It appears David Cameron may not actually want to become the next Prime Minister after all – if any of his pre-election promises are to be believed.
After promising to persecute people for drinking alcohol and promising to turn the public perception of bankers into something similar to that of the Jews by Hitler, amidst a state of confusion he has today promised to reintroduce the fuel duty escalator as well as hammer anyone that wants to use air travel.
I’m sick of hearing the same naive rhetoric that by making petrol expensive somehow there will be less carbon emissions. It just is not true, there’s no link between the cost of petrol and emissions. But lo and behold, the Conservatives have spun this age old yarn to us just as Labour have for the past 12 years;
“We would say the cost of petrol will rise for the next five years to reduce carbon emissions and fund tax cuts for families.
“In the same way that tobacco taxes were increased as a deliberate policy to improve health, it can be done.”
I’m sorry but tobacco taxes and fuel taxes are not the same. Tobacco is a vice. Petrol is not, it’s a necessity. Did carbon emissions go down when fuel was £1.20 a year or so ago? Methinks they did not.
Apparently shafting the motorist once again will help to fund tax breaks for married couples; something that I’m in support of but I don’t think they should use a car crash tax policy to fund it. Cuts in public spending are what is needed not increases in taxation. Cut the NHS budget, cut the schools budget and force them to modernise and become more efficient. It’s time our money was accounted for and not lost in a big public sector swill bucket.
I think the rampant taxes on air travel are appalling, too. What do they want, for Average Joe to forfeit his holiday whilst they all fuck off on expenses fuelled jaunts to stay with the Bee Gees?
Aircraft pollution is, as I understand it, quite high; but surely it would make more sense to legislate to force airlines and aircraft manufacturers to spend a percentage of their profits on research and development of less polluting technologies rather than slap a tax on tickets across the board which the Government then spends on bailing banks out or creating new public sector jobs to reduce unemployment figures.
To cruelly deny people one of the few pleasures they can afford in taking a holiday is simply the wrong way to go about this eco-crusade.
I’m not strictly against eco taxes either, though. As I mentioned, the problem I have is that Governments mislead the public by advertising green taxes as a means for reducing emissions but use green taxes as an extra “bonus” to shore up holes in their finances.
Fuel duty certainly does not contribute towards green agendas. In the year 2006-2007 the Government raked in over £30bn from fuel duty and VAT on fuel. You’d have thought that £30bn a year could make quite a difference in terms of reducing emissions and carbon footprints, but green agendas see none of it.
Instead these taxes just makes everyone’s cost of living go up and fuel pointless war enquiries that don’t hold anyone to account.
When a Government actually spends these so called eco-tax revenues on something that would help carbon emissions, such as massive subsidies on solar panels, LPG conversions and nuclear power stations then they would be a Government I would be prepared to give my support to.
But if David Cameron thinks he’s going to be Prime Minster he will have to do what Tony Blair did and tax us by stealth which, technically, is what this fuel duty increase is. It’s a stealth tax, sold to us as a necessity because if we don’t pay it then we’ll all apparently melt in 2050.
Maybe Labour are right and the Tories are about taxing the many to pay for the few, because after all that’s all this tax achieves. They know pretty much everyone has a car, they know this tax won’t get people out of cars, they know public transport costs even more and they know fuel duty is a big revenue raiser. Easy money for them.
So be warned. Modern Conservatives have modelled themselves on New Labour.
Tags: conservatives, elections, tax
Couldn’t agree with you more. Green taxes are a con. I don’t mind sorting my rubbish for the planet (even though household waste is a teeny % of the total going into landfill anyway) but putting price rises on petrol when most of us have no choice but to use it is just a hideous policy that will lose him a lot of votes. In fact the more we hear about David Cameron’s agendas the more I really am going to struggle to vote Conservative even though I think I should. It’s a policy of out of touch Londoners (where public transport is fantastic) and the idle rich. They don’t understand just how tight money is for most of us and think we’re still all cashcows ready to be milked.
Well exactly, but isn’t is stupid to take away with one hand to give back with the other? Why even bother with the marriage thing if they’re going to shaft us at the petrol pump reportedly to the tune of an extra 9p a litre.
Well said sir.
Unfortunately in the national elections the Cons (that’s not meant to be a pun or descriptive of their taxes etc.) will get voted in Fylde no matter what!
This whole green issue is being exploited to force socialism via the backdoor, albeit of the greenhouse.
Yes, I would love to see more cars everywhere, I’m sick of seeing Gardens, I want to see more driveways and carparks and lots of fuems and best of all lots of obesity because people don’t have to walk anywhere.
