Titbits – Je ne regrette rien

■ Titbits has always suspected that the true test of a politician’s cosmopolitan credentials is whether they can gaze admiringly across the Channel and say the words “be more French” with a straight face. Step forward Caroline Russell, Green leader on the London Assembly, who this week has done precisely that. The occasion is ozone – a subject that has, Titbits concedes, been criminally underserved by the borough’s dinner-party chatter.

Over in the Île-de-France, Titbits is reliably informed, they simply take twenty kilometres per hour off the speed limit when the ozone climbs, and – quelle horreur – ban the most polluting cars from the road altogether. Assembly Member Russell would like Sir Sadiq to give the same treatment a whirl, and while he’s at it, to swap out the current “moderate” and “high” warnings for a jauntier “amber” and “red”. Sir Sadiq maintained that he was, “always happy to learn from other cities”, which, in Sir Sadiq’s lexicon, is roughly the polite equivalent of “amber”.

■ In April, Sir Sadiq Khan warned Labour voters “flirting” with other parties that they might come to regret a Green- or Reform-led council. Ten days later he was vowing to work constructively with whatever 7 May threw up. Last week, at Hackney’s own West Reservoir, he made good on it, launching his £1.8 billion Clean Rivers and Waterways Plan, a ten-year scheme covering ten London waterways, among them the Lea Valley. Councils like Hackney “have been great working with us”, the Mayor said, adding that they “deserve credit”. Hackney’s administration is, of course, now Green-led. Regrets are evidently for other people.

■ Few outfits know the value of a parking fine better than Hackney Council. In 2021, the Citizen reported its LTN cameras had raked in £2.7m at £130 a pop; by 2022 that had swelled to £19m, 80 per cent from drivers foolish enough to live elsewhere. Last year it collected £11.3million from PCNs. So there’s a certain symmetry in FoI data showing Town Hall staff racked up £10,253 in parking and traffic penalties in twelve months — including £3,100 paid to Waltham Forest. Other boroughs’ cameras work just as well. The council declined to comment.