Most people that live in and around Manchester will be aware that the council is considering tackling congestion in Manchester city center by charging anyone within 30 miles of the centre for leaving their front doors.

There is an e-petition asking the govenment to stop the Manchester congestion charging happening, but being realistic I think something is needed, and for a congestion charge to be levied within the inner ring road might be sensible. For this reason I have not signed the petition.

I have no doubt that this extreme plan will reduce the number of cars on the road, and make them nice and clear for the polluting 4×4 tractors driven by those that can afford the charges. All the worthless poor people will be crowded onto cattle trucks and bussed around. Job done. The few peasant cars that remain will be forced to use the cobbled back streets, and cover their big brother radio tags in tin foil to stop them transmitting.

What is more likely is that this is a scare tactic, which goes something like this:

1. Create a very exagerated idea, and publish it, making it look serious.
2. Back down and make lots of concessions, introducting a much more ‘mild’ plan
3. Everyone accepts and even welcomes the ‘mild’ plan.

However, if you look back though the times when spin like this has happened in the past, you will find that this is only neccesary when the ‘mild’ plan would not be accepted initially. Therefore I suspect that whatever the Government/Local Council have in mind is a fairly ambitious and controversial, but slightly less so than the current plan.

What worries me therefore is not the current plan, but what the agenda lurking behind it is.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 8:45 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.