eurealist.co.uk

As forecast here in April the Government’s unpopular pay for mile scheme is to be reintroduced following the Galileo satellite restructuring process when the EU took control of the project last year after a private-sector group abandoned it.

The spin was that the Blair administration was taking note of the 1.8 million people who signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling on the Government to abandon the scheme and the Gordon Brown was not keen on the project anyway; but that was never the truth.

As the road pricing scheme was designed in the first place to pay for the Galileo project, there was obviously no need for it without the satellite system, and no way the scheme could proceed without the satellite system.

It will be sold to the public as a traffic control measure but the reality is there had to be some way of financing the EU pet project.

The Telegraph suggests this will become a major election issue but that is really pie in the sky reporting, as it will depend on the official Conservative position on not just the road pricing subject but the whole Galileo system. As the government has already signed up to financing there share of the system a Conservative administration will have to find some way of meeting Labours commitments to the EU.

A pointer to the likely Conservative reaction was given by Theresa Villiers, the party’s transport spokesman in June, when said that the Conservatives would not reverse any local road pricing project approved by the current Government.

“We would not scrap any scheme once it was underway,”

There really seem very little point in allowing the trials to proceed unless there is a clear intention to introduce the scheme nationwide So when motorists are faced with paying up to £1.30 a mile and having their every move tracked, they will have the EU and its grandiose plans for statehood to thank.

This will be just one more instance where the EU is removing the ability of our political parties to offer a choice of different policies to the voter, just more evidence of the undemocratic nature of the EU and the way it affects governments of any colour.

And where will the profits from such a system go? Certainly not to improving our transport infrastructure, because they will used to pay for Galileo and eventually end up in the EU coffers in the form of direct EU tax on motorists.

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My thoughts on the Brown situation are covered by this in
the Telegraph, it is not just Brown but Labour polices it seems that most
people agree with me that changing the Present PM for a new face would not achieve
anything meaningful for either the Labour party or the country. The only
bright light would be the election being brought forward and then the promised referendum
on the Lisbon Treaty before Ireland
has voted again and it is fully ratified, that is of course always assuming Cameron’s
Tories stand by their promise.

The problem is not just Gordon Brown, it’s Labour, too - Telegraph

Mr Brown’s rivals now have a fine calculation to make. They have a leader with historically low ratings but an electorate that believes removing him will solve nothing. And won’t discarding leaders like dirty socks only push Labour even deeper into public contempt?

To toy with the idea of having three prime ministers in the lifetime of a Parliament, without the voters being consulted at any point, may be constitutionally acceptable in a party-based system but risks treating the electorate with utter contempt. Labour has a big decision to make this summer. If it gets it wrong, it could be in the wilderness for a generation.