As regards cheap flying, I’m all in favour of that as well especially as it allows us to go for cheap stag nights all across Europe and show the continentals the finest men that Britain has to offer.
Ah come on, do you really think making petrol more expensive is going to stop people driving? How is it going to create more gardens?
To think that more trees and greenery “just appear” in proportion to a decline in motor vehicles is bordering on insanity!
It’s more likely to push people to the point of deciding whether or not it’s worth working or starting a benefits career if it costs them so much to get to and from work.
I’ve said before if there was a decent public transport system round here, I’d use it. But it’s light years away. The car is the only option.
And how can you blame the obesity culture on the motor vehicle? Don’t you think it’s more down to the lack of opportunities for exercise for kids, parental neglect, parental fear of antisocial behaviour and the lack of school playing fields? In fact I reckon the reduction in playing fields is in proportion to an increase in gardens, which is in proportion to an increase in child obesity!
A better way to tackle obesity would be to hike the price on junk food, but the problem with that is again it penalises the responsible people who don’t pig out on such foods and I don’t need to be nannied in order to decide what I want to eat. It doesn’t help, either, that local leisure facilities such as swimming pools are closing due to council cutbacks.
If people want to spend money on junk food, let them, but whether you like it or not the motor vehicle is the only practical form of transport for most people in the UK. You can’t phone up your boss and say you’re on a petrol diet and so didn’t come into work that day. We need cars, and the mainstream parties know it which is why it’s a huge fat Aberdeen Angus cash cow.
So Phil do you think it’s acceptable for say four people in a house to own four seperate cars, you get the picture if everyhouse in the street owns four cars, if everyhouse in a town owns 4 etc?
When do we get to the point that there are too many cars on the road, is there a cut off point?
I don’t see why it matters. You can only drive one car at once.
But presuming there’s a need for all to be being driven at the same time, the question must be asked as to why 4 cars were felt to be needed.
In Blackpool, it’d be because it’s the only viable mode of transport. In London perhaps not, but then they have received a bottomless pit to spend on their infrastructure.
My point Phil is, the more cars we have the more unsustainable driving becomes, from a congestion and polution persepective.
I have a car myself but where ever possible I walk, catch a bus, a train or a tram, how many people though take the lazy option and drive a short distance when they could really walk it.
Increased petrol prices are fair because it becomes a pay per use tax so the more you drive the more you have to pay and the more you have to pay the more you are likely to want to drive less.
However there is no point just increasing petrol tax only to see the money be wasted on things like the 48 million we are forced to give the EU everyday. Instead the money should be ring fenced to go towards public transport to offer people a good safe alternative to using the car.
Zim – public transport can’t cope. People need to drive to work and shop. I wish it wasn’t the case and that we had much better public transport infrastructure – but just now we haven’t. They do in the city centres but elsewhere it’s crap. And to keep punishing motorists for something they can’t help just isn’t fair.
Anyway the “global warming” debate isn’t all that clear. The earth’s axis to the sun is changing. We’re getting cooling in the Antartic and the “science” isn’t so much proof as a best guess. Scientists have got it wrong before. We used to believe alchemy (turning lead into gold) was possible, that heavier objects fell faster, that the earth was only 6,000 years old, that the atom was the smallest particle in existence, that surgeons didn’t need to wash their hands, the earth the centre of the universe etc etc. That doesn’t mean they are wrong on climate change – but it’s a hell of an assumption that they are right if you read all the ifs and buts in how they came to this conclusion.
Exactly frustrated so increase the tax on car drivers and we put it in to improving public transport, increasing the number of services and stop seeing public transport as something that should make a profit and see it instead as something that is an essential service.
Thats the problem though, the money raised from the motorist from petrol alone is over £30billion per year. Add on to that another £4billion from Vehicle Excise Duty and you have an extremely large kitty from which to improve the situation.
But they don’t do it! Dave’s already said he’s going to hit the motorist to pay for his marriage tax allowances. How is that going to save the planet?
It’s a cash cow that will be milked to death by these bastards. They don’t improve public services because they don’t want the £35billion in revenue to disappear.
I dont like all these cars on the roads but the most ripped off person in the UK, is the motorist and tory and labour are the same on this one:shite.
cease ALL spending on diversity and equality,immigration services.
Reduce spending on benefits like DLA
Cease all benefits for families like the politss,yusufs mgrawleys etc
reduce spending on foreign aid and so called consultants
invest the money into transport,better roads, greener cars
Yes especially after Blackpool Transport has cut services!
So be warned. Modern Conservatives have modelled themselves on New Labour.
and vice versa, the tweedledum and tweedledee twats of politics, so why vote Tory or Labour?
