How the election could affect motorists....

[philoldsmobile]

Election 2010: what it means to the motorist
Motoring issues rarely feature at the forefront of a pre-election manifesto, even though transport-based news permeates the day-to-day agenda. Among some of the biggest stories of the last few years have been congestion charging, environment-based car tax changes, unprecedented fuel price rises, and, of course, the scrap scheme.

The cost of motoring is certainly rising, but will it continue unabated when the next Government comes into power? It's difficult to say for sure, but here's our breakdown of what the parties are promising so far for the driver:

LABOUR

We have a better idea about what Labour will do than the other two major parties because of its record since 1997 and the March 2010 budget.

• Budget 2010

All electric cars will be exempt from company car tax and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) until at least 2015.

Fuel duty will rise by 1p on 1 October, and again by 0.76p on 1 January 2011. It will continue to rise by 1p per litre above inflation until 2015.

Business users driving cars emitting between 1g/km and 75g/km CO2 will only pay benefit-in-kind tax of five percent of its value. (No cars currently emit at that level.)

First year 'showroom tax' will apply to cars emitting 161g/km or more. Some owners will benefit from a drop in VED: cars between 121-130g/km by £30, for example.

£84m has been put aside to repair potholes. It's estimated it will cost £800m to eradicate the issue.

£25m will go to the 'Managed Motorways' initiative to open up hard shoulders during peak times, reducing congestion.

• Manifesto

Build a high-speed rail line between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

No road pricing scheduled for at least five years.

£2bn committed to researching renewable energy - £1bn of that from the private sector - including transport schemes.

CONSERVATIVE

The Conservative party hasn't made specific pledges on day-to-day motoring costs, though it's unlikely there'll be any sweeping changes. Already though, it has outlined a similar commitment to electric cars as Labour.

• Manifesto

Introduce a 'Fair Fuel Stabiliser' that will keep fuel costs level by lowering fuel duty when the oil price rises and raising duty when it falls.

Oppose road pricing schemes.

Fund alternative road safety measures to speed cameras.

Aim for a 34 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020 - the same as Labour. Car emissions will be scrutinised to reach that target.

Promise to make funding available for a UK-wide charging infrastructure for electric and plug-in hybrid cars - but no specific amount.

Build a congestion-busting high-speed rail network between major UK cities, starting in 2015.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

The Liberal Democrats will place emphasis on increased public transport use, but the party is vague on how it will get people out of their cars. It will focus on measures that make car alternatives more convenient - like ensuring that new offices have facilities for cyclists.

• Manifesto

Raise fuel duty at the same rate as economic growth.

Cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020 - more than the other major parties.

Charge hauliers for motorway use but use the money to improve public transport.

Propose road pricing at some stage, but put the revenue back into maintaining the road network.

Cut the overall budget for roads, and redirect the money towards re-opening regional train lines. Cut rail fares.

Introduce a bus scrappage scheme to renew the bus fleet.

GREEN PARTY

All roads lead to fewer cars with the Green Party. It will encourage public transport use by doubling the number of buses on the roads and subsidising fares; nationalise the rail network and provide funds to improve it; increase fuel duty; introduce road pricing and not build any new motorways.

UKIP

The UK Independence Party promises to build new motorways, widen the existing ones, and even redistribute fuel tax back to drivers when the oil price is low. Like the main parties, it will also build a UK-wide high-speed railway. It opposes 'green taxes' however, which means it will probably scrap CO2-based VED, though it has promised to invest heavily in the development of cleaner cars.

[daveyboy]

lib dems.???

"Charge hauliers for motorway use but use the money to improve public transport"

when hauliers are faced with more costs the only way for them to make money is to cut drivers wages which affects me.
spend all the money on public transport which i dont use, but you cant move 30 tons of cement or 26 pallets of beans on a bus. you can move it by train but the process takes to long and you need a truck at either end to get it to and from the train.

so they are not getting my vote.

labour. we are going to face the same crap as now.
conservatives. i never believe a thing the say.


ukip. dont know the rest of there policies but certainly looking good for the motorist

[philoldsmobile]

this is the problem i face.. i was swinging towards lib dem, but think their transport policies are crap! i like UKIP's transpot policies, but everything else they say is rubbish, plus they have no chance at all.  Conservative seem to be about the only option - something i never thought i'd say...

[Gator]

dont forget though they may say they would do this or that but how they going to actually charge for motorway use that idea would get canned pretty quick imo

[Fieldy]

Quoting: Gator

dont forget though they may say they would do this or that but how they going to actually charge for motorway use  that idea would get canned pretty quick imo

No-one believes a politician when they say something 'good' for the public, yet they say something 'bad' for the public and we believe they will do it....

