Highway Robbery

A friend of mine called earlier today to tell me that the Congestion charge in London is being reintroduced next Monday. The announcement follows almost one week since the Prime Minister encouraged us all to go back to work if we must and if we do then walk, cycle or take the car. In a recent blog on TFL I told you that they were losing £21m per day on top of the £750m per annum they lose. The Mayor realises it can’t continue with Conditions under Covid and needs that Government Bailout of £2b spoken of previously.

So let’s examine. We need to get back to work, we need to get the economy going to pay for the Confetti Chancellor generous outpourings. We are told not to use Public Transport if we possibly can for fear of infection and increase in number R. So far so good so why do we now penalise the driver, alas it gets much worse. Firstly the charge goes up from £11.50 to £15 per return entry and wait for it the charge now applies from the 5 day working week to 7 days ( that’s all there is in a week). The increase is 30% which when compared with the Retail Price Index of just under 2% per annum amounts to literally Highway Robbery. The taxes we all paid to build the roads of London are now surcharged taxed to use them. Someone once said the streets of London are paved with Gold, they were right.

Meantime the residents of London who may want to at some point go out to a shop or a cinema with their partners now has to add £15 to the ticket price which is no incentive other than stay indoors and watch Netflix ( it’s now become cheaper, buy their shares). If we are to get the economy really going back at full steam then at the right time we should be 2 metres apart and with hands washed returning to work when the taxes should be all lowered to 10% for 2 years so that we can all work like there’s no tomorrow and get the show back on the road. But no the answer is the complete opposite raise taxes and raise the drawbridges that access the commercial castle called London.

In the alternate we may well soon see a tax on breathing for those people entering the Congestion Zone of London, how about 1 pence per intake. As for the cyclists let’s charge £2 for every wheel that enters and if you happen to enter by Penny Farthing £1.50 or on a tandem £3. Anyone found parachuting to work could be arrested and fined £100. Someone somewhere has lost the plot. Is it City Hall or 10 Downing Street? The deal makes no sense commonly called nonsense. Dick Turpin was the famous London Highway robber and little has changed over the centuries other than ‘ Stand and Deliver ‘ has become ‘ Drive and Deliver ‘. As for the Green Party you’ve had your holiday no pollution no carbon emissions and no planes but it’s all coming to an end.

As for the Uber Drivers they have now to pay more but that’s the Politics of TFL who control the famous Black Taxis of course and in some ways that’s a good thing because those iconic black cabs and red buses are brand London and one of the reason why the tourists flock to the Capital. I am worried however going forward, worried that this Majority Government are now making flawed decisions and what we need is now rocket fuel in the sense of massive tax cuts not tax increases to jettison the economy back on track.