Red Ken and the high powered think tank, what's the link

Well its not the word think, that's for sure!

They have both come up with scheme to raid the pockets of the beleaguered motorist yet again.

Lord Ken has come up with the natty scheme of charging you a flat fiver per day if you should dare to cross the boundary into the inner sanctum of London.

The super brain think tank comes up with tracking you by satellite and charging you up to 45p per mile.

Kens policy goes like this, we need to cut congestion, so lets charge 120,000 of you a fiver until you stop driving. Okay so that stops you driving I can follow that. But  as a Transport lobbyist proclaimed on Newsnight, London could borrow against that Income and pump hundreds of millions into Public transport.  Now I start to get confused. 

To borrow against that money means the money needs to keep coming in, 

And for it to keep coming in you will need to continue using your cars.  

So how does that solve congestion.  

Okay so some of you will abandon the daily commute, but for every one that does, everybody else will have to pay more to make up your share. So when the traffic is down to 60000 cars a day it will be £10 a day. 

Routes just outside the inner area will become a congested rat run,  the only answer to that will be to extend the area of the charging. Residents are exempt but as the area increases the amount of residents will rise and they will be free to travel again. No problem just start charging residents as well. Where will it stop? will it ever stop.

Will London business will be giving their staff extra money to pay the charges? when they cant afford it will they just relocate to somewhere else?  Apply this to less affluent areas and the result could be devastation of inner city businesses.

Newsnight let some mouth piece representing the public transport lobby  spout  on TV, claiming he represented 300 London businesses.  I wonder which companies they could be, I will bet even money they include Train, Bus and Taxi companies  and their service industries.

When we mention public transport, what exactly are we talking about, which bit of it is publicly owned,  is what we are really doing just , pumping millions into Richards Bransons et als pockets  and the forcing car drivers to pump up their shareholders dividends.

Figure this I can get a tram, but I have a 20min walk to get to it, and another 20mins back home, it takes me 10miles, generally stood up, listening to a cacophony of personal stereos and mobile phones, it runs 20miles there and back and charges me £4.60 for the privilege. If my car does only 20mpg at 80%+  taxed fuel its still bloody cheaper than the goddamn tram, and drops me off at the doorstep. Want to get me on pubic transport, cut the cost make it comfortable and pleasant smelling and I might just try it out.

How about the other wheeze though  space gadget gleefully tracking 23million cars, and charging you as you move,  assuming the technology will ever work, cant you see the loop holes, falsely registered cars, a huge market in doctored deactivated devices,  Someone nicking your car and then touring the country at your expense. Sure its only 45p a mile if you go into the city at peak hours say between 8am and 9am so the queue just shifts to 7am move the time and the queue moves as well, might as well just charge 45p all the time. Not getting enough income back,  no problemo, just raise the prices widen the areas, expand the peak hours. Trust the Government to play fair and not rip you off, GET REAL SUCKER.

Now Im sure they would not have proposed this if they did not think, they could build and unbeatable system,  great how about building the same thing to stop cars getting stolen, Invest billions to save citizens from the problem of car crime, any chance of that , ............. No I didnt think so.