You got to be kidding!

To be fair Alex, they have a point to a certain extent. Yeah, I agree that it, on the face of it, DOES seem like a lot of rich people complaining about something that fiscally won't make one jot of difference to them, but in principle, I can see where they are coming from. Where is it going to stop? How far is Red Ken going to take it? Kensington is not exactly a throughfare and congested, yet he has moved it out there for what reason? And where is the move going to stop? The government are already ripping the motorist off a massive amount (the whole "pay as you drive" thing is one of the most ill concieved ideas ever and on top of that is a complete infringment of privacy and civil liberties. And it WILL happen….idiots) and now, on top of this, people are expected to pay massive amounts for basically being where they need to be!! It justg smacks of stupidness.
Why do we have rush hour? Because people need to be different places pretty much at the same time! Fact! Yet the government want to tax us on living our normal lives. The public transport infrastructure is a joke, doesn't work (I wouldn't use it!) and it takes away the independance of peoples daily lives by having to rely on the unreliable. Also, with the changing face of the normal working day (people working from home, people having more of thier own business, off site management etc etc) more and more work NEEDS travel. The car is here to stay, yet it is an easy target for the gorvernment to take money of the driver as its an essential that people can't do without nowadays, hence they HAVE to pay. And its getting stupid.
I see where you are coming from, I really do. It DOES smack of rich people feeling sorry for themselves. But the congestion charge hasn't really solved too much in the city centre as there is still congestion as the people who work in the city are rich anyway and can afford it! But the gripe goes a lot, lot deeper than that and fair play to the "rich" for standing up for it and making that protest in a way, because the british motorist is being taken for a ride with this, the proposed extensions of the charge, moving it to other cities, the pay as you drive scheme, speed cameras, higher standard road tax, massive taxes on fuel………Ok, I might be biased on this as I am a very keen motorist, but we are getting seriously ripped off and if it wasn't the rich people protesting, then someone else will……………..and good on them I say!

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