Porsche calls on Ken to show C-charge opinion

Porsche is throwing its toys out of the pram again this week in response to Ken Livingstone’s plans to charge owners of heavy-polluting cars £25 a day to drive in London.

The company furiously slammed Ken’s plans last week and launched a petition to fight the move.

This week Porsche has published full tables of its own congestion charge polls – and now requests Mayor Ken Livingstone does the same.

We watch with interest to see if the London Mayor will react.

Here’s what Porsche says:

“Porsche Cars Great Britain has just published the full tables of its new poll on congestion charging by ICM and has written to Ken Livingstone requesting that he does the same for his December poll conducted by Ipsos-Mori or withdraws his original release.  The Porsche poll showed the following:

By 74-23 per cent, Londoners believe the increase in the congestion charge to £25 is too high
By 62-30 per cent, Londoners believe the charge is being brought in because the Mayor is most interested in securing extra revenue rather than cutting congestion and helping the environment
By 81-11 per cent, Londoners believe the new charge will be bad for business in London

The British Polling Council, of which ICM and Ipsos-Mori are members, makes it clear that organisations must make public the full details of all polling once the poll has been referred to in public.

In his letter, Andy Goss, Managing Director of Porsche Cars GB, said, “I am requesting that you finally release the full tables of the Ipsos-Mori poll you announced in a news release on 18 December 2007.  According to your release, the poll showed that the public supported your proposed plans.  However, I understand that despite repeated requests to your pollsters over the last two months, the full tables have yet to be made public.  I have enclosed a copy of the British Polling Council’s rules, which are also available on their website (www.britishpollingcouncil.org).”

He added. “If you are unwilling, for whatever reason, to authorise Ipsos-Mori to make these tables public, Porsche Cars requests that you remove the 18 December news release from your website and that you make no further references to the polling in your public comments.”