Congestion charge to increase under Tories

Don't believe for a moment that Labour's Congestion Charge con is solely a problem for those who live in or have to drive to London.

The capital is merely a test bed for this state-sponsored scam. If the experiment proves profitable enough for the politicians in the capital, the phenomenon will spread nationwide.

The history of this rip-off scheme goes like this. Labour Transport Secretary John Prescott first floated the idea nationally then later, Labour’s London Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced it on his patch. I remember it well because my motoring expenditure, along with those of millions of other drivers, immediately increased by more than £1,000 per annum thanks to the cruel, 4 quid a day tax. Livingstone insisted that he was merely imposing a small and justifiable daily congestion charge. But from where I was sitting, I was being punished heavily, with an annual fine of over £1,000, simply because I drove in my city of birth.

The Conservatives said they opposed Livingstone’s grubby scam and agreed that it was little more than a money making racket invented by Labour.

Fast forward several years and Prescott and Livingstone are toast, Labour is likely to be thrown out of office at the 2010 general election, and the grotesquely unfair Congestion Charge experiment should be binned by the incoming Tories.

But congestion taxation will live on under Tory rule, evidently. And the news gets worse still because the level of con taxes which the Conservative will dump on drivers in future will be even HIGHER than those imposed on us by Labour in the past.

When Conservative Boris Johnson recently fought Labour's Ken Livingstome for the title of London Mayor he promised that, if elected, he would make the Congestion Taxes "fairer".

True Blue BoJo went on to win that election and duly inherited Red Ken's controversial scheme. But did he scrap it? No. Did he lower the price of the congestion charge, or at least freeze it? Again, No.

Is he doing the unthinkable and INCREASING con charge prices? Yes - to £10 a day or nearer £3,000 a year for those who drive in London daily.

Johnson is currently the Tory party’s highest ranking politician in office. And although he’s only responsible for a comparatively small area of Britain, his London constituency is effectively a country within a country and has more residents, workers and visitors than Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland put together.

Because around 20 Brits live in and around London, they’re already adversely affected by Boris’ £10 a day congestion tax which will kick in next year.

The 40 million folk who make up the remainder of the British population needn't worry about the con tax just yet.

But if, as expected, the Conservatives form the next UK Government after winnung the general election in Spring 2010, Boris-style £10 a day congestion charges could be popping-up in towns and cities across the UK.

And the blame for this will rest not with the outgoing Labour party..... but the incoming Tories.