Mike Rutherford's column

Isn’t naive youth a wonderful thing? It enabled me foolishly to believe those who told me I lived in the greatest democracy in the world. But if anyone tried to run a similar lie by me today, I’d remind them of a few facts that prove our democratic process has fallen apart and needs fixing. For starters, we have a system that allows this and previous governments to seize total power, even when they secure a mandate from, say, one-third of the people. On top of that, the current Government is somehow led by a man who never even put himself up for election as Prime Minister – so it’s clear that Britain is, in some respects, about as democratic as Zimbabwe.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland quite rightly have their own domestic Parliaments, laws and liberties. But England is not granted the same privileges, despite having 50 million residents while the three countries surrounding it can collectively claim about 10 million.

Would any person genuinely interested in democracy and equality object to an English Parliament in, say, Birmingham? No. Does the Scot-dominated, London-based UK Government led by a Scot that nobody
voted in as UK PM object to a Parliament for England? Absolutely.

What’s this got to do with motoring? Plenty. The WAC – War Against Cars – can be prosecuted only when the democracy rule book is torn up and the victims (motorists and their passengers) are denied the democratic process.

Take the congestion charge in London. The only people who could vote for or against were residents. Local, wealth-creating businesses had no say. Nor did the millions of commuters from Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex (plus countless other counties) who also create wealth for London have any say, either. The democratic machine has been engineered to deny these individuals and companies the right to vote for or against such a huge and important tax that directly affects them. Convenient, that.

It’s a similar deal in Nottingham, the crime capital of England. Most local residents have been bought off by Government handouts in return for saying yes to parking taxes for workers and students. But most of those who park in and around the city don’t live there – and they are democratically impotent.

Scariest of all is the arrogant announcement last week that Manchester will also be bribed by Government subsidies in return for introducing a congestion charge. The city held local elections last month. The Community Action Party backed by Manchester Against Road Tolls (MART) got nearly twice as many votes as Labour’s Roger Jones, the architect of the potential new tax.

At last, democracy in action, you might think. Yet barely a month later, the Labour Government has provisionally agreed to lob £1,500million at Manchester in a swap for a congestion tax scam which, the people made perfectly clear at the ballot box, they don’t want.

Enough of this contempt for democracy, bribes from the car-hating Government and back-door motoring taxation. ALL the parties must reveal in detail ALL their congestion, parking, fuel, vehicle and other motoring-related tax intentions in their manifestos at the next general election. That’s what they’ll do to us. But they must also reveal in detail what they intend to do for us. And if they don’t deliver,
they must be sued for breach of contract.