I was just thinking today after hearing about the latest tax increase on fuel and also the fact that Nottingham council will be taxing you to park your car at work (from 2014) and a colleague who has the opportunity to talk to a lot of councils on their road maintenance plans for the future tells me that most UK councils are in the early stages of planning for a congestion charge - that soon it is going to become incredibly expensive to even own a car. If for instance you want to drive from Sheffield to Leeds (picked as an example) and both had congestion charges you will have to pay 2 congestion charges plus parking plus huge taxes on your fuel etc etc
When do BRers reckon it will end or will we be priced of the road in the name of the environment. within th enext 5-10 years.
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It will stop when the Govt. stops squandering money. Pulling out of Iraq would £50 million a day for starters. It can only get worse - I saw some very depressing figures today and that was the PSBR for August was the highest since August 1993. When you consider in mid 1993 UK was in deep recession, this is pitiful. Higher taxes combined with spending cutbacks are on the way - but not until after the November election of course.
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The fact Nottingham need 7 years to implement their scheme suggests they are to some extent flying a kite. Lots of cash paid on consultants for the next 4-5 years first.
Local Councils are including congestion charging as an option in their latest transport plans (what they need to produce to get cash out of the Treasury) because if they don't they don't get the cash for other transport schemes.
As for spending I read today that the Olympic contingency (i.e. cash to cover unexpected costs and quite often not spent) of £2.7bn will have gone within the next 6 months. Expect an announcement sometime next year that the cost has risen to about £12bn. My estimate of £20bn is looking more accurate year by year.
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Local councils are facing increasingly huge shortfalls in their budgets to fund inflation linked final salary schemes and there is a limit to how much they can pass on these costs via "Council Tax" rates. So they see the motorist as an easy target under the pretext of doing their bit for the environment.
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It will stop when the motoring public put their foot down and stop paying. Mass disobedience with respect to congestion charging would render it unworkable. Ditto paying to park at work. Everyone just grumbles then carries on as normal.
teabelly
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The hypocrisy of New Labour shows no bounds.
Several months ago a staggering 1.8m people signed an online petition calling on Parliament not to extend the right to introduce congestion charges to cities and towns outside London - the Government claimed the figure was too low to represent the views of 32m motorists.
Yesterday's Financial Mail in the Mail on Sunday carried a story that MORI was conducting a poll as to whether we should or should not build new nuclear power stations; some 1,000 people had already been interviewed and the same or slightly greater number would be interviewed over the next 10 days.
Although many people were revealed to be in favour of nuclear power stations, a Government minister was quoted as saying the majority verdict would be accepted either way.
As this comparatively small number of people polled represents a population of more than 60m, you will quickly appreciate the level of hypocrisy on show that, frankly, beggars belief.
I've no views either way on building new nuclear power stations, so have no axe to grind.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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It'll stop when government loses its appetite for spending other peoples' money on pet projects, consultants, and social engineering.
In other words, don't expect it any time soon!
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I would like to stay they will stop fleecing us when we vote them out of power. Despite the promising sounds coming from the Tory conference on reducing taxes, we have all had so many spin and lies from politicians of all colours in the past that I have absolutely no confidence in them sticking to their word.
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" Government minister was quoted as saying the majority verdict would be accepted either way."
What the Minister did not say was they would only stop polling when they got the right answer...
madf
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As I said, the hypocrisy beggars belief.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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When will the politicians stop fleecing the motorist well unless we start complaining never.
Lets be like the french if they had the price rise on fuel they would have been out blocking the motorways, blocking the ferry ports and generally causing mayhem until the price rise was reversed.
What do we do well ? a few bleatings on the web, a spokesmen for the RHA going on about how much extra this will cost us and thats about it.
No I think its time for action to make the main political parties realise that we the motorist are sick and fed up of their lies and deciet.
When the election comes make it clear to your M P and prospective M P that you the tax payer are not happy with motoring taxation and will not vote for them under any circumstances.Then they will not be on the gravy train and that will make them very unhappy
Perhaps a more effective short term measure would be for all the truck companies to refuse to deliver to supermarkets so the food dries up and blame it on grabbing Gordon that they cannot afford to run their trucks any-more.It would take two to three days for this measure to bite I should think.
It would be interesting to see how he would get out of this one after all if he can rescue Northern Rock ect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thanks to the current climate of contented apathy (some call it the nanny state), people aren't capable enough of self-induced thought to protest en masse. They'll just put up and shut up, and keep electing the same hypocrites. Apathy is a politician's dream (as long as they're in power) - they can do what they want and half the British public still wouldn't know who they were, let alone what policies they've introduced as law.
The few who openly object often resort to extreme politics, at which point they're either branded communists or fascists, and discredited even thought many of their ideas deserve credence. Meanwhile we have a leader we haven't elected, many of the rights we once took for granted are disappearing before our eyes, we're entering a European treaty which amounts to a constitution with no referendum, and the majority seem oblivious. Democracy at work!
So basically, if the British public stays so politically ignorant, the politicians will never stop fleecing us.
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