I'm feeling gooey all over can we have few more feel good/relieved stories just before the election is announced.
Me cynical perish the thought
I believe everything every politician tells me then i wake up and return from lala land
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I believe everything every politician tells me then i wake up and return from lala land
>>>>>>>>>>> hey wat u doin in mi dream
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Some more in the press.
Labour has been accused of performing a humiliating U-turn by scrapping plans for pay-as-you-drive road pricing.
Ministers are set to shelve proposals to introduce nationwide road tolls which would see drivers billed up to £1.50 a mile.
Campaigners were last night hailing the apparent climbdown as a victory for the 1.8 million motorists who signed a Downing Street petition opposing the idea.
The Tories said it proved the Government "lacked direction", claiming it was only the latest in a string of U-turns by Gordon Brown following his decision to axe plans for a Las Vegas-style "super-casino" and to review 24-hour drinking laws.
But the Department for Tranport said it was "rubbish" to suggest the Government had ever planned a national road pricing scheme, insisting it had only put in place plans for local tolls.
Fears that ministers were planning a "Big Brother" system of national road pricing, designed to crack congestion and boost bus services, were confirmed last May.
A draft Parliamentary bill to give councils powers to set up pay-as-you-drive schemes revealed they must be "inter-operable" with projects in other towns.
It meant a patchwork of local schemes could be used as "staging posts" to link together to make a unified national scheme.
Drivers would have been forced to pay several hundred pounds to install a black box in their cars so they could be monitored by electronic tracking via satellite or roadside beacons.
But more than 1.8 million people signed an electronic petition against the "stealth tax".
Now Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly is understood to have "back-burnered" the plan drawn up by her predecessor Douglas Alexander.
He has been widely blamed this week for the fiasco over the Prime Minister's decision not to call a snap election.
In a response to an all-party committee's report into the draft Local Transport Bill, the Department for Transport was reported as being set to say: "It is not the department's intention, at this stage, to take the separate powers needed to price the national road network.
"We agree that there are congestion problems on parts of the strategic road network, but 88 per cent of congestion is in urban areas.
"Therefore it is sensible to prioritise the assessment of road pricing in these areas."
But Tory transport spokesman Theresa Villiers said: "This was their flagship policy and this is a dramatic U-turn.
"It shows a complete lack of direction. We have been urging them to scrap road pricing for the last two years."
Peter Roberts, the campaigner who posted the petition on the Downing Street website, said he was "delighted" the Government had "listened to the voice of the people".
A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: "There is no change in policy. We have been extremely clear that we are focusing on local solutions to local congestion problems."
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>>A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: "There is no change in policy. We have been extremely clear that we are focusing on local solutions to local congestion problems."<<
Two weeks ago at the party conference the Secretary of State for Transport said that national road pricing was "inevitable"
If they can't agree on the principle, can you imagine how much of a dog's breakfast the implementation would be?
Meanwhile they are driving though a Transport Bill which would see local authorities' control of their roads given over to unelected regional transport quangos. In Greater Manchester two of the local authorities, Trafford and Stockport, have voted against the congestion charge scheme and at least two others are in the balance, but these powers would over-ride these decisions and impose the will of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and force these Councils to introduce congeston charges against their will.
One of the key tests for the introduction of a congestion charge is "popular support" unless the populace say no, in which case their views are ignored. Requests for a referendum have of course been ignored.
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The way that article reads suggests that plans to use tolls in city centres is still well on track. Only the national road pricing has been shelved.
The reason I drive through a city? To get to the other side as there is no other way and no viable public transport optionm.
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"There is no change in policy. We have been extremely clear that we are focusing on local solutions to local congestion problems."
Isn't this effectively saying that there is no integrated solution, if local councils/cities introduce congestion charging most drivers will do a quick cost benefit analysis based on time/cost.
This may make for less congestion but has the potential to create more CO2 emissions as folk decide to drive longer but pay less overall.
This already happens in London as folk avoid the congestion zone, we'd all drive another 4 or 5 miles to avoid paying £10 unless time was critical.
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