Saturday 23 December, 2023
I've been working all week with Danielle Sheridan, the Daily Telegraph's Defence Editor. She's done us proud with a series of revelations and scoops culminating with an interview with former PM Boris Johnson and a big U-Turn by the London Mayor. What a week.
In summary: London Mayor Sadiq Khan evidently thought he'd killed my initiative as expressed in this petition. I had spent the previous eight weeks talking to his officials. But it felt all the way along as though they were finding a way to say 'no', and we turned out to be right. Khan wrote to the Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko and claimed that he could not release scrappage vehicles to go to Ukraine for legal reasons. That first story went everywhere including across Ukraine just one week ago, last Saturday. That led to a series of interventions from senior politicians disputing the Mayor's legal position, with Michael Gove offering to resolve it using his powers as Secretary of State if necessary.
Khan saw that it was game over and put out a U-turn statement embargoed until Midnight last night. So we woke up to it today.
Where does this leave us? I want to thank everyone who signed and promoted this petition. It's a massive win. But do I declare victory? I say not until these vehicles are delivered to the Ukrainians, so I am far from winding this petition up. It is also a very good way to communicate what's happening. What happens next is crucial and I will continue to update. Happy Christmas and thank you for supporting this petition. I'd say we're about halfway there now.
*Major shout-out to Patrick McIntyre, John McKenna and Roger Lord on the British side of car4Ukraine, who initially helped to communicate the subject to Kyiv right back in March; in the recent timeframe of the campaign Chris Pool of Liberty Trucks Ukraine; Emilia Merenmies of Rotary Club; Oleksii Bunescu of Kyiv Mayor Office; Alan Judd; Nick Molden; Bohdan Bolonny of British Ukrainian Aid; the Ukrainian Embassy in London; Veronica Bassak and Olena Ivashchenko; Charles Moore of the Telegraph/Spectator; Ben Clatworthy and Will Humphries at The Times; the Podcast team at the Telegraph, Ukraine the Latest (we're on the episode from Fri 22nd Dec, Day 665); Luke Harding and Nadeem Badshah of the Guardian, and Dominic Lawson at The Sunday Times. Also the podcast team at Battleground Ukraine, Patrick Bishop and Saul David (Episode 51), and Matt Prior at Autocar. And naturally all the guys at Car4Ukraine in Ukraine, where the real work happens - but especially Ivan Oleksii and Nazar Kravchuk.