Newsnight - Tuesday, 20 February, 2007
I'm repeating this as Newsnight is stretching the issue of the Petition over a few days (Very amusing Mr. D Ringer). And there are related matters on the environment to follow (cars do use oil right?)
As it has come up again here (6. Mr. G Edwards) , I'd like to add one more to my list of questions I posed yesterday, as it is a good one and I don't seem to have heard one word by way of an answer on this throughout the 'debate' (that's where people answer other's questions and not just those they fancy, right? And moderators ensure they do, and are truthful, right? Not deny, misinform or stay silent, right?).
Qu: The claim is made that this is not a stealth tax. Without waffle and 'it will be looked into', what % of every £ will go from the tax directly to environmental-related improvements, how much to creating a whole new level of salaried and pensioned administrators, and how much to unspecified other government expenditures. With no guarantee or fair idea on the first we will assume the last two.
I'm afraid to answer a previous poster I am having trouble with the current administration's abilities and record in translating revenue into result without 99% going on logistics.
Qu: The other night on Newsnight, Stephen Ladyman claimed 2 to 3 methods for charging an individual vehicle traveling, one presumes, from A to B, without needing to track its location. How, exactly, do you monitor and charge something accurately without knowing where it was, is and how it got there?
(I was a tad concerned that the interviewer seemed way out of her depth and frankly allowed anyone come out with any accusation or fact they liked without check (see my last post no. 251 in my personal review of the 'debate' yesterday)
Qu: What substantive consideration will be given to the situation and needs of those in non-urban (the bits outside Westminster, Islington, Fleet Street, Canary Wharf, where the BBC lives and Ken pedals to work) areas that are... fair?
Qu: How does Dr. Ladyman propose to answer questions from 1.6M people in tomorrow's webchat?
Will the questions be vetted to provide the best set of answers to suit an established agenda?
If so, and in the absence one presumes of dissenting sides being able to put their case(s) in the same way as the No 10 email, how is this anything like sensible debate, or simply further propaganda?
Qu: Who put Transport 2000 in charge of representing moderate, practical and fair environmental advocacy?
Such organisations seem to get funded to drive even greater wedges between protagonists rather than bridge them.
Qu: Where is the place that says that by signing the email I would be exposed unilateral responses by what is, in essence, unsolicited, unanswerable (would I get a reply) mass email methods? Was this not a major critique of the methods used (without the benefit of a single database) by the pro-'lobby' as this played out over the last few weeks.
It's very hard to trust anything... when you don't believe anything any more.
I want sensible, fair, open, practical, cost-effective, fully future-proof enviROI steps taken to secure my kid's and their kids' lives and livelihoods. If road-pricing is part and parcel, so be it.
But not organised from a bunker in, for and by London.
On other matters....
ps: Interesting the comment/critique in the Ethical Man slot: 'What have you learned in the last year?'. It rather begs the next few:
1) With all the support (free kit, per diems, ex's etc) to get set-up with much that will save money as well as planet if capital costs are ignored (and most of us likely can't, when all's said and done), what have those of us without BBC-cred access to the Green Room at Climate Aid/Global Cool learned?
2) And as it seems you are on the last stretch, what will be retained, by way of capital kit and ongoing 'do-without' practices?
For instance, it sure helps a bit that the Bishop of London is taking over the mantle of one-year no-flying zzzzz-oh-how-good-an-example-izzat?, but it's really not so effective if the UK population does it as an annual relay (or does this just apply to celebs and green elites?).
pps: I was about to groan as Mr. Miliband went into full 'Oh golly, it's a question... duck and dive mode, now' when cocktail-stepped on Big Oil, and the 'It depends, we'll need to look into it..' defence brought out was looking typical, if tired. But I thought he recovered well.
Just... was his answer accurate? Maybe the bosses of Shell and BP, etc could provide an answer every bit as slick as the one they did to John Humphrys at Davos, to the same level of journalistic challenge and insight
Pretty please:)
ADDENDUM:
I guess it has passed from media interest already, and don't know how many revisit these pages over subsequent days, but following Newsnight's piece earlier in the week I was wondering if anyone else watched Dr. Ladyman's webcast on the road petition this day?
Actually, in addition to a few other questions that seem a bit shy on coherent answers, I am still wondering who of the two guests were correct on the matter of what was or what was not said by Dr. Ladyman at the outset of this issue: him or the Sun chap?
When the latter says it is on record and the former says it is not, I really like to know.
Telegraph - Blair to defy 1.8m who signed road petition
(Didn't feel like adding my 2p as it has been a long day, there are 147 at last count and they are a tad selective)
Telegraph - What have the past 10 years of Blair been for?
Just for this: 'But the extra taxes we have paid have been wasted, not least in putting 700,000 socially unproductive people on the public payroll, where they can gratefully vote for Gordon Brown in perpetuity'.
Buying votes? That's like buying positions in roles in the process of government.
Surely this is not possible in a democracy, with an effective opposition... er...oh.
Will the last person who trusts this leadership please switch out the.... click....
Telegraph - What's the real cost of congestion?
I'm already limbering up with all my questions for tomorrow's man-to-1.8M 'webcast' tomorrow.
Now, what are the odds?
I see a few more things getting busted tomorrow, along with a few - as you have pointed out - still unanswered 'myths'.
I would just be happy to know how you charge someone fairly, in London or out, for a journey that 'will not be tracked'.
But then, I am just a poor tool in the sway of those evil petitioner-pushers and am unable to understand what lies... er.. behind the self-evident truths and less evident between-the-lines fudges of 'the mighty email', which in no way is a spam campaign trying to twist the result.
If that was the best the finest brains in the Dept. of Hype 'n Spin under Wee Wully MacGoebbels (why are they all Scots??) could manage in the weeks they have had to prepare, then gawd help them as the revolution comes.
Guardian - That email
Telegraph - No 10's road toll reply ducks tax cut guarantee - there's a wonder. A few other areas dodged, too.
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