I've just noticed that politicians take two completely unconnected things, link them with ''and that is why'', and then claim that they are making sense. As in: ''We appreciate that petrol is very expensive and essential to the system and that is why we didn't really stop the protesters.'' Or, ''the sky can be very blue, and that is why we are today revealing a new system of inner-city regeneration''. Politicians are devious, and that is why I hate the way they answer questions and avoid things. Tony Blair then goes on and on about he ''really must say again to you'' that we don't understand the big picture but he does, which is very annoying. But, you know, maybe he is right as Britain is in the grip of ''gullibility logic'' as numpties flock like sheep to the latest accepted truth. The oil-producing countries must be giggling like little schoolboys as they realise they have Europe by the
short and curlies.
Michael Portillo did one of these ''and that is why'' things when he said on Question Time that he wanted to make refugees more welcome here in Britain ''and that is why'' the Conservatives wanted to put them into detention centres when they arrived. Eh? A little boy is told by his father that they are going on holiday to England, and he is told to shake his fist when they cross the Border. He leans out of the window. ''I hate you all,'' he shouts at the top of his voice. ''We want independence, we remember Bannockburn, and David Sole's walk as well.'' His father tells him to shut up. ''Why?'' he asks. ''Because we are only at Hamilton Cross!'' says his dad.
But that family drove and that is why it is such nonsense to say that cars are expensive, and to say that petrol is expensive, and to say that motoring in general is expensive is nonsense, too. If it was expensive, your honour, then why are there so many V, W, and X registered cars on the road? All you pass along the road now are these brand-new, sparkling, and shiny things that are pretty new. I am not some kind of saint here: we have them as well outside the house. Motoring, as a portion of life, is still far too cheap and the sooner we get out of cars and on to motorbikes and scooters and bicycles the better. Trouble is, of course, that even if you are caught in a traffic jam you can sit in real comfort nowadays and listen to the radio, or Radio Head, or radio gaga, or the Olympics. And if, like me today, you have to be in Edinburgh, then Inverkeithing, then Edinburgh, then Glasgow, and
it's all scheduled, then the quickest way is by car, and that is why I take the car. I hate myself for it.
As a kid I remember all three of us, me and my two brothers, cramming into the back of my father's Morris Marina - oh, yes, the CBI were great payers - and that was the only car we could afford. Mind you, it doesn't beat the media correspondent I know who says she was drugged by her parents for long trips in the car. I sometimes wish I was drugged sleepy stuck on that flaming M8. When will that road be widened and a toll stuck on it? It is sheer torture. Petrol should be taxed more, just as rich people should be taxed more. Motoring is far too cheap, too many people can afford cars, and cars are ruining the city of Glasgow.
But here, I suppose, is the real reason for writing this: on the wider issue, then, who were all these conmen from the transport industry on strike a couple of weeks ago? Who were all these numpties on picket lines, being backed by people who didn't really understand that this wasn't a group of national heroes, they were the same kind of people who would have been swayed by Hitler in the Second World War, they were ''easily led'', and that is why they did what they did. Some of them just got a kick from being important and causing trouble.
But back to the transport folk who clog up our roads with artics as they do. On the one hand they can reclaim VAT, unlike most people, so it all costs them 171/2% less to buy their chosen form of fuel. On the other hand they can put all their transport costs against tax, which means it costs them less again by a further tax break. That's all their transport costs. And on the third hand they can load up with cheap fags and booze and make a wee cut for themselves on the way back across the Channel. And that is why I think it would be a good idea if more essential service people, like nurses, could be allowed to reclaim the VAT on their fuel. Mind you, that then makes fuel cheaper, motoring cheaper, and more cars go on the road.
Perhaps we need to think of giving essential service people, like nurses, free scooters and weatherproof gear to get them to work. The future of transport is one of the biggest issues we face, and that is why we need more trains, more two-wheeled transport, and fewer bloody cheap cars on the road.
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