Thursday 27th May 2004

Michael Howard at the Motorshow

Opposition leader drops in for a butchers

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Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard sees a direct parallel between the government’s attitude towards motorists and the plot of the Motropolis Live Action Arena at The Sunday Times Motor Show Live.

The show’s storyline depicts a futuristic world in which the forces of authority and beaurocracy have taken the enjoyment out of motoring.

‘This government has waged war on the motorist for many years ,’ said Howard. ‘We see it in their attitude to speed cameras, which are used to raise money rather than for safety. There’s no doubt that the government have got it in for the motorist ,’ he added.

Commenting on Ford’s claim that the cost of European legislation could add Euros 5,000 to the cost of a new car by 2008, Howard said: ‘Too many rules and regulations come out from Brussels, many without proper justification. The consequence is that British business becomes less competitive. ’

Howard sports his new glowing Bat-belt.

Howard added that he had been impressed by the progressive new models that he had seen when touring the show and that he had seen some ‘wonderfully exciting cars’. Earlier, Howard visited the Honda stand where he found time to get the autograph of Britain’s leading Formula 1 star Jenson Button – apparently for his wife.

[pmanson]

I think that the Tory's are going to right way at the moment. If they could just manage to keep their promises hopefully the country will be better for all of us.

[PetrolTed]

Trouble is you can't trust any of 'em. He's saying all the right things but they are responsible for many of the measures that are in place that are hounding motorists now. Fuel taxes, speed cameras...

[pmanson]

PetrolTed said:

Trouble is you can't trust any of 'em. He's saying all the right things but they are responsible for many of the measures that are in place that are hounding motorists now. Fuel taxes, speed cameras...

I'm in no doubt that your right. The problem is that only 21 and can really only remember John Major losing the election and fing labour coming in. I voted Tory last time and I will again.

On the otherhand Labour have been in power for 8 years and they are still blaming all their problems and failures on the Torys. If they can't get it right in 8 years will they ever get it right??

[mrk4thom]

I voted labour all my life, but I am fed up of their PC attitude towards the minority. I thought democracy was about majority rule, millions of motorists are fed up and they are just not listening. Anyway my business and me are being taxed out of existance, its about time labour realised the SME needs more incentive.

Problem is all policitians are w_a_n_k_e_r_s (sorry PH, it has to be said) and the tories will be just as bad. I just think a change to shake things up in never a bad idea. If we could just get Howard to guarantee less speed cameras.

[Balmoral Green]

It doesnt matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.

[ian d]

at least he is taking a look and i bet his ear is being bent about all our motoring woes. so where is the Transport Secretary? no where to be seen i bet....isn't brave enough to show face.

[gnomesmith]

mrk4thom said:

Problem is all policitians are w_a_n_k_e_r_s (sorry PH, it has to be said) and the tories will be just as bad. I just think a change to shake things up in never a bad idea. If we could just get Howard to guarantee less speed cameras.

If there were less speed cams they would be more difficult to spot, fewer cams however (or none at all) would be an improvement. Sorry you've hit a pet hate of mine.

I think the politicians are dreamers rather than w*nkers, they enter office full of hope and good intentions but find that it is not so easy to run a country and drift into a confused series of knee jerks. The best politicians are those who are by nature pragmatic and are content to go for a series of small improvements rather than a big show, trouble is we rarely appreciate what they have achieved and tend to vote them out in favour of those who promise much.

When a new administration is formed or a minister is changed the newcomers are, as a matter of course, denied access to the policy and background papers of their predecessors. The new boys then spend their first term finding out why the measures they propose have not been taken up before or where the real problems lie. The difficulty is that should those papers be released the newboys will take every opportunity to home in on previous mistakes and make political play of them. If there was a way to make use of the available data in an honourable and non party political way 'things could only get better' but who would you trust to use the information fairly, certainly not todays mostly politisised Civil Service.Perhaps, hidden deep within the judiciary system, there are a group of honourable men who could do the job of sanitising the appropriate papers without bias or vested interest. Without that sort of fundamental policy and attitude change I fear we are in for more of the same.

PS I shared a lift with MH once, I escaped before my target floor as I could feel his broad permasmile eating into my composure, not an experience I'd care to repeat or recommend to anybody.

[cdp]

gnomesmith said:

[quote=mrk4thom] I think the politicians are dreamers rather than w*nkers, they enter office full of hope and good intentions but find that it is not so easy to run a country and drift into a confused series of knee jerks. The best politicians are those who are by nature pragmatic and are content to go for a series of small improvements rather than a big show, trouble is we rarely appreciate what they have achieved and tend to vote them out in favour of those who promise much.

Too right. Think we ourght to start the B****R ALL party that specialises in masterly inactivity. The more the government legislates, the more administration required and the more we have to pay in taxes, rates and legal fees. One law in, one law out.

[kentishS2]

I know there is plenty to criticise with our current Labour government but I can remember our previous reign under the Conservatives and I remember how prices soared in a failing economy and how they decided to bleed every penny out of nationalised facilities prior to flogging them off to private companies exacerbating the increase in prices and the knock on effect of public spending and their borrowing and the resultant rises in interest rates. I also remember that this caused so many friends and my father to be made redundant from their careers more than once during a period of 3 to 4 years and for some, I also remember how they lost their homes.

I can remember the introduction of “Poll Tax” to replace the rates system. I remember how VAT increased. I had to change career because I used to work in a market which became a luxury for the majority to have.

Someone in this thread mentioned about the false promises and yes I do agree that there are many hopes raised around election time only to be a dashed in reality by the party elected.

What keeps me focused is that our current government have been in for a while now and the evidence is there for all to see, we haven't all lost our jobs and our homes since they came to power and they haven't given private companies more monopoly by selling more amenities off. I agree that they haven't re-nationalised those that the conservatives did sell off but I guess that would not be so easy or cheap for us as taxpayers anyway, I'm sure the price of re-acquisition would be very high.

I can see that Labour most certainly have their faults and sure the taxes have gone up and there are fewer concessions for the rich but they have improved things greatly for the majority. There are higher salaries, a stable economy, interest rates are not too bad, more people have been able to afford their own homes because of this and there is hardly any unemployment with the majority of people having stable and fairly paid jobs. Just look at the amount of luxury cars that are driven by people in ordinary jobs now. I would never have dreamt 15 years ago that my neighbours would have not one but two new Lexus and have you seen how many people drive expensive machines now such as Audi TT’s and SLK’s?

[andymadmak]

kentishS2 said:

I know there is plenty to criticise with our current Labour government but I can remember our previous reign under the Conservatives and I remember how prices soared in a failing economy and how they decided to bleed every penny out of nationalised facilities prior to flogging them off to private companies exacerbating the increase in prices and the knock on effect of public spending and their borrowing and the resultant rises in interest rates. I also remember that this caused so many friends and my father to be made redundant from their careers more than once during a period of 3 to 4 years and for some, I also remember how they lost their homes. I can remember the introduction of “Poll Tax” to replace the rates system. I remember how VAT increased. I had to change career because I used to work in a market which became a luxury for the majority to have. Someone in this thread mentioned about the false promises and yes I do agree that there are many hopes raised around election time only to be a dashed in reality by the party elected. What keeps me focused is that our current government have been in for a while now and the evidence is there for all to see, we haven't all lost our jobs and our homes since they came to power and they haven't given private companies more monopoly by selling more amenities off. I agree that they haven't re-nationalised those that the conservatives did sell off but I guess that would not be so easy or cheap for us as taxpayers anyway, I'm sure the price of re-acquisition would be very high. I can see that Labour most certainly have their faults and sure the taxes have gone up and there are fewer concessions for the rich but they have improved things greatly for the majority. There are higher salaries, a stable economy, interest rates are not too bad, more people have been able to afford their own homes because of this and there is hardly any unemployment with the majority of people having stable and fairly paid jobs. Just look at the amount of luxury cars that are driven by people in ordinary jobs now. I would never have dreamt 15 years ago that my neighbours would have not one but two new Lexus and have you seen how many people drive expensive machines now such as Audi TT’s and SLK’s?

Nice rewriting of history! You forget what the Tories inherited from labour. It took a very long time to sort out. You know the stuff, hyper inflation, rising unemployemnt, world bank declaring UK bankrupt, 3 day weeks, morgues full of bodies and rubbish piled in the streets due to rampant strike action. 90% top rate tax and a country heading well and truly down the sewer.
Gordon Brown didn't create the current economic miracle, the Tories did. And as for the Tories "bleeding the nationalised industries of every penny" pray tell what pennies these industries had? Most were loss making and grossly inefficient. Take telecoms for example - don't you remember party lines, mechanical exchanges, 6 months to get connected, no service flexibility, a choice of 4 phone designs in 4 colours only etc etc etc.

The Poll Tax? Well I think we are finding out right now that this was actually a bloody fair way of raising local revenues for local services - especially with the system of rebates and allowances that the Tories introduced to protect the poorly paid, the old and the sick.

Did they get everythng right? no way. But your convenient slant on events is a bit wide of the mark!

Andy

[kentishS2]

So why did things go down hill when we had a Tory leadership, there wasn't the huge unemployment and enormous interest rates until well into their period of election and things didn't get any better, only worse. In fact they got so bad it will take any other elected party a good few more years to fix the damage to what used to be the envy of the World ...our NHS!

You very conveniently gloss over many of my previous points and many of the examples that you cite are purely a result of the advancement in technology not how these industries were run.

All I'm saying is that for the average man who doesn't earn over £100k a year and doesn't sit on a huge inheritance from generations before them, the current leadership has greater benefits with greater employment and standards of living bringing with it a better quality of life for the majority.

You have your opinion and I'll have mine.....
I'm content that my judgement isn't clouded by my priviledged upbringing and family bank balance.

>> Edited by kentishS2 on Friday 23 July 11:41

[andymadmak]

kentishS2 said:

So why did things go down hill when we had a Tory leadership, there wasn't the huge unemployment and enormous interest rates until well into their period of election and things didn't get any better, only worse. In fact they got so bad it will take any other elected party a good few more years to fix the damage to what used to be the envy of the World ...our NHS! You very conveniently gloss over many of my previous points and many of the examples that you cite are purely a result of the advancement in technology not how these industries were run. All I'm saying is that for the average man who doesn't earn over £100k a year and doesn't sit on a huge inheritance from generations before them, the current leadership has greater benefits with greater employment and standards of living bringing with it a better quality of life for the majority. You have your opinion and I'll have mine..... I'm content that my judgement isn't clouded by my priviledged upbringing and family bank balance. >> Edited by kentishS2 on Friday 23 July 11:41

Actually I grew up in a council house. ...

Anyway, it's not a matter of opinion at all. Unemployment was rising fast in the late seventies, as many of our industries (coal, engineering, cars, steel etc etc found it increasingly difficult to compete on a global market. Much of this was down to piss poor management, piss poor workers, militant unions (who simply refused to accept that Britain had to compete to survive) and an attitude that still echoed feelings of "we won the war and the world owes us something".

Restructuring of our heavy industries should have started in the 1960s. Instead, it was left too late and as such when it came, the crash was more painful. Millions of jobs were lost in a comparatavely short period of time. New jobs simply didn't come on line fast enough to match the shift in the workforce.

I say again, the hard work that made todays economy was largely the result of the Tory restructuring of Britain. Economic cycles are a bit longer than you might imagine!

Cheers

Andy (no spoon in my mouth!)

[gnomesmith]

andymadmak said:

Restructuring of our heavy industries should have started in the 1960s.

Very true what a pity our rulers, in all governments, could not tell the difference between restructuring and destroying.