London's 'Airgate' Scandal
The Mayor's office caught misrepresenting science in order to support their flagship ULEZ policy
Summary:
The Telegraph has recently published two batches of emails between the London Mayor’s office and scientists undertaking research into the effectiveness of ‘low emission zone’ air pollution policies.
In the first case, the Mayor’s deputy uses her influence to ‘clarify’ Imperial College’s stance after they published a study showing the flagship ULEZ policy to be largely ineffective.
In the second case, the Mayor’s deputy requests that Queen Mary University of London change the wording of a study that showed no improvement to child health from a pre-cursor to the ULEZ initiative.
While the Queen Mary University professor was steadfast, an Imperial College professor was only too happy to oblige with the deputy Mayor’s request.
Mayor Khan has a track-record of mis-representing ‘The Science’ for his own political gains, but previous examples have gone unnoticed by many.
While the Telegraph’s ‘Airgate’ revelations have obvious implications for London’s residents, people from around the world should all be concerned about the manipulated messaging coming from the capital…
Reminiscent of the ‘Climategate’ Scandal
A 2009 a computer hack at The University of East Anglia led to an extremely embarrassing public relations disaster for climate science.
The release of confidential emails between top climate scientists who had, among other things, promoted the famous “Hockey Stick” temperature curve became known as “Climategate”; the term popularized by author and columnist James Delingpole.
The email communications included revelations of temperature data manipulation, and instructions on how to avoid Freedom of Information data disclosure and subvert the peer-review process.
From Climate to Air Pollution
This time it’s air pollution under the spotlight! Reminiscent of the 2009 Climategate scandal, I refer to it here as London’s Airgate Scandal!
The Telegraph articles referred to are behind a paywall, but it is worth signing up for a free trial version if you want to see additional details to those that I cover here.
The ‘Airgate’ Scandal
Part 1
Following a Freedom of Information request, email communications between Sadiq Khan’s Deputy for Environment and Energy, Shirley Rodrigues, and Professor Frank Kelly of Imperial College, London were recently disclosed in The Sunday Telegraph.
Ms. Rodrigues told Professor Kelly that she was ‘‘really disappointed’’ over Imperial’s publication of a report that questioned the benefits of the Mayor’s flagship, Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) policy.
Referring to the report, the Telegraph wrote (emphasis added):
‘‘The study from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, published in the journal ‘Environmental Research Letters’ in 2021, found that the introduction of Ulez in 2019 *cut nitrogen dioxide by less than three per cent and had insignificant effects on ozone and particulate matter.*’’
After the email exchange with the Mayor’s office, Imperial’s Prof. Kelly was very eager to help ‘mitigate the damage’ after news outlets decided to report on the Imperial College study.
In a series of email exchanges revealed by the Telegraph, a new statement was drafted between Kelly and Rodrigues, the wording crafted for use in various media outlets, which included (emphasis added);
The actions undertaken by the Mayor’s office to address London’s air pollution challenge, including the introduction of the ultra low emission zone, collectively *have dramatically reduced air pollution in London*
To quote the Telegraph:
‘‘Prof. Kelly’s colleagues said they stood by their research “100%”, but the Telegraph understands that the fallout has had a chilling effect, leaving them unwilling to publish further work on the subject.’’
One can only imagine how much pressure the scientists were under after the intervention by the Mayor’s office, itself a major source of funding for Imperial College*.
(*according to the Times article, Imperial College has received more that £800,000 since 2021 from the Mayor’s Office)
Part 2
On the 22nd August, Just two days after the first story broke, the Telegraph published yet more communications between the Deputy Mayor, Rodrigues, and the author of another scientific study looking at the effectiveness of low emission zone policy.
This time, a scientist at Queen Mary University of London was approached by Rodrigues who had undertaken a study that showed London’s low emissions zone (LEZ) made no difference to children’s health.
In familiar fashion, Rodrigues ‘asks’ for the conclusions to be ‘re-worded’. Quoting from the Telegraph;
Emails seen by The Telegraph show that Shirley Rodrigues, London’s deputy mayor, asked if Professor Chris Griffiths, of Queen Mary University of London, could “reword” the study’s conclusion that found “no evidence” of health benefits to children’s lungs.
However, Unlike Imperial’s Prof. Kelly, Prof. Griffiths was steadfast:
..replying to Ms Rodrigues: “Apologies - it’s difficult to alter the sentence you refer to as it’s what we set out to look for but didn’t find.”
