tim... wrote:


"Recliner" wrote in message
...
Robin wrote:
On 19/10/2020 08:37, wrote:
On Sat, 17 Oct 2020 10:23:28 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:01:02 on Fri,
16
Oct 2020, Ian Jackson remarked:
People who live in the "Circular" area, are people in normal
employment with lives that mean that they have to have a car.

and an annual tax of 5,475 pounds to own one, is bloody ridiculous

If the local councillors suggested this they would be out on their
ears at the next election

It's only because Boris is a Tory, and most of the affected LAs are
Labour/LibDem run that he has a hope of getting away with this
politically

but it's still a bag of nonsense socially.

It's nothing to do with congestion, but simply a potential way to
raise a poll-tax the pay for TfL's huge deficit.

After the N/S Circular, how long before the M25?

Some of the media is speculating already.

If Khan had a working pair of ******** he'd have called Boris' bluff
over
this and said "Fine, the tube and bus will stop on [date] and londons
economy will come to a halt along with the substantial part of GDP it
generates. Enjoy.". But of course he hasn't and didn't.



One problem with that may be that the idea came from the Mayor's side:
there's a long tradition of parading the "bleeding stumps" consequences
if central government doesn't cough up.


The first round of central government demands weren't unreasonable, and it
was sensible for Khan to accept them. Now, emboldened, the government is
back with a humiliating set of demands that are designed to destroy Khan's
chances of re-election in six months. I suspect that he won't back down so
eaily this time, given that Bailey also agrees with him.


not helped by biased headlines like this:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...sted-cash.html

Now, it may be true that some of Khan's policies have wasted money

but in the context of several billion pound shortfall, the examples in the
narrative are trivial

one is the equivalent of money lost down the sofa

and the other is a complaint about a legacy policy that exited during
Boris's time, is a policy that is common within many public transport
operators and for which the justification of "it doesn't cost anything
because the services are running anyway" has actually been tested in law and
the courts agreed with that assessment.

For some strange reason, the ES (editor-in-chief, George Osborne) forgot to
mention the £43m+ of taxpayer funding that George Osborne and Boris wasted
on the unbuilt Garden Bridge:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/hot-topics/garden-bridge/lbcs-long-read-the-garden-bridge-124786/