It's not for me to comment on Tony's reasoning over here other than for me to paste here what I wrote over there:The same thread is interesting over on pfm. I'm still trying to fathom exactly what this means, though:
Come again?NuLab are overly bureaucratic post-Thatcherite neo-liberalism...
Could someone translate that into simple language for a politically ignornant numpty like me?
No offence if you're reading this, Tony!
Marco.
Nulab have many elements of socialism, certainly in their quest for social interventionism and reverse discrimination, not to mention a higher education policy steeped in the politics of envy where graduates are effectively taxed on their wealth before they even have chance to earn it, unless that is, they come from a suitably underprivileged background. Equality of outcome reigning supreme over equality of opportunity defines their continued socialist outlook for me.
It takes more than abandoning Clause IV, embracing corporatism as a means of creating wealth in place of failed Marxist economics (as distinct from capitalism or private enterprise in the hands of many individuals) and fighting an illegal war alongside some Neo-cons from the other side of the pond to convince me that they have completely abandoned their socialist heritage.
Their transport policy is socialism at its most extreme and they have made an unlikely alliance with the environmentalists in order to strip ordinary folk of their aspirational freedom of mobility, i.e. the freedom to go anywhere independently, enjoying ever reducing reduced journey times in style and in comfort. They've turned such notions of progress on their head in pursuit of a new social order based on collectivised transport for the masses and all its limitations reminiscent of the former Soviet Bloc. Except that they've forgotten to give us the extra buses and trains needed for this modal shift policy to actually happen...
The 50mph limit on single carriageway roads is not about taxing the motorist. The proposed method of enforcement (average speeed cameras covering longer distances) will be 100% effective. This is not about revenue (which can only be raised when enforcement is sufficiently ineffective for drivers to want to risk trying not to get caught). It is not about saving the planet from climate change either - Drax Power Station chucks more carbon into the atmosphere than every single car in the UK put together but they have no plans as yet to replace it with anything 'greener.'
It is about control, oppression and shifting people away from the glamour of private, independent transport.