Tony Blair sent me an email

[BrilloPad]

...We want to continue this debate...

Yours sincerely,

Tony Blair

ROFLMFAO

[Bagpuss]

If congestion got so bad that it were quicker to walk or cycle to work than drive then people would do just that. As people look at alternatives, the roads get less congested. I am positive this has happened already. The Motorways are no worse (at peak) than 10 years ago, in some cases better, but we have according to Blair 6 million more cars.

[VectraMan]

The problem with buses in London is that there's no room on them any more for full fare paying passengers. They are full of people either travelling for free (kids and old gummies) or people paying reduced rate fares courtesy of Venezuelan oil deals (people on benefits). Nice one, Ken!

Ask me how much I care about busses in London. Go on. Ask me.

There'd be more busses if there was a market...

[gingerjedi]

But doing something in a tax neutral way is by no means efficient, say they take £500m and pledge to put it all back into improving public transport and roads, by the time the money filters back through you’d be lucky to get half that spent on what it was intended, take speed cameras they take 130m in fines but cost £115m to run, that’s just money pissed down the drain when it could be in peoples pockets paying for people to bring their families up in a decent way.

[VectraMan]

But doing something in a tax neutral way is by no means efficient, say they take £500m and pledge to put it all back into improving public transport and roads, by the time the money filters back through you’d be lucky to get half that spent on what it was intended, take speed cameras they take 130m in fines but cost £115m to run, that’s just money pissed down the drain when it could be in peoples pockets paying for people to bring their families up in a decent way.

Which is why I'd be against that as it doesn't work and is too hard to measure. I mean tax neutral as in £500m taken this way means £500m less taken in road tax and fuel duty. It would mean the people who really do have no choice but to use their cars will end up better off.

[wendigo100]

I fully intend to answer his email, but am not sure exactly what I want to say.

Anyone got any ideas. I want it short and to the point.

How about:

"Dear Prime Minister,

Instead of all your bad, expensive and dangerous ideas, how about you regain proper control of immigration, and thereby stop increasing the number of drivers in the UK?

It's not f***ing rocket science is it, you c***!"

[hugebrain]

Advertising for Labour only?

Do the email adresses get provided to all parties? Or are the petitions designed as a direct advertising schem for Labour only, to give them an unfair advantage in the next election?

[sparklelard]

My reply hit my junk mail folder straight away. It was right there with the enlargement pills, stocks and fanny tightening kits!

[XLMonkey]

I won't pretend to have read the email all the way to the bottom (I do have some work to do), but I seem to remember that when I got trained in dealing with conflict, the first thing you were supposed to do was acknowledge the other parties concerns.

Couldn't see anything in there that read "I hear your worries, and understand why you don't like it".

Whoever drafted this for ole TB was clearly a muppet.

The odd thing is, I'm a bit of a fan of congestion charging. I see it as an excellent way of helping to keep poor people off the road.

[Paddy]

My reply hit my junk mail folder straight away. It was right there with the enlargement pills, stocks and fanny tightening kits!

Can you forward the fanny tightening kit emails to me please. (I need to add the addresses to my firewall list). Humm. Back to work now.