The Telegraph is covering this again today as the total heads for 500,000. At 11:37am the tally stood at 477,738.
Peter Roberts’ petition to scrap plans to introduce road pricing reads as follows:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.
Get clicking and signing if you want to stop paying another tax and having your movements traced by the state.
This morning the Radio 4 Today programme is reporting on Richmond’s consultation on their idea of trebling residents’ parking permit charges on large vehicles such as Renault Espace people movers to £300.
Just under half (49%) of people were said to be in favour with 39% against, see press release. The council is pleased that 64% of people said that the plans would make them think about changing their vehicle to a less polluting model.
Being a LibDem council they can’t help telling porkies though. The Today programme is reporting this morning that residents rejected a proposal to surcharge second permits by 50%. Funny how this is not mentioned in their press release and the consultation results are not available on the website. So democracy is only any use when it returns the “right” answer. Ken Livingstone has said that he really likes this proposal. We know from bitter experience with the Tram he also approves of Richmond’s attitude to consultation – talk about it if the result agrees with your position otherwise ignore it.
So in addition to labouring under the second highest council tax in London the owner of a Renault Espace in Richmond will have to pay £300 to park outside their own house. Apparently this will all come to pass in 3 months time.
Electric cars will be exempted from any charge at all. This is just scientific mumbo-jumbo as it uses way more carbon to burn fuel, turn it into electricity, lose a chunk in transmission losses, lose another chunk in charging a battery, lose another chunk in converting electricity to motion than it does to burn petrol in an incredibly efficient internal combustion engine. For the same reason that trams are an environmental swindle, so are electric cars.
Follow the link to see their consultation document.
I asked road pricing campaigner Peter Roberts for the secret of his success. See his response below:
I started the petition on Nov 20th last year and sent an e-mail to 29 friends asking them to sign it and forward to all their contacts. I also went to all the forums I could find with an interest in motoring or driving and placed a link. This was only about six or seven sites. Two weeks later it had over 10,000 signatures and was the number one petition. At this point, the ABD became interested and placed a link on their website which helped a little but the main growth was from people signing and forwarding the e-mail. So far, every day has seen an increase in the number of people signing with yesterday being the highest at 60,588. I am not sure if it can continue to grow like this, but it should reach 1 million by 20th Feb even if the daily number falls to 20,000.
Peter’s petition stands at 337,183 – over a third of a million. Wow! Please sign it.
Peter Roberts, whose road pricing petition I have been tracking lately, commented on an earlier posting today. I thought I would repeat his comments here to give them due prominence:
It has over 300,000 now and will go over the 500,000 next week.
Surely it is time the government realised the strength of feeling here. This is as much about the government’s attitude to population control and waste as roads. Whoever would have thought ten years ago we would have to fight a government who were determined to track our movements and use vast sums of our money to do so.
We already have a perfectly good form of road usage tax in the fuel duty. It rewards those who choose economical, low emission cars and penalises those who drive large thirsty vehicles. It also costs very little to administer.
The scheme proposed by the government will cost billions to introduce and administer, and for what? People do not sit on congested roads because they enjoy it, they do so because they have little option. Charging them £1.34 a mile is just not right. Of course, the government do get the added advantage of being able to track every move you make. George Orwell was about 25 years early.
I hope you don’t mind me harping on about this story but this morning’s tally stands at 284,593. As you can see from the graph below the rate of increase is looking exponential rather than arithmetic. Obviously that can’t go on for too long because you probably run out of people with PC/internet skills and opinions/motivation at some point.
The momentum has been kept up by the Telegraph which covered it on its front page yesterday and also had a leader on it.
Back in June 2005, Roger Bootle, a well known economist, entered the debate today with an article in the business section of the Telegraph. He is pro road pricing. He does not seem to understand that much of any income from road pricing will be wasted in costs, just like the London CC which has consumed pretty much all of its income in costs. He also fondly imagines that a future Labour government would return any surplus cash to us in lower income taxes. Get real Rog!
Will Self writing in the Standard last night also comes out in favour of road pricing. He shows his ignorance when he tries his “Oim a Londoner me” act:
As Londoners we can afford to be a little blase about all this: we’ve had a road-pricing scheme for nearly four years, and haven’t ended up in an automotive Guantanamo Bay.
