Congestion charge

[lukemg]

I have read 20% reduction, but the big advantage is more funds for public transport. Not a bad idea since most people won't stop using their cars until the working public transport system is already in place; even if it does smack a little of being told that you will pay for public transport, whether you use it or not.

Trouble is, good public transport makes sense for everybody, but the cheapskate British don't want to up the money for it. I suspect they bought Thatcher's old snake oil that you could pay less taxes and not lose out by it, and won't give up that idea in the face of the evidence.

Thats right because everyone knows that if we tax and spend more then everything gets better. Oh wait sorry no, that hasn't worked by any significant measure for any of the areas that have had money poured in, although my consultant brother is coining it !

[Paddy]

I blame the Germans. had they done a better job on our cities in the first half of the 1940's then we too could have rebuilt in such a way to allow for a better public transport system.

Anybody moaning about public transport wants to try the public transport outside the capital. It is much worse.

Southampton City Centre was flattened. Look at it now; a complete mess. Look at the German Cities ; rebuild smart and efficient.

[Euro-commuter]

If a man finds himself on a bus and is older than 26 years old, he should consider himself a failure in life - M. Thatcher.

That was written for Thatcher by one of her speechwriters but never actually said by her, possibly because she may still have been too smart to come out with something so stupid.

Just a man? Or are women failures by definition?
Finds himself on a bus? My goodness, how did that happen?
Is it OK to find himself on a local train?
Does the airport hotel's courtesy bus count?
What's the real comment here? "Our kind of people" drive cars? Not a test of failure, but a test of belonging to a certain group, Thatcher's Tories' "kind of people".

Short, sharp, stupid. Political speechmaking at its peak.