Will Lib Dem support for Road Pricing face riders with new charges although Motorcycles and Scooters don’t congest?

Let me start by saying that this blog is not triggered by a desire to pore scorn on any of the three major parties. But it is fuelled by a deep frustration that despite the fact that motorcyclists and scooterists are a small but significant group of road users and the electorate, all of the main parties have addressed rider’s concerns and issues in the run up to the election with a deafening silence so far…

So. Spotting significant differences between the key proposals for transport by the three main UK political parties is, as far as I can see, close to a needle in haystack hunt. But when it comes to trying to decide which one of the main parties may have the most to offer riders of motorbikes, mopeds or scooters, it gets even more difficult – even after or perhaps especially after the second ‘gloves off’ televised leaders debate – where a clear winner was difficult for anyone to pick who was looking at it without a preconceived political inclination.

Clearly, after the first TV debate a new ‘I agree with Nick‘ craze began, and now it seems that the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg may still just be top of the pops in style for TV debate viewers. But, as I have none of the party leaders on offer for me to vote for on May the 6th, I’m more interested in what their party polices are and whether they are likely to improve the way motorcycling related issues are addressed or make them worse.

Sadly as far as I’m concerned, there seems to be space in each party’s manifestos; Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem, for a few ‘politically correct’ lines on the wonders of  walking and cycling, although many of those who make up the nationwide totals are actually too young to vote – whereas there is no manifesto place for mention of powered two wheeler rider’s issues – even though there are well over 1.5 million of us, and the fact is that most Riders ARE Voters.

This leaves me with no alternative for now but to dig deeper into what the three main parties are saying about their policies for road users in general. And there lies at least one potential bombshell for the future of UK motorcycling.

There is one difference above all that could be a key factor in ending the ‘I agree with Nick’ craze that kicked off after the first televised leaders debate – and this could have a decisive impact on some key marginal seats including Richmond in London where transport and ‘motoring taxes’ are big bones of contention…

The Lib Dems want to “use road pricing revenue to cut fuel duty” according to an ePolitx.com summary in a concise and accurate list of key transports policy proposals by the three parties.

To be fair, the Lib Dems seem to think they have found a way to prevent a potentially devastating wave of objections to this proposal among a big majority of voters. Buried at the back of their manifesto on page 80, they say road pricing will not be introduced straight away but in “a second parliament” and that it would be “revenue neutral“.

But Lib Dem hopes that the UK electorate will trust any assurances about a new nationwide motoring tax, flies in the face of all the hard evidence of public opinion to date. The simple facts are that every time that the great British public have had a chance to vote on a proposal for a Road Pricing aka Congestion Charging scheme; 75% of them have said no.

Despite the massive efforts and even ‘bullying‘ by the current Labour government to push such schemes in Edinburgh and Manchester, (which I investigated and reported on extensively during my time at LTT) all hopes to impose such schemes were emphatically crushed.

And, lest we forget or you didn’t know, all the truly well informed experts on this issue agree that the main reason that Livingstone got away with imposing his Congestion Charge in London was that he had none of the trappings of a major political party to bother with when he steamrollered the scheme onto the streets during his first term in office – as he had been chucked out of the Labour party before his election as mayor for daring to defy their choice of more biddable mayoral candidate.

It is also a fact that Londoners only had two opportunities to vote on a Western Extension of the central London scheme and 70+% said no on both occasions. The first was on whether to go ahead with it which Ken Livingstone ignored, and the second was to keep it or remove it which Boris Johnson respected.

Now, the Conservatives have distanced themselves from any plans for nationwide road pricing – apart from a scheme for lorries which presumably they hope will not grab widespread attention or adverse reactions. And although Labour have said they will not try to introduce road pricing in during the next parliament, there are responses to Freedom of Information Act questions to show they may be secretly plotting to introduce it if they could in due course.

All this leaves Nick Clegg and his Lib Dem parliamentary candidate colleagues standing alone as manifesto advocates of nationwide road pricing – with Labour quietly waiting in the wings with hopes of joining forces to introduce it. But, there is at least one place where there there is a good chance of this turning into a big clanger for the Lib Dems, namely Richmond. Since the creation of this constituency the seat has been held by Lib Dem stalwart, Susan Kramer, who is to my personal knowledge a very big fan of the whole Road Pricing idea. However, her opponent in this election is none other than the Scooterist Conservative Zac Goldsmith who I know from recent conversations is extremely focused on trying to deliver a win for him and the Tories.

In the interests of balance I should say that I know there are a few key figures in the upper echelons of the Conservative party who are still very keen on the road pricing idea, but at least the party whips and policy wonks have the political sense to ensure they stay schtum for now.

So, never mind how many politicians ‘agree’ with Nich Clegg, the Lib Dem link to a new nationwide motoring tax may disincline a significant number of voters from joining that gang…

Police, Camera, Action! But who is calling for the shots of protesters against bike parking taxes, Top Cops or two Greedy Piggies in two City Halls?

Up until now, the MET police in London have been more accommodating towards riders protesting against Westminster’s regressive cash-cow bike parking tax, than any other single issue riders campaign I have ever seen. So I was a tad surprised last week to see a highly visible video cop adding a new and potentially intimidating element in their responses to protest rides organised by the NTPBT.

But my latest info from sources close to the MET and Westminster insiders suggests that there  may have been some string pulling by the sharp trading leader of Westminster City council and his big business chum and deputy Mayor of London. And, if so, there may be a radically different explanation for what might really be going on…

Barrow + Cash Crop

Whatever the truth may be, one thing’s for sure as you can see from this latest film report. It looks like the MET decided to make a potentially imposing show of making a video record of protesters and police attempts to deal with them. But, as is often the way with this twisted saga, all is not what it may seem.