I for one am still swayed for Lib Dem

[Gator]

yeah same here tbh id never vote tory but want this shower out of office asap

that said our MP (labour) is an absolutely top bloke does a lot of good and is worthy to represent us and they say you should vote for your MP not the party but i couldnt do it Brown needs stringing up not voting for

[Big Mouse]

A vote for anyone other than the two main protagonists is a wasted vote imho.

The lib dems will not get enough votes to get overall power, not anywhere like enough. Clegg is coming across as the pretty boy of politics at the moment but thats no different to all the the housewives betting on the favourite at the grand national each year. The best they could possibly hope for is a hung parliment and share power with one of the others - and that would force to them to drop their policies and fall into line with the main party so you still won't get who you voted for.

Their transport and immigration policies are a joke; the only way any government can get the public to increase their use of public transport is to price them out of their cars. Charging hauliers for motorway use will have the exact effect that Daveyboy outlines above; lower wages, enforced deadlines means higher prices at the syupermarket and more accidents on the road as tired, underpaid drivers try to meet deadlines to keep their jobs.

A 40% reduction in greenhouse gases?? preposterous unless they tax you off the road, killing industry as they do it.

Using trains to move goods? they might has well open all the canals again. How the hell they think that public transport is going to work for everyone is totally beyond my understanding.

Their immigration policy is to grant an amnesty to all illegals already here!! every country that has tried that has seen an increase in illegals finding a way across their borders.

Labours chances have taken a dramatic change for the worse when Brown lied through his teeth on national TV during an election debate!! How can anyone trust a party where lying automatically becomes so second nature to them even when he must have known that it would be so easy for the media to reveal it to the nation within 24 hours. Even when his testicles are on the chopping block he still insists of asking for the sharper knife!

UKip won't get in nor will the green party; neither will ever get enough votes, most parlimentary candidates don't even get enough votes to get their deposit back.

Voting for lib dem, ukip or the green party or any other of the nutter parties might ease your consciences but if will give you exactly f**k all in terms of a different government.

Anyone who grew up in the 60's and early 70's could have told you what a shower of shite labour are; nothing changes in their underlying policies, its always the same - tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. They raise the cost of living for everyone except the workshy and leave us with a huge debt everytime. Last time in the 70s they put us in hock to the IMF to such an extent that it took almost 25 years for the country to pay the debt back!! This time the debt is almost 15 times bigger!!

If they actually spent the money on the right stuff instead of giving it away to every hairy arsed, vegan tree hugger in the country we might not be in the crap we are now.

Whoever gets in is going to hurt you all - a lot - in the next few years as they are going to have to tax the crap out of us to try and make up the huge shortfall in the countrys coffers. Of course, Brown giving away all of our gold reserves for next to nothing and then raiding our pensions (mine included) helped no end

I don't just want labour out, I want the party disbanded and never allowed to run for power again. I lost over £75,000 in pension rights due to his theft of pension profits, money I'll never see again or get to live on when the wife and I retire.

You might like the tree hugging, cardi wearing libdems but they'll be worse than Labour if the got in. You might hate the tories but frankly its the only logical and sensible choice given the options of more labour or a labour/libdem alliance

[philoldsmobile]

its definitely a two horse race, but TBH my money is on a hung parliament, there are a lot of people oop north that will never vote conservative.

I really want brown out, so i'm voting the lesser of two evils, doesn't mean I think they are good, or agree with what they want to do, but I don't see any other option.

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

there are a lot of people oop north that will never vote conservative.

True, but there are always people who will want something for nothing. Have Labour made good on their promises to the north that they would reinstate the unions powers again? have they b*llocks because they knew as well as the tories that the unions had got out of control and needed castrating.  And the unions paid the labour party a lot of money each year so they could have a controlling say in how the country was run; when they didn't get there own way they went on strike. Labour put up with it because it put money in their pockets while it came pouring out of everyone elses.

The northerners not voting for the tories is no different to the pointless bitching between the arabs and the jews in Palestine, its rarely to do with the  reality of the worlds politics.  

Its about time they grew up and started looking at the world we all live in and making a decision based on reality rather than "I'll vote for them because my dad did and his dad did" They might as well let their cats vote for them

[Gator]

i really dont get the wasted vote argument if the party you vote for represents your views how can it be wasted so if you vote tory and labour win has your vote also been wasted

[philoldsmobile]

i guess it depends on what you want your vote to do. if you want it to represent your views, its not wasted, if you want it to effect a certain change (point in case to get labour out) then you kinda need to gamble on the best bet.

a true wasted vote is one thats cast without any consideration to a parties manifesto, if you've thought about it, its not wasted.