Clearly Self doesn’t know the Mayor has taken £1 billion off Londoners and wasted it all.
Last night’s Standard and today’s Telegraph (follow link) both cover Peter Roberts’ road pricing e-petition. At the time of writing it stood at 179,411.
If you think that the London Congestion Charge is any kind of model for road pricing, even local schemes, then for me the killer question is the one asked of the London Mayor by Andrew Pelling, AM on 15th November 2006 (follow link).
Andrew Pelling:
How many years do you predict it will take for both the original area and the western extension to pay for the set-up and subsequent administration costs? How long before the expense invested by Londoners is repaid by income?
Ken Livingstone:
It is important to note that the income from Congestion Charging may only be used to offset operating costs. The costs of set up have to be borne from TfL funding. However if we were to take all costs, including set up and operating costs, for the Central Congestion Charging Scheme, income exceeded expenditure by March 2005. Using the same approach, the net revenue will exceed the set-up costs for the Western Extension by the time of go-live on 19th February 2007.The net revenues, allowing for the cost of operation, must be spent on activities that support my Transport Strategy. This includes new buses, cycling, walking, road safety and other initiatives.
In case you don’t understand Livingstone’s answer, which is not written to promote clarity, let me explain. The London CC has been running since February 17th 2003. By 19th February 2007, when the Western Extension goes live, the scheme will have been operating for four whole years and will have taken the best part of £1 billion off Londoners. This cost makes no allowance for all the inconvenience, anger and heartache that Londoners will have faced understanding the scheme and dealing with fines, etc when they make minor mistakes. Bar the odd £10 million all of this cash will have been consumed in costs as follows:
Original set-up costs for scheme £161.7 million
Western Extension set-up costs £123.1 million
First part year of operation £76.4 million
Second year of operation £140.1 million
Third year of operation £119.7 million
Fourth year of operation £143.9 million
Fifth part year of operation (estimate) £160 million
TOTAL £924.9 million
To make myself clear: the Congestion Charge is all cost and no benefit. Every time the Mayor or TfL talk about spending surpluses on buses or whatever they are lying. After 4 complete years of operation the track record is that ALL the cash gets spent on out of control costs.
Please sign Peter’s petition and work for a Conservative Mayor who will end the CC which is set to take £300 million a year off Londoners and just waste it all until somebody stops Livingstone and the wasteful idiots at TfL.
Last Tuesday I reported on the road pricing e-petition at the Number 10 website. Since then the numbers have doubled and the petition is due to hit 150,000 about now. It has put on 20,000 since yesterday.
Right now the tally stands at 149,125. The hunting lobby is extremely well organised and active and they only got 16,831 signatures for their petition. This petition will be beating them by a factor of 10 by tomorrow at this rate.
If you don’t want to pay a whole new tax that just gets spent on dumb computers and pen pushers then follow the link.
On Tuesday I reported on the road pricing petition at the Number 10 website. Since then it has been going bananas (more thanks to the Telegraph than me I suspect!).
Right now the tally stands at 108,956. This is quite incredible. The hunting lobby is extremely well organised and active and they only got 16,831 signatures for their petition. To beat this by a factor of 6 is amazing.
I have been tracking the numbers for the last four days:
If you don’t want to pay a whole new tax that just gets spent on dumb IT and pen pushers then follow the link.
Today’s Telegraph reports how unpopular road pricing is. The e-petitions facility at the Number 10 website has become an increasingly popular way of expressing views. Up until recently the most popular petition was one to repeal the hunting legislation. This garnered 16,831 signatures up until when it closed on 15th November. Recently it has been totally eclipsed by Peter Roberts’ petition to scrap plans to introduce road pricing:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.
When I last looked it had 72,650 signatures.
People are very wise. The London Mayor is not loudly proclaiming that by the end of the current financial year he will have taken the best part of £1 billion off Londoners for the Congestion Charge and spent pretty much all of it on costs. His net profit will be £10s of millions after four whole years of operation.
For Congestion Charge numbers follow link.
Phil Taylor 