Road Pricing?

Idiocy? Thy name is Lib Dem...

Telegraph.

The Liberal Democrats have backed plans to introduce road pricing across Britain, triggering a backlash from council leaders.

Their manifesto commits the party to the new system of charging car travel by billing motorists for every mile they drive. The party says drivers’ extra costs – estimated at up to £2,700 a year – would be offset by reductions in taxes like fuel duty.
The plan has been denounced by the leaders of more than 40 councils, who say the plans would create “two classes of roads”, one for the rich and one for the poor.
Some quiet residential streets would be turned into rat-runs, as commuters tried to avoid the trunk roads where the charges would be levied.
In a letter published in Monday’s Daily Telegraph, they also raise civil liberties questions about thousands of new CCTV cameras on A-roads and motorways.
The Liberal Democrats have not said how much the policy will cost.
But, using existing average mileage and vehicle excise duty figures, the council leaders estimate the scheme would cost up to £28 billion to set up and as much as another £23 billion to run annually.
They say that to break even, motorists would be charged between 10.7p per mile and 30.1p a mile to drive on trunk roads and motorways.
Estimates suggest the average driver covers around 9,000 miles a year, suggesting the cost of the scheme would be between £963 and £2,709. In the letter, the councillors say: “Replacing road tax and some fuel duty with national road pricing for trunk roads will cost billions to implement and bring gridlock to minor roads.
“It will force drivers off safe motorways on to congested city streets and country lanes, making those more dangerous.”
The councillors, who all run Conservative boroughs, say that the plans will turn the motorway network “into the world’s biggest speed camera, allowing the Government unprecedented powers to monitor people”.

People are already sick and tired of government intervention in our lives, we don't like being spied upon by the state and we don't like databases especially government ones as when they aren't selling the details off or using them for electoral scaremongering they lose them on trains. This sadly is all part of the beardie-weirdy environmental (with emphasis on the mental) tendency in Lib Dem activists who see motorists and private transport as a curse rather than a liberator of the working class. They no doubt feel it will force people onto public transport or do car sharing (neither of which is an option in my job) You can also bet there will be a surge in false plates and unregistered, uninsured (and unsafe) cars onto the road as people do their best to keep the governments hands out of their pockets. This scheme will (naturally) hit the poorest in society, those who have a job but have to travel in a car to get to it and are just keeping their heads above water hoping that things will pick up a bit when the economy recovers. So unemployment will leap. It will also hit them when their food bills rise as supermarkets have to pay the transport firms more in transport costs. Their kids will no longer be safe on the streets as they become rat runs for those trying to save a bit of cash and avoid the cameras on the main roads.

Just another reason not to vote for a mainstream party, they just want our money to pay for their pet idiot projects like global warming climate change (you'll always notice that somehow politicians are exempt from these schemes too)

 

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It's a start

Took him a while but Cameron has finally come up with something that I wholeheartedly agree with.

Times.

The centrepiece of the Tories’ Queen’s speech, to be held within the next month if the party forms a government, would be a “great repeal bill”.
This would scrap ID cards, home information packs and dozens of rarely enforced criminal offences introduced by Labour over 13 years.

But it's only a start, though I reckon the Tories will have far more pressing concerns in dealing with the mess Labour have left the economy in, still removing such laws as well as dealing with a bloated public sector might just be the core foundation of a winning strategy.
People aren't stupid, we know the mess the countries in, OK in the public sector their may well be a great deal of fear about where the axe will fall but who is to blame for that with an unsustainable amount of funding into the public sector to buy votes? Most know that should Labour get back in it will be the IMF who will force far more savage cuts than the Tories will do. No doubt the Unions will try and force a showdown with a Tory government too, but that may well just force Cameron's hand into even more restrictive anti-union laws, no doubt he'll have public support for those too.
Still stripping away 13 years of ever increasing restrictions on our freedom will be a start, though he can't do anything about the EU diktats. But it will show more where the fault lies and who is to blame as well for crippling our economy with wasteful and restrictive laws, legal requirements and legislation.



H/T Sue at Muffled Vociferation.

Took you a while Cameron, but it's still not enough to get my vote.

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Spite

Labour know they are going to lose, they know that the public at large cannot stomach them in government any longer. Some of the things passed through parliament in the last year when they haven't been EU diktats have been specifically for Labours pets and core voters and when they haven't, they've been of a scorched earth type to make the succeeding parties term of office as nightmarish as possible.
In their desperation to at least hold onto some of their core support, they've even taken to not showing their glorious leader on any of their leaflets and campaign on local issues (bit like the Lib Dems and just as dirty) When they can't big themselves up, they do their opponents down, really it's all they have left but to try and hold on in some constituencies where really they should not be in any danger.

Take my current MP Jonathan Shaw, here's his latest leaflet and it has everything.

1. Note the plea from a Lib Dem to vote Labour as they can't win.
2. Note the blackmail over the closure of a local school whilst failing to mention that it is Labour underfunding of the Medway area that lead to this.
3. British jobs for British workers?
4. Capstone is opposed by all parties here.
5. Quick reminder of the 15% interest rate that happened under the Tories whilst failing to mention that it was the Tories who brought them low before Labour took charge in 1997.
6. Panic over the Clegg bump pointing out that in my constituency at least a Lib Dem vote will hurt Labour badly.

The other side of the leaflet is a litany of local issues and no mention at all of national ones. No picture of Gordon Brown either, just a general "Fear the Tories" overtone and don't vote for Lib Dems as I'll lose.
Now Jonathan has helped me in the past with anti-social behaviour problems near my home and also with the intransigence of the CSA when dealing with my case so as an MP he's not bad.
However he is steady lobbyfodder, voted for 42 days detention, voted against a referendum on Lisbon and voted for pretty much all the database state and current restrictions on our lifestyle (smoking bans, drinking restrictions, speed cameras etc)
So he wont be getting my vote.
On the other hand neither will the Tory or Lib Dem candidates, they couldn't be bothered to answer my emails regarding the Albion Alliance, so no vote for them.
That leaves a protest vote, so I'll probably vote UKIP, though the English Democrats did reply to my email and support a referendum on the EU too. I'll probably make my mind up on the day.

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