It turns out that the getting-richer-quick millionaire leader of Westminster Council, Colin Barrow, is a chum and business partner of Kit Malthouse, a premier league political bruiser, former WCC Cllr, and wannabe Tory Grandee. The barrow boy is top dog at Westminster City Hall and has several sources of income, although at least one biking blogger has questioned his accountability regarding some of them. Anyway, one wonger making option is wheeling and dealing as a Hedge Fund company Director – and the latest of these highly profitable ventures is Alpha Strategic where he is Executive Chairman & his big Mate Kit is Finance Director. But two other sources of cash for Barrow have taken months of diligent follow ups to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to reveal the truth.

Cop-watch Chum Malthouse

First, it was eventually revealed that in addition to his ‘Basic’ councillor allowance of £10,250, he got a handy £37,639.55 in 2009, for ‘special’ expenses making a total of around £48,000. And, equally handily, as the this FOI string finally confirmed in Feb 2010, (!) following a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, his decision to liquidate one of his Hedge Fund companies called Eiger Capital, meant that he was no longer legally obliged to pay £19,186.71 in business rates owed to none other than Westminster Council. So, in round figures, Cllr Colin effectively trouserred a cool £68,000 of rate payers cash in 2009.

Meanwhile, his business associate Kit Malthouse is technically second in line to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. But the scale of power Malthouse really has behind the scenes could be higher than a typical ‘number two’ for a few key reasons. Not least of these is that the Conservative party got rather fed up with seeing Boris, their Golden boy Mayor, rapidly establish a bad reputation for losing deputies for  unseemly reasons. Losing one deputy mayor might be considered unfortunate, two careless – but three in a year is a bit too far beyond the pale. So Malthouse was brought in as a “Boris hit man” to very much stick around in City Hall and get the Mayor’s ship back on as straight and narrow a path as possible.

However, the most significant thing about Malthouse for riders opposing Westminster’s plan to tax us to park, may be that he recently acquired new and potentially all encompassing powers over the police. When London Mayor Boris Johnson got ‘too busy’ to Chair the MET police authority as he famously vowed he would, he ‘stepped down’ so Malthouse could be shoe horned into the job at the end of last year.

This move was however far from free of critical comment as Malthouse had “missed key police meetings” up until then. But almost as soon as the mayor’s new deputy dawg began his new cop-watch role he fuelled even more controversy over the extent of his powers to influence the direction of policing in London.

Understandably, many in the MET were not amused. Right from the start of Malthouse taking charge of overseeing the MET a great deal of concern grew among senior officers. Some were “aghast at politicians meddling in their business”. But the stuff really hit the fan when the Mayor’s hit-man Malthouse infamously declared that he and the Conservative party had now got their “hands on the tiller” of the MET police force in London. In fact this prompted a “warning” from the MET’s chief that the claim by Malthouse could pave the way for ‘lunatics or the BNP winning control of the police’.

Now I have seen no hard evidence to prove any truth in rumous that the MET police have been heavily lent on to change the way that protests against WCC’s bike parking tax are policed – or that such pressure was applied by somebody with big clout in Mayor Johnson’s City Hall. Nor have I seen any proof  that the leader of the London council that is trying to pioneer a new parking tax for motorcycle and scooter riders has asked his mate and business partner – who had claimed to have his hands on the tiller of the MET, to either arrest the NTBPT protesters as a way of stopping them cause huge disruption to traffic on a weekly basis, or do something new to try and dissuade them from drawing attention to their beef with the rich burghers of Westminster. So, of course, I couldn’t possible suggest that such rumors are true. Nor would I even dream of doing so. Yet.

As ever I will leave it up to readers and riders to make what sense of this they can, and will welcome any further news or thoughts you may have…

Motorbikes and Scooters offer London Olympics the most plausible hope for efficient transport…

So. BMW have got the gig to provide road transport options for knobs and competitors needing to whizz across London during the 2012 Olympics. But this is seen by some as ‘serious disappointment‘. Not least of whom are Nissan and the Greenies who are well pissed-off about this – and to some extent for very good reasons in my view.

But of course the initial mainstream media fuss is about BMW cars not their motorbikes, or indeed any other brand of bike or scooter. But I suspect that will change – or one of the abiding memories for many in the summer of 2012, will be the grim business of trying to get there and back across London to where they live or stay.

You see it’s all very well for London Mayor Boris & his ‘experts’ to try and “stamp out car use” and go by shiny new blue trains, but most people ain’t going to be anywhere near where the trains trundle to and from – and anyway this will only work as long as we don’t get the wrong leaves on the line etc.. What is even more scary though is that the suits in charge of the logistics for the games want 100% of spectators to go by public transport cycle or foot“! This means that every day throughout the 2012 London Olympics, tens of thousands more people than usual will be trying to squeeze into buses and trains that are already full to bursting when most want to travel.

There are of course many ways to move people and stuff around London and out way beyond the East-End where most of the games will be. And, I have used every one – from a bicycle and shank’s’ pony to the latest thing in bus and rail.

But the most reliable and efficient mode – by about a million times, is going by motorbike or scooter. And this is a major reason why that’s what I do more often than not – despite the crap traffic & red lights & bozos meandering into my path ‘cos they’re on the phone or pissed or just have their head in cloud cuckoo-land.

So my guess is that once London gets rammed with zillions of competitors, spectators and top bananas, a significant number of them are going to go by a PTW of some sort – or wish to F**K they had!