Tony Blair’s think tank wants Labour to start charging us all RENT to use OUR roads
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has urged Labour Party chancellor Rachel Reeves to start charging people per mile to use roads. The move would end the general principle of roads as free at the point of use.
The thinktank suggests the government should charge cars and vans at an initial rate of 1p per mile and 2.5p to 4p for lorries.
Tony Blair: start renting roads out
Now tony Blair’s organisation is using the projected increase in electric car use and the resulting loss of government revenue from fuel duty as an excuse to charge people for using roads.
But back in 2007 the former prime minister was also trying to introduce the road charging scheme. At that time, congestion was the excuse. And 1.8m people signed a petition against it.
The aim is the same: depleting the principle of infrastructure as the universally funded backbone of the economy, and moving towards infrastructure as an individually charged privilege. Indeed, TBI says that the road rental prices would increase in the years ahead. It’s mission creep.
Blair advises the Keir Starmer government. Still, a Labour spokesperson said “We have no plans to introduce road pricing”.
Privatising infrastructure
The thing is, Reeves and the Labour leadership agree with the move away from publicly funded infrastructure. It’s arguably even worse than TBI’s recommendation because they want