Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died from dangerous levels of air pollution in 2013 (Family handout)
(Picture: PA Media)It’s 10 years ago to the day that nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died following a severe asthma attack. In the preceding three years, Ella — who lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham — had been to hospital almost 30 times and suffered multiple seizures. In December 2020, she became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.
In the past decade, conditions have improved somewhat in certain areas but the pace of change has been nowhere near sufficient. As reported in today’s Evening Standard, 16 of the worst pollution hotspots in England are in London. Indeed, the capital has reported illegal levels of air pollution since 2010.
Clean air is not a ‘nice to have’. Its absence is a killer. Long-term exposure is linked to a range of conditions, including lung cancer, strokes and cardiovascular disease. The annual mortality of human-made air pollution in the UK is roughly equivalent to between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths every year, according to Public Health England.
That is why we back Ella’s Law. The legislation would make breathing clean air a right and force the Government to adopt a target to cut particulate matter pollution (PM 2.5) by 2030 — 10 years ahead of its current goal.
Ella’s mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, has been a tireless campaigner to clean up our air and Sadiq Khan has placed air quality at the heart of his mayoralty. Now ministers must get on board. Every Londoner is entitled to breathe clean air. And when we achieve this goal, generations present and future will look back in horror at how we ever convinced ourselves to live without it.
The curse of inflation
It IS the same old story on inflation. Official figures show that the rate has dropped slightly to 10.1 per cent — the third successive fall. But CPI remains close to 40-year highs and is not expected to fall significantly until the summer.
Indeed, food and drink prices remain near to record levels, soaring by 16.8 per cent in January. Continued double-digit inflation will place further pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates next month.
But the news was not all bad. Core inflation, which strips out more volatile inputs such as fuel prices, continues to fall. But UK inflation appears ‘sticky’. The US rate has already fallen to 6.4 per cent from its 2022 peak of 9.1 per cent. The reality is that 2023 is gearing up to be another year of pain for ordinary Britons.
Keeping up with Joe
When Harrison Ford played the US president in 1997’s Air Force One, he was several years older than the then real-life commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton.
Now, 26 years later, at the age of 80, Ford has again been cast to play the leader of the free world — and he is just a few months older than the incumbent. Joe Biden’s presidency is once again proving to be a job-creation machine.
