The Edition: Road rage
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
In his cover piece for the magazine Ross Clark writes about ‘the war on motorists'. He argues that the backlash against London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s expansion of Ulez is just the beginning, as motorists – and Labour MPs – prepare to revolt. He joins the podcast alongside Ben Clatworthy, transport correspondent at the Times, to discuss whether the Ulez expansion is just a money-grab. (01:11).
Also this week:
In his piece for The Spectator, journalist Ian Williams compares both Labour and Conservative policy on China. He says that Labour is gearing up to take a much more hawkish stance on China. He is joined by Charles Parton, senior associate fellow at RUSI, who worked as a diplomat in China for over two decades. (12:12)
And finally: lights, camera, industrial action.
This is of course the news this week that the Screen Actions Guild are striking in support of the Writers Guild of America over concerns that AI will take over the role of screenwriters. Gareth Roberts argues in The Spectator that there is such a glut of poor scripts that we may not even notice that if AI replaces screenwriters, and is joined by Anna Smith, film critic and host of the girls on film podcast. (26:39)
Hosted by William Moore.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. |
| 0:07.6 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription, in print and online, plus a £20 £20,000 Amazon gift voucher, absolutely free. |
| 0:17.4 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:26.2 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator. |
| 0:33.9 | Each week we look at three pieces from the magazine with the writers behind them. |
| 0:38.6 | I'm William Moore, the Spectators Features Editor. |
| 0:41.7 | On this week's episode, we'll be talking about the revolt against Ulaz, |
| 0:46.5 | Labor's Emerging China Strategy, and whether Hollywood screenwriters are right to fear AI. |
| 0:53.2 | First up, in his cover piece for the magazine this week, |
| 0:56.5 | Ross Clark writes about the backlash against London Mayor Sadiq Khan's expansion of Yulez. He says |
| 1:03.1 | the motorist's rebellion is just the beginning. He joins me now, along with Ben Clatworthy, |
| 1:09.2 | transport correspondent at the Times. Ross, can you take us |
| 1:12.6 | through your argument? Well, you, Ledz, or the ultra-low emission zone, as it's known. I mean, |
| 1:20.2 | originated about 2008 as a zone in which commercial traffic lorries, so on, were sort of excluded, or they had to |
| 1:31.1 | abase some kind of emissions. It was extended to cars in 2019, this is just in the very |
| 1:38.5 | centre of London, was extended to the north and south circular roads in 2021. |
| 1:45.5 | And from this August, Sadiq Khan is planning to extend it to the whole of London, |
| 1:52.1 | to the whole of Greater London, which will mean that anybody with a petrol car |
| 1:58.7 | which doesn't fulfil Euro five regulations, which in practice means any car, |
| 2:06.5 | most petrol cars built before about 2007, or any diesel car, which doesn't obey Euro 6 regulations, |
| 2:15.0 | which means practice anyone built before about 2016, they'll have to pay |
| 2:21.0 | £12.50 a day to drive anywhere in London. If they don't pay and the thing will be |
... |
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