Pie In The Sky
August 18, 2008 by Ken
Filed under A solution in search of a problem
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.
