Well the votes have been cast. They were submitted today at Stockport Town Hall. I hope that everyone managed to vote, apparently the turn out had been particularly bad so far. Obviously I can't tell you how I voted but I would think that you could guess!
Manchester Council (which I come under) has so far been the worst...probably because it won't affect a lot of people. It won't affect me (if it were brought in tomorrow at any least), but I voted because I'm a firm believer of the 'If you didn't have your say, you have no right to moan' stance.
Nothing says "romance" like a kidnapped injured woman!
I suspect that the turn out was bad because it's increasingly obvious that those in charge take no notice whatsoever and just carry on, via a different route if needs be.
The European Constitution (or "treaty") is a prime example of this sort of behaviour. It's quite clear that politicians no longer follow the will of, or operate on behalf of, the people they "represent".
On the plus side, at least they had a referendum. They are fairly hard to fix on such a scale.
Having said that, I was surprised to see the emotive content of some of the more recent pro-charge posters. Stuff like "I want to feel safer on the buses" (old guy on the poster), "I want to get home in time to see my kids before bed-time" (guy in car... shame he'll be working overtime to make up that £1000 a year). Bloody hell.
I honestly though it might have been a bit closer. Looks like a bit of a rethink is in order... let's face it, the addition of the outer charging zone was way, way too big.
Geoff Hoon sounds like a right miserable git in that article as well.
I liked the comments. Especially the one that says road users pay £40bn in taxes in return for £7bn in investment. We need to stop wasting money and start investing in Core Services.
I wouldn't mind if they spent the bloody money on public transport, but I just didn't believe they would do that and it was yet another way to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Death and taxes an' all that!