They are a fuckin insult to human intelligence,2 sides of the same bent 9 bob note!
Equally there’s no point in diluting the Tory vote with wasted votes for fringe parties. They won’t get in round here and it serves only to keep Labour in power.
I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. Vote Conservative and get a slight chance at change, or vote anyone else and don’t.
Exactly Phil, I especially don’t want UKIP getting in now that muppet Hamish is their candidate (not by choice of the members though). I want Marsden out desperately, Liebour has done Blackpool no favours in 13 years and I have never been worse off as have many other people. LABOUR OUT 2010 MARSDEN OUT 2010 BLACKBURN OUT 2011!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just cant vote for any mainstream party, out of sheer hatred of them all, although I do respect your views Phil.
There’s not a chance of me giving up my car for public transport at all.
Unless public transport can give me my own space, in comfort, pick me up at my door, drop me off where I want to go, quickly, safely, whenever I want and with whomever I want, I won’t be getting rid of my car.
If others want to, that’s their prerogative, but it’s unfair to impose the ideological whims of one individual on another.
I honestly would not suggest for a moment that London has a ‘great’ transport network. It’s not my idea of a great way to get about. So to aspire towards it is a grave mistake.
Other cities have ‘great’ transport networks, but in the example of Singapore, look at how that’s been imposed. Drivers are subject to eye-wateringly monumental taxes ($20,000 certificate of entitlement,anyone?), whilst the government itself is bullyingly autocratic, bordering on dictatorial. But hey, at least the buses and trains run on time…
For some things, public transport is useful for me. Trains can get me to London relatively quickly, whilst planes can get me affordably and quickly to overseas destinations. I haven’t yet found a viable private replacement for these modes of public transport.
If others can live their lives dependent on public transport, then that’s fine – I’m pleased for them, if it makes them happy. But my circumstances and requirements mean that I would be severely limited if I was to rely on public transport for most things. I wouldn’t be willing to see more tax money go towards building and maintaining somebody else’s subsidised public transport. Perhaps, on the flip side, they would be happy to subsidise the economic cost of me no longer having access to affordable, private transport?
But John if we all don’t use public transport at all, all we have is congestion and nowhere to park. You can’t build enough car parks and roads to take everyone having a car and the pollution from engines idling in congestion would be terrible.
That’s a slightly straw man argument there, as I haven’t argued for not using public transport at all.
Problems with parking are partly to blame on social engineering on the part of planning – at all levels of government – if government deliberately reduces the availability of car parking, then of course it will have an adverse effect on people and local environments.
Problems with congestion and parking might be alleviated if we weren’t so averse to the expansion of living and working space (I’m not suggesting we annex Poland, by the way). It isn’t helped by Blackpool’s highways department making things much worse by tinkering with roundabouts, road markings and signage – and still, they seek to reduce the Promenade down to one lane!
Getting people to abandon their private transport is unrealistic.
If congestion and parking is a concern for some people, then why not lobby for better roads, more roads and better facilities for drivers?
If pollution is a concern, why not lobby for tax breaks for R&D in to more efficient fuels or alternative automotive technologies?
Well that’s the point John, the harder we make the life of the driver the less he or she will want to use their car. The key to this working though is we create a genuine alternative in excellent public transport.
That’s a chicken and egg situation though. You can’t drive people out of their cars (pun intended) without a viable alternative that costs the same or less, completes their journey in a similar time in similar comfort.
I use public transport and drive a car plus whenever possible I walk. I can tell you the buses in this town are a joke. Try standing at a bus stop with no bus shelter, a cold wind freezing your bollocks off and then it starts to rain. You have no idea what time the next bus is going to be, so you stand there wondering if you should have gone out in the first place. It’s not very nice and it happens quite a lot. This new chap Trevor who is running the buses now, is a hatchet man and hasn’t got a clue how to run a bus company.
It’s got to a point where it’s a waste of time even trying to go into town in a car, thanks to our illustrious bunch of no hopers in the highways dept who think that doodling on bits of paper is a good way to design a road system. I wouldn’t pay them in washers. I hate the frigging road system in this town, it’s no wonder people drive out to other places to shop.
Struth I’m starting to rant like Harold now.
You dont want to end up like me mate! lol
Blackpool probably has one of the better public transport systems in the country, others are far worse with no co ordinated system and competition between bus routes only on certain services at best it’s often confused.
One thing I would like to see added to Blackpool’s system is Real Time information displays at all bus stops like they have introduced in Warrington.
Tories and labour are nothing but a festering excremental smear on the face of Myra Hindley.
