Croydon to Enfield (and let's make it square for simplicity's sake) then 2 million miles would need 100,000 tunnels all the way across, which would be 50,000 north to south and 50,000 east to west. Time to switch to metric units - 20 miles is only 32,000m - which means that one metre wide tunnels won't fit. However, as a new mode of transport, cycling around under a city that floats in the air above you would be rather nifty. Give the man a rosette and stick him on a flagpole.....
They could be stacked vertically, some deep, some shallow.
There is a 12 page chapter in this book about the war time, utility, and tube tunnels under London that might be worth his referring to. But that's not how it works, is it - it's a common nut job and extremist trait to share "special" knowledge that only select few know; the aaaahhh, sort. There's never a definitive source or an authority, it's always third hand, the origins just out of sight; it's usually at least somewhat plausible in this strange old world of ours.
and from their website
I think doctor is a verb here, not title: "to change something in order to deceive people"
which he was (probably) awarded after collecting 1,000 tokens from his favourite breakfast cereal...
Why cannot the motor vehicles use the 2 million miles of tunnels under London?
It would be good extra "knowledge" for those taxi drivers...
It'll never work. They don't go south of the river as it is.
I'll get me coat