... not Jenny Jones of the Green Party.
Gawd bless those Greens; I do like them - personally that is. Many of the Greens I know are fine people. However today's announcement by their London Mayoral hopeful Jenny Jones does make you wonder for their collective political sanity.
Ms Jones wants to raise the congestion charge to £50 per day and extend it out to the M25.
No, you didn't read that wrongly. Look again. Nope, still bonkers.
Now, we know that Ms Jones has form; when I was at UEA I was amazed when I heard her in a public meeting say that the solution to traffic was to rip up the roads and go back to dirt tracks. But this does hit a new level of idiocy. A lot of people in Norwich who commute to London will be very worried by this policy.
It will cripple anybody who wants to live in the Home Counties and work in London, stifle business, be almost impossible to collect and hit the poorest the hardest. I assume people within the M25 would be allowed to drive for free (because if not it would cost them £50 to get off their drives or out of their roads) and so house prices just within the zone would soar. It actually beggars belief that any candidate for high office, who claim to be a grown up serious political party would suggest this. The likes of Adrian Ramsay and Claire Stephenson must have their heads in their hands tonight, weeping ...
Although, it would give me an excuse to visit my parents less often ... so not all bad then! ;-)
2 comments:
Absolute madness!
Rough calculations would suggest that this would raise scores of billions (assuming for a brief moment that anyone would be able to afford £13,000+ a year), and would become the 4th biggest revenue in the UK, behind income tax, NI payments and VAT.
If you're going to suggest radically different policies, at least make them vaguely realistic...
I think this will be the downfall of the Green candidate.
In policy terms you could see why this is a problem... But doesn't this show that the Greens do not have a unified Transport policy.
I am not a big fan of Boris Johnson, particular due to the fact he cut the quota for affordable homes in London. But if the Greens are not going to change their policy, they have no chance.
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