I am so anti the green tax because in my opinion all it is saying if you have money you can pollute if you don’t you can’t. Is this the fair society we are looking for? If (and I think it is a big IF) the global warming is down to us then no one person should be allowed to pollute more then another simples.
As for the next election the only party that I feel is worth a vote this time around is the Liberal Democrats.
What is the Liberal Democrat policy on the car?
The LDs don’t talk about raising tax to cut CO2 emissions but talk of providing incentives for cutting carbon emissions.
http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Tories39-top-man-set-to.6007525.jp
Good riddance to that rancid cunt, Russell FORESKIN.
I knew you’d like that as soon as I read it this morning. It would make my day if Weaver and Cavill would do the same and that smarmy useless twat Health Secretary Andy Burnham would resign, but then again not long to go.
well said TB and that turd chewer Ed’ balls up’, another typical labour fucktard
Don’t get me started on Ed Balls, I can’t stand that arrogant prick. He is the biggest hypocrite in the Cabinet. He was the frontman of Brown’s childish class war attacking David Cameron for attending a public school and Balls is a public schoolboy himself. Like I always say anyway I don’t give a toss what school a politician went to and I am delighted this childish class war has backfired.
“and I am delighted this childish class war has backfired.”
people must have read my article on PHILTHEONE,best blog site in the world!
I want Harriet Whoreman to go, that PC Nazi has a lot to answer for,fucking gutter licking scum-scrubber!
Harriet Harperson does my head in, she is the so-called ‘equality’ minister when she clearly doesn’t believe in equality. She promotes the use of ‘positive’ discrimination to make the fire service, police etc more PC. Jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit NEVER PC. A woman, ethnic minority member or bi/homosexual should not get a job just because they help meet the targets they should get the job because they are the most able and suitable candidate for the position. ‘Positive’ discrimination should be outlawed. It is racism as far as I am concerned.
Typical eco bullshit that’s spewed by every “good intention’s” eco windbag. Tax on fuel is already at the 80p mark a litre. One of the most exspansive petrol prices in the WORLD. There is none, zero, nadda link to the price of fuel and CO2 emissions.
In fact there is still NO proven link to CO2 and GW theory.
Fuel tax hits the poorest drivers hardest. Damages the economy and like it or not, it’s something people CANT DO WITHOUT. Prob is becos of the green nut jobs no one can say a word ageist it as you are killing babys if ya do.
Bottom line is what takes me 25mins in the car in the morning (in low traffic) would take be 3 + hours by public transport. It’s that way for most people. Until public transport is the same or faster then the car or free, it will always be second to the car overall.
Not sure what planet Zim Flyer is on but i don’t think its earth. Sounds more like Middle Earth. The cash from petrol tax does not got in to helping the environment or public transport.
How anyone can support HAMMERING the motorist more in the UK is beyond me. These must be the same sort of people that want to live in caves in the middle of forests.
Why does no other country in the world tax its motorist like we do if its so amazing for the planet?..
..wait.. its not.
WTB edit button phil ya ducker.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8477346.stm
will the Tories deal with this madness when they get in power or be too busy foisting more dodgy taxes on us?
Probably not, since the last time they focused on immigration issues with Michael Howard it turned voters off because they were perceived to be a one policy party, much like the BNP is perceived to be.
Indeed and all the more reason to vote BNP,I just want one of these “aylum seeking” turds to kill a labour MP, then we will see what happens.
Did anyone else see Quentin Wilson on breakfast – I think yesterday? Only 10% of car tax and duties goes into paying for roads etc. – the other 90% just goes into general taxation. It’s nothing to do with “green issues” – it’s just an excuse to tell you it’s your own fault in that you are having to pay a lot of tax.
And just like people were demonised in my old home town for ever suggesting that someone of Pakistani origin could be capable of any crime for being racist even when they were just telling the truth, they’re doing the same with green issues – you’re a flat earther or there’s something wrong with you to consider there may be something else to blame, or they’re might not even be a problem at all.
well said Frustrated, truly splendid Sir,the green issue/climate change issue hss now moved into the sphere of PC fascism,dissenters will be persecuted!
As for pakistanis being racist, especially some pakistani muslims, then they make Adolf Hitler seem like Martin Luther King, I speak from personal experience on that one.
Yes I know the vast majority of road tax doesnt go into roads, last time I saw it was 20%,I have been led to believe that Britain has the lowest miles of road per person in Europe?
Can anyone confirm this?
Might be true but we are smaller then most EU countrys i guess so figure might be a bit meaningless?
Hi yes we will have less roads than larger countries but as a ratio to the population, ie per person where do we stand?