March 19 2008

Porsche statement on TfL's recent Ipsos-Mori research

TfL's new Ipsos-Mori poll claims public support for the Mayor's proposed increase in the congestion charge to £25 for some vehicles. For the second time, Ipsos-Mori are refusing to release the full tables of the poll.

The Ipsos-Mori poll does not reflect the results ICM found in their poll for Porsche, released in February. The ICM poll showed that a clear majority of Londoners believe that the scale of the increase in the charge is too high and that it will be bad for business in London. The majority of Londoners also questioned the Mayor's motives on the charge - with most saying that they believed the Mayor was bringing in the charge mostly because he wanted to raise revenue, rather than help the environment. The full tables to the ICM poll can be found here: http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2008_feb_porsche_congestion_poll.pdf

This result is not surprising. Ipsos-Mori allowed Tfl to ask a question at the beginning of the poll which asked people how seriously they took the issue of climate change. This obviously affects the way people answer further questions on the congestion charge later in the poll. It would be the equivalent of Porsche asking at the beginning of its ICM poll whether people were irritated with politicians endlessly raising taxes for drivers. This would have the effect of making people more likely to give negative answers on the congestion charge.

A number of other questions in the poll use references to whether people support moves to help the environment. This ignores the fact that all the evidence shows that the charge will have practically no impact at all on the environment - that congestion may actually increase and that even on Transport for London’s and the Mayor’s own predictions the likely CO2 savings in central London are so small as to be the annual equivalent of less than four hours of emissions from Heathrow. In other words, the questions do not reflect the reality of what the Mayor is offering.