[Gator]

agreed

[philoldsmobile]

Quoting: Big Mouse

Its about time they grew up and started looking at the world we all live in and making a decision based on reality rather than "I'll vote for them because my dad did and his dad did" They might as well let their cats vote for them

Absolutely...there should be no 'brand loyalty' in politics. there should be a minimum I.Q. to vote though...

[Gator]

i think you might find that northerners dont/didnt generally vote tory is because torys tend/tended to be hoorays that live in the south and are likely people are likely to vote similar to their parents due to being from the same background

[philoldsmobile]

this is also true, the seed doesn't generally drop very far from the tree, as they say.

charging hauliers for using motorways is utter madness.... that alone is (one of many) deal breakers for me, our haulage industry is battered and bruised, we need to protect it, some have already registered their trucks overseas (notably holland) more tax revenue gone.

[Gator]

the problem for working class people is no party represents us anymore the labour party is no longer a working class movement and has become all middle class with no one in the current parliament ever having a proper job unlike the old days when labour politicians had been miners or shipbuilders ect

[HardRockCamaro]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

there should be a minimum I.Q. to vote

I couldn't agree more.
It shouldn't be a case of everyone has the right to vote when they hit 18, it should be everyone has the right to vote once they have an IQ greater than that of a turnip.
The election will be decided by the biggest group in the UK, which means people with the following characteristics will decide who runs your country for you:

Reads Heat magazine
Is genuinely interested in what Katie did next
Whose idea of a great night out is 15 pints of Stella (or Bacardi Breezers), then a fight outside their local Wetherspoons and then throw up in the cab (boys or girls)
Cries when their football team loses a match because it matters *that much*
Watches Big Brother and even votes
Wears their trousers pulled halfway down (boys)
Couldn't point to Iraq on a map
Finishes every sentence with "innit" and liberally uses words like "bangin", "wicked" while doing that weird shaking their hand in mid air with their thumb and pinky finger sticking out...

I could go on...  

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Gator

i think you might find that northerners dont/didnt generally vote tory is because torys tend/tended to be hoorays that live in the south and are likely people are likely to vote similar to their parents due to being from the same background

my argument exactly

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Gator

i really dont get the wasted vote argument

A general election is the opportunity for the individual have their chance to effect change in the government. The libdems will not get a majority therefore casting a vote for them is unlikely to bear fruit i.e. a libdem government.

By all means vote for whoever takes your fancy but voting for a party that simply won't get in is hardly worth the time it takes to vote and it won't change anything nationally which is what the election is all about in the first place.

[Gator]

Quoting: Big Mouse

Quoting: Gator
i think you might find that northerners dont/didnt generally vote tory is because torys tend/tended to be hoorays that live in the south and are likely people are likely to vote similar to their parents due to being from the same background

my argument exactly

yeah but that doesnt mean they didnt know what they were voting for, in the 70s the issues were clear and the parties separated by ideologies to do with class

its almost like you are saying anyone that doesnt vote tory obviously doesnt know their own mind

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

The election will be decided by the biggest group in the UK, which means people with the following characteristics will decide who runs your country for you:

Reads Heat magazine
Is genuinely interested in what Katie did next
Whose idea of a great night out is 15 pints of Stella (or Bacardi Breezers), then a fight outside their local Wetherspoons and then throw up in the cab (boys or girls)
Cries when their football team loses a match because it matters *that much*
Watches Big Brother and even votes
Wears their trousers pulled halfway down (boys)
Couldn't point to Iraq on a map
Finishes every sentence with "innit" and liberally uses words like "bangin", "wicked" while doing that weird shaking their hand in mid air with their thumb and pinky finger sticking out...

Thank God for small mercies that most of them won't be able to find the polling stations, we'd have that twat from Ndubz as the leader of the country

[Big Mouse]

Quoting: Gator

its almost like you are saying anyone that doesnt vote tory obviously doesnt know their own mind

not at all, there are parts of the south where the opposite is true.

I just think its such a shame so many waste their votes by voting the way their parents and grandparents voted instead of thinking rationally for themselves and make their choice rather than one thats been bred into them

[Gator]

Quoting: Big Mouse

Quoting: Gator
its almost like you are saying anyone that doesnt vote tory obviously doesnt know their own mind


not at all, there are parts of the south where the opposite is true.

I just think its such a shame so many waste their votes by voting the way their parents and grandparents voted instead of thinking rationally for themselves and make their choice rather than one thats been bred into them

i guess at least they are voting its the "dont do politics" crowd that are really wasting a vote imo