• I WAS slightly disappointed that Labour only won one of the three by-elections last week, with Camden councillor Danny Beales failing to win in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat, which your Peeps column suggested he should win easily.

But the overall results show that, while people know that the Tories are responsible for the mess their lives and this country is in, they are not so enthusiastic about Labour.

The fact that the Liberal Democrats won the Somerton and Frome seat reinforces this fact: what people want is policies that will change their lives for the better, undoing most of what the Tory austerity policies have done in the last decade for a start.

Much of Labour’s failure in Uxbridge and South Ruislip was attributed to local opposition to the London mayor’s plan to cut car pollution in the outer areas of the city – by extending the ULEZ, ultra low emission zone boundaries, despite the fact that Danny Beales said “now was not the right time for such a change”.

But I find this appallingly cynical: when he said that he was still a councillor for Camden Town, where news in your July 6 issue clearly shows how polluted air kills people, with people in Camden having more than a year shaved off their lives due to pollution, (Toxic levels of air ‘shorten our lives’, July 6)!

I understand the Tories’ using any weapons they can – they don’t care about ordinary people anyway – but a Labour councillor should not oppose a Labour mayor’s policy aimed at saving the lives of his own constituents!

Cutting pollution from cars is a laudable aim and should be pursued with vigour, not put to one side if you want to win an election, or is Cllr Beales like Johnson: only out for himself?

Thinking more broadly, if this relatively simple attempt to control our behaviour – trying to get rid of the worst-polluting vehicles – what hope is there of progress on other environmental issues?

And in those I would include getting people out of their cars altogether. I happened to be on a bus going from Marble Arch to Kensington the other day, and this 10-minute trip took at least half an hour, because of the massive numbers of cars, mostly with one or two people on board.

Cars are a necessity for very few people, but a lazy way of moving around for most, clogging up our streets and polluting our atmosphere!

We need ULEZ now, everywhere in London, and tougher measures still in the years ahead: private cars are one of the main causes of global warming and – in a city with as comprehensive a public transport system as London – are largely unessential. They must go, and soon.

I can see that it would be difficult to be elected on such a platform, but if we don’t act, how will we cut global warming?

DAVID REED, NW3