Brown reveals road pricing, emissions plans The UK will be the first country in the world to have legally binding emissions targets under the Climate Change Bill announced today in the Queen's Speech. The bill sets out plans to reduce carbon emissions in the UK by 60 per cent by 2050. It also has an interim target of at least 26 per cent by 2020, and will allow five- …
Once again labor show how little they care about what the public think.
With massive numbers of people against road pricing an any form they go ahead and announce legislation for it.
But then again what do we expect.
Labor only stand for 2 things. TAX and big brother tracking without those 2 things they have absolutely no policies and no ideas about anything
I'm still baffled by any plan to introduce road tariff taxing, when we are already doing exactly that - by paying obnoxious amounts of tax on our petrol.
Rather than work out how to tax us more, why not work on managing existing monies more effectively, reducing new expenditures on stupidity, and then refer to point 1; WE ALREADY PAY TAX ON DRIVING!!!
Seems to me that the entities most directly responsible for the massive wasting of huiman time and equally massive burning of fossil fuel are in fact the governments themselves.
Who was it that decided we would have the planning acts that have enforced the pestilence of a daily commute from the suburbs to the industrial estates and commercial areas and back?
Who decided that Industrial Revolutions and Highland Clearances were a good idea???
Who is it that ultimately decides that another retail park is just what the area needs?
Who decides that larger schools are "more efficient" than a larger number of more local ones?
Who determined that it is ok for hypermarkets to use their muscle to undercut the local butcher, baker, fruit and veg shop, hardware store, tv shop?
As we /are/ to have a massive daily exodus at the wishes of our "elected" rulers. Who was it decided that it was a Good Thing to have cyclists slowing down inefficent and badly polluting buses (just don't get me started on BendyBuses!) which in turn block vast numbers of cars driven by people who would be far better off riding motorcyles, if it was not for the discriminatory laws that would then apply to them and the sheer numbers of numptys that shouldn't be allowed in charge of an actual shopping trolly being allowed to drive SUVs (the shopping trolly of the New Millienium...)
And while we are on the subject of the environment, education, govt. etc., and in keeping with the IT angle. What brainless tw@ decided that printing out photos in an inkjet printer is "educational" and must form a major part of a childs homework.
The same tw@ who has an interest in the inkjet cartidge recycling business I don't doubt, and deserves an educational kicking down a dark alley, along with the other self-interested, self-important tw@ s that have governed this country.since government was invented.
Please FFS fault my logic. Make my day.
I'm on an 11 mile daily commute from a shiny happy commercial/light industrial area, where there are no houses, to my leafy suburban home, where there are (almost) no businesses that have not been demolished to make way for more housing (with insufficient parking or road capacity for the extra cars) where there are no jobs to speak of, but a thriving "jobcentre", via the most horridly congested road "system" that could be mis-devised by any gibbering incompetant.
On the bright side, I ride a motorcycle.. I see the 4x4 drivers among the thousand or so cars, buses, pushbikes I pass each day and think.
"If you had a motorcycle, you would be home by now"
<gloat>
Of course, as they a logical solution to the crappy chaos that governments of various labels have rammed down our necks for many decades, its only a matter of time before the motorcyles is banned entirely.
The best idea of all is to vote correctly for /the most unlikely canditate to win/ at each election.. NEVER for Labour or Tory, or even Liberal/SNP/PC, but for the real losers, the rainbow bumhoppers, screaming loonies, even the bloody BNP! But never a winner.
Weaken government. Force dithering coalitions, until the bastids get their act together and do something sensible, instead of the consistent loads of bollocks that they have foisted upon us in the past.
L&XXz
Fragz.
P.S. Anyone wanna vote for me? I'm cute and furry!
All the environmental targets will be signed up to and then promptly ignored. No government or minister ever looks more than 4-5 years in the future. They might well not be around. Long term planning is never done, especially if it involved upsetting people. They also offload lots of unpopular taxes onto local government. e.g. pay as you throw, road pricing etc.etc.