The study - co-written by Imperial College - was published unaltered the following day in the The Lancet Public Health journal.
Well done Prof. Griffiths!
More to come?
There have been two batches of revelations since the weekend. It wouldn’t surprise me if there is more to come. It was interesting to note the Deputy Mayor Rodriguez had, according to the Telegraph ‘‘pulled out of planned media appearances this week’’.
Perhaps bracing herself for more? Watch this space!
Mayor Khan’s Track Record
This is not the first time that Khan’s office has manipulated ‘The Science’ to justify the implementation of (apparently life-saving) restrictive measures upon London’s population.
1. School Streets
Back in 2021 I wrote about the Mayor’s ‘School Streets’ initiative. A study commissioned by the Mayor utilized specialist air pollution monitoring technology to determine air pollution benefits from temporarily closing streets upon which schools were located as a pre-cursor to having them closed on a more permanent basis.
However, closer scrutiny revealed that Khan’s media messaging drawn from the study such as ‘pollution reductions of up to 34% were seen outside of the schools due to the closures’ didn’t align with it’s actual findings!
From more than 100 opportunities to witness reductions in air pollution levels in the monitoring data following a road closure, *none* conclusively showed any such patterns!
You can read more about it in my School Streets post.
2. London’s ‘4,000 deaths per year’ claim
This is a topic that has been covered thoroughly by Climate Debate and the Together Declaration so I will only briefly summarize it here.
Khan has consistently used the claim that ’around 4,000 Londoners die prematurely’ each year due to air pollution.
But this is simply not true, and certainly not a scientific claim!
Imperial College (surprise surprise!) undertook a literature review* concluding that there is an equivalent of around 4,000 life years lost each year in London.
(*Khan allegedly paid a fee of around £45,000 for Imperial College to generate this report; a generous sum indeed!)
The committee responsible for the research work upon which Imperial College’s statements are based added clear warnings such as ‘we think it likely that these calculations will mislead the public’, with some not wanting such statistics to be publicized at all because they were ‘not confident that the caveats and uncertainties would be respected’.
Thanks to the Mayor, their concerns proved to be well-founded!
I can recommend this YouTube video by Climate Debate that summarizes the manipulation behind the ‘4,000 deaths per year claim’ used by Khan.
3. London’s ‘ULEZ impact’
The so-called ‘ULEZ impacts’ were communicated in a study published by the Mayor’s Office which made some quite fantastic claims regarding the benefits of ULEZ.
In my blog post titled ‘Debunking London's 'ULEZ-Impact' I concluded that the methodology used to determine the so-called ‘ULEZ impact’ was manipulated with the overall effect of boosting the claimed benefits of ULEZ.
Clearly my concerns were not shared by the Mayor’s office. Within their report gratitude is expressed on more than one occasion to a Dr Gary Fuller of - you guessed it - Imperial College London who ‘kindly provided peer review support and comments on this methodology’.
Final Thoughts
Upon first glance it may seem as though London’s current Airgate scandal isn’t on the same scale as the 2009 Climategate scandal.
The concern should be obvious to Londoners who are being subject to increasingly restrictive (and expensive) transportation policies against a backdrop of ‘health-benefit’ messaging from the Mayor’s office, among others.
But we should also consider how such messaging will likely spread. Airgate should be of concern to people of towns and cities both in the UK and abroad, whose politicians will be looking at London’s example, salivating at the prospect of introducing their own ULEZ and other ‘15-minute-city’ style policies.
Science must be free from interference from grubby, political trickery and manipulation.
To quote Ben Pile from Together UK and Climate Debate in the most recent Telegraph piece;
“This undermines the value of both institutional science and democratic politics. Scientific claims must be produced by scientists unfettered by ideological agendas, and debated in a transparent and free manner.
It may well be that many Londoners embrace and support Khan’s ULEZ and similar policies.
But they must be able to make their choice in an informed manner, and have the ability to access open and honest scientific research work should they choose to do so.
The likes of Khan, Rodriguez and their complicit scientists are undermining that ability.
And who can say how far reaching the implications of their scientific distortions will be? Will surveillance cameras be coming to a neighborhood near you sometime soon?
All in the name of protecting your health.
Because that’s what ‘The Science’ says, after all.
Be careful out there.
-T
Time to start prosecuting these ever-lying, totalitarian psychopaths.