DfT

Whatever your views on road pricing, most would have to agree that the Government has made a complete mess of trying to get it introduced. It is expected that nearly 2 million people will have signed the e-petition on the No.10 website by the time it close tomorrow and I can not say I’m surprised.

As my earlier post’s wishful thinking suggested, it seems that issues being kicked in to the long grass is going to be a more common theme than anyone could have hoped for. The infamous road pricing scheme looks set to be kicked in to the long grass for now. Not because one and half million people have wasted their time signing an e-petition – a tool used to make it feel like we’re entering in to the democratic process, but is actually a way of shutting us up. No, the latest weapon against introducing road charging is the incompetence of the government itself.

With the revelations of what each MP is claiming in travel expenses finally coming to light thanks to Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, some interesting stats have been revealed.

The Independent is never shy of calling for more government money to be spent on one thing or another. Now we know why. Apparently taxation is not a drain on the economy, but a means to create wealth.

They report today that the Department for Transport estimate that "road pricing could raise up to £28bn by 2025". Let's not worry about how they can so precisely calculate a figure so far in the future, or whether they took the costs of the scheme into account. It's rubbish, of course, but we'll leave that for another post some other time.

What I am interested in here is what we can learn about the understanding of at least one leading journalist at The Independent about how the economy works. Because, in their box-out "The case for (and against) charging" (the brackets nicely illustrate the "balance" that they bring to this argument), they report that road pricing would "benefit the economy by £28bn".

Silly me. There was I thinking that we need to keep taxes under control because they represent a drag on the productive part of the economy, when all along I should have been pushing for ever-higher taxes, because the government can apparently magically double the value of money in the hands of taxpayers, simply by taking it off them.

Next time you read analysis in The Independent making a moralistic (and usually simplistic) case for more spending on this or that, remember that, in their eyes, they'll not only be improving the lot of those on whom the money is being spent, but expanding the economy as well. Then put the paper down, and buy one written by economic literates.

The environment debate, and I use the word debate in its loosest form, has become rather like the so called “war on terror”. That is to say, you can’t really question the government over with it without being accused of being some sort of self-serving monster that has no interest in the well being of the world and its people. As a result, the government (and opposition parties) are not only trying to out “green” each other, but they are cynically using climate change to impose “big brother” like regulation and also use it as an unquestionable form of taxation or method of raising money for Treasury’s deep, deep pockets.

"Doing nothing is not an option." So says the Government's spokesman, as an explanation for why they will press ahead with road pricing against strong public antipathy.

The culture of doing something because "something must be done" is what this site exists to challenge. Though it is endemic, you rarely hear this approach to government expressed so baldly.

There are arguments for and against road pricing. And there are arguments against those arguments. But "doing nothing is not an option" is no argument either in favour of any particular option, or against people who oppose that option. On that basis, you might as well stick your arm in the fire, because the flame is dieing and "something needs to be done".