Road-pricing ensures that motorists pay for the congestion, pollution and noise costs of using their cars.
London’s ‘Kengestion charge’
Most Tories campaigned against Ken Livingstone’s £5-a-day fee for driving a car into central London. They resented having to pay for something that once was free and they sympathise with many traders in the centre of the capital who have lost business because of it. Steve Norris dubbed it the ‘Kengestion charge’.
But there are many good reasons for congestion charging – or road pricing, to use its traditional name.
Road-pricing ensures that motorists pay for the congestion, pollution and noise costs (externalities) of using their cars. The technical purpose of road pricing is to correct an imperfection in the price mechanism, upon which functioning market economies depend. Margaret Thatcher apparently hated rail travel and helped to fashion the Conservative Party as an enthusiastic supporter of the ‘great car economy’. For many Conservatives the car has become a symbol of freedom, but for true conservatives the car should be seen as a mixed blessing.
The car is a big killer – through road traffic accidents and pollution. It’s a much bigger killer than the rail industry – an industry that has almost been suffocated to death by risk-averse health and safety legislation. The car has ruined many towns and villages – polluting residential and historic areas with noise and fumes. Many beautiful buildings and much countryside have been lost to accommodate the tarmac arteries that have spread throughout Britain.
Where conservatives can (and should) object to Ken Livingstone’s charge is the backdoor way it has been used to raise taxation. Conservatives can support green taxation of roads or polluting industries if there are equivalent tax cuts for environmentally-unproblematic businesses or workers. Where taxation of pollution is used to raise the overall tax burden it is merely another driver of big government (tomato environmentalism), however.
Given the regressive nature of the ‘Kengestion charge’ any compensatory tax cuts – introduced by a future conservative mayor – should be targeted on London’s poorest residents.
Mayoral freedom
It is interesting to note that two of the last decade’s most significant policy developments have come from city mayors. New York introduced zero tolerance policing and now London has successfully introduced congestion charging.
More freedom for more city mayors might produce the kind of innovative policy thinking that some of our country’s more intractable social problems demand. For all sorts of other reasons – his virulent anti-Americanism, his hostility to Israel, his political correctness, his poor record on crime and his addiction to taxation – Ken Livingstone doesn’t deserve to be London’s Mayor. But through the introduction of road pricing in one of the world’s greatest cities, Ken Livingstone has earnt himself a small place in history.
nothing about turning off afirftc lights. Bit of a silly statement of your part Councillor.The news element on Ealing Council's web site is awful. It's indefensible. Even Council Officers agree with me. Old' Eric Leach surely that's ageist! It's a bit like my calling you an ex-Lib Dem which according to others appears to be true. For my part it's true that I'm 64 years old.As for grumpy well what can I say? Dictionaries don't seem to define the word, but it could well apply to you if you don't get re-elected in May 2010. Carry on making enemies the way that you do and you could find yourself a non Councillor next year.Who are these residents that the Council surveys? I volunteered to be one of them but I've never been surveyed.It will indeed be interesting if one of the seven sets of afirftc lights to be turned off are at the Lido Junction in West Ealing. Instead of it being Russian Roulette for pedestrians there, it will extend this privilege to drivers as well.Up with afirftc lights where they are clearly appropriate.
Posted by: Santiago | April 21, 2012 at 06:09 AM