Basically, governments don't care about anything over 5 years away. Take nuclear power. We'll do more as it alllows them to reduce emissions (or show a plan to) whilst the decommissioning angle won't be their problem due to the time lag. No matter what happens, the fallout (pardon the pun) will be someone elses issue.
After a recent visit to Dallas, Texas (the home of stupidly massive SUVs & other big gas guzzling motors) with work.
Am i the only one thinking we (the UK) can reduce our carbon emissions all we want but with America & China (to name a few) clearly not giving a f**k how much they pump out, that we're all doomed anyway....
For public transport to be any less coherant than it is already?
I don't own a car, but riding the damn bus every day makes me more and more determined to get one. It takes me over an hour to make what is by car a 10 minute journey and the government wants more of these things?!
I think we should face facts, the planet is doomed, and if the ecologists want to cut their own emissions then they can, the rest of us will carry on, if they are in the right I'm sure they will be spared when the planet fights back.
Until then I would like to say this to the people telling us to cut carbon emissions eat raw cabbage etc:
Please, please, please stop telling us whats good for us, you're not my Mum!
I think everyone should start wearing Guy Fawkes masks and long black coats, and congregate outside parliament.
(Yes, I did see V for Vendetta recently, and found it sadly prophetic of the times we live in now - spying on the public, everything "For Your Protection" etc)
Fragula - Yes, I'd vote for you!
Whilst I agree that working together to cut our carbon footprint is probably not a bad thing, I have yet to see one truly objective scientific report based on reliable data that indicates that there is any un-natural climate change actualy being caused by human (in)activity! There is much puff and bluster by alleged scientists based on inaccurate or insufficient data that just doesn't hold water. Sadly, too many scientists and politicians don't live in the real world! Example: Here in Cambridge (UK) we had a disused railway that a certain council decided to utilise for a public transport scheme, great idea - except that they decided to rip out the perfectly good track bed and dump it into landfill, then cast several thousand tons of concrete (one of the most polluting building materials to make) to make a trackway for a "guided bus" system. To get from my house to Cambridge via the Guided Bus will require me to get into my car to drive halfway to Cambridge - 6 miles - to the nearest station, park up and get on a bus that doesn't take me to where I want to go - so I'll have to catch another bus. If i'm lucky it might take as little as 60 minutes and multiple transitions to do a journey that takes under 30 minutes most days, 60 on a bad day, or 90+ on a chaos day.
So this is all because they believe there'll be 22% more cars on the road? Simple answer to that then, remove the drivers of that 22% by reducing immigration. When will this government realise that growth at any cost doesn't work. We cannot afford as a country to have another thousand immigrants entering this country, never mind the millions predicted. Stop immigration (it ruins the economies of the countries the immigrants are coming from as well) and build an infrastructure for the 55 million people that this country can sustain before drowning the country in ever more migrants.
Hmmm another TAX that will hit us country dwellers. My public transport consists of a bus on a wednesday morning that goes into the nearest town (10 miles) for 2 hours and then retuns. I have a feeling this may seriouslly limit my working week.
I already pay a premium on fuel (cos I live in the Devon outback), I have to drive to work everyday (yes I have a Job and I am NOT an imigrant), and though I havent got one, I could really do with a honking huge 4x4 cos all the roads around here are not much better than Dirt tracks (uneven, pot holed dirk tracks at that)
Yes climate change is a worry, but so is being hit by a huge asteroid, or being wiped out by a supervolcano, all of which have happened in the past (without any help from humanity) and will happen again in the future (and even if i do use energy efficient light bulbs I am not going to prevent this!!!)
Dont get me wrong, if the goverment want to invest billions of pounds in revamping the road system and not so much as improving, but implementing an affordable public transport system I will for one use it. But it isnt going to happen, so why doesnt the goverment just tell us the truth and admit its just another tax, that is more likely to help build redundent nuclear subs than it is to fill in potholes on our roads and help the enviroment.
Imbecile: those immigrants a) do the jobs that you don't want to do in the first place, and b) mostly live in the city and don't own cars.
So either way, they're doing you a favour and certainly aren't responsible for your 22% vehicle increase. Look to the suburbs where people now need two cars (one to reach work, and one to drive to the out-of-town mall ["It's so much cheaper than my local!"] and to get their precious little one to school without his being assaulted by legions of lurking pederasts) for an explanation of the extra cars on the road.
The most large cars I see in one place in London while on my bike ride in to work are all from people driving their children to school in the centre of bloody town.
Fragula, Stand for election and I'll vote for you as President of the UK!!one!
Seriously though, very well thought out commentary with more than a little truth in there. I found myself nodding all through it, ofc it is much easier to just tax the public, raise funds to squander on the usual cr@p (war abroad, new subs and usual money sinks) than it is to actually start to change at a fundamental level what is wrong. Its much to easy to allow businesses to move back closer to the people/homes than it is to tax the living daylights out of them, You can bet your backside that there will be no allowance for business vehicles.
@Andy Kemp... Crikey, I have exactly the same situation. I live a few miles from the nearest town, and also only have one bus a week which if noone gets on it in the morning doesn't come back. So really, you sure as hell don't want to carshare into town and depend on the bus for your return trip (unless you can camp out for a week).
On the subject of the 4x4's, the local school I take my child to has a bunch of these things arrive every morning and afternoon (a couple are genuine farm vehicles) but please, one is a hairdresser in a Discovery, another grandfather collects his granddaughter in his super shiny brand spanking new 4x4, along with erm, 3 others driving 4x4 who patently have no need of them whatsoever.
Tax the living bollocks out of these people with 4x4's who have no cause to own them, make an allowance for businesses who have a need. Surely that is going to make a heck of a dent in those emissions figures alone.
He said, some years back, that the number of cars on the road is close to the number of registered drivers. Therefore congestion can't get much worse until we find a way to drive two cars at once.
Unless....
...there are loads of unregistered, uninsured, untaxed drivers cruising the roads, safe in the knowledge that they'll never get caught because there are no traffic police left and cameras can't trace an unregistered car.
A friend was offered a farm job with a tied cottage. The second cottage was offered to 2 Polish workers. He had to work his notice, they started immediately. On their first weekend one drove home to Poland, brought his entire family back and claimed the other cottage.
Meanwhile I am about to be made redundant but to get a job will have to explore upto a 45mile radius and rely on luck as I am old. There is no suitable public transport provided for anyone working locally let alone away so I will need to drive - on my own - as there is no alternative. Higher fuel prices, road charging etc all has to be funded from somewhere. I would take a lower paid job locally but would never be offered one as they always think there is ulterior motive, so commuting is not a choice but a necessity for me. The best solution for this country would be a hung parliament when hopefully they could start working for the good of the country and its people rather than the good of the elite few.
According to the speech they also want to legislate to give more power to Parliament and the people. Can't go both ways! I think the Queen deserves her own Oscar for reading all this cr@p with dignity when she must be seething inside at what these clowns are doing to our once great country.
Any attempt to rationalise the hugely confused carbon blame train will only have any real logic if it addresses the planet total and not some daft little corner called the UK ( I will not labour this point !) Climate "change" is so much more a fundamental planetary cycle that we find so challenging because science in relation to earth's evolution is very young indeed and we have not been around to experience the full extent of what the "systems" are capable of and how they will self regulate and balance as Time passes ... if in doubt don't panic or ask the Labour leadership ( same thing ! ) just stop trying to solve the problem with only a few of the variables when there are hundreds AND the Chinese !!
As others have said we already pay road tax and a lot of it as well.. road charges are just a way to fill their pockets even more.
If they are worried about the enviroment so much maybe they should lean on the car manufacturers to make cleaner cars, hybrids are a good start.. maybe they should make it law that a % of new cars sold have to be hybrid or similar and increase it every year.
Then in 2050 or whatever they wont have to wrry about those 22% extra cars...
Taxing people loads of money will not get them off the roads.. it dont work .. never has..
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