But he should also realise that this policy may not be quite as popular with the voters as it is made out to be. There is no proof yet that we have the maturity to throttle what was once called our “great car economy”.. AFTER DECADES of immobilism, Northern Irish politics are moving at a pace and in a direction that few could ever have thought possible. The momentum of the peace process has now received a massive boost from the resounding “Yes” vote across Ireland.
The reports suggest that 71 per cent of us would be prepared to support motoring charges if they were invested in public transport Sounds plausible. But there are reasons to doubt that we are really prepared to get the bus next time we go and see Uncle Victor. Of course, we know what we really mean when we answer surveys like that. We mean that we would like to rid the roads of everyone else’s cars and give ourselves a chance of trying out the twisty bits of the A-roads that the likes of Jeremy Clarkson are always on about.
During the 1980s pollsters persistently told us that we were all very happy to pay more taxes for better public services, only to watch us, from the privacy of the polling booths, return Conservative governments who promised, even if they do not always deliver, tax cuts.
As Mr Prescott presses ahead with his White Paper on transport policy, he should, of course, “do the right thing” and encourage us out of our cars and onto better public transport. We sometimes display what psychologists politely call “cognitive dissonance” when it comes to our attitude to this kind of issue. It means that the family in the car next to us should pay more because “that old jalopy’s unsafe and should be priced off the road” or “they’ve got a big car so they should pay more taxes” or “I need my car for work so why should they make me pay”. Traffic jams are a fact of national life and not confined to Bank Holidays. So the latest research from MORI that suggests that we are all jolly worried indeed about the problem is timely but hardly startling news. GOING SHOPPING today? Or visiting a great national monument? Or maybe taking in a theme park? The chances are that you’ll be going in your car and that, contrary to the dreams of the advertisers, it won’t involve any encounters with Kim Basinger or Claudia Schiffer.
And, on the whole, you won’t really care if the car in front is a Toyota or not because, whatever it is, like you, it won’t be moving. “We will start to see more and more programmes commissioned for a particular audience, though, as part of the continued fragmentation of channels and audiences in the UK.”. IN THE history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas, journalist and writer, woman’s activist before her time, but first and foremost the indefatigable champion of Florida’s fragile and irreplaceable Everglades. Marjory Stoneman was brought up in Massachusetts, the daughter of Frank Stoneman, an attorney who would later move to Miami, first as a judge and then as founder of the Miami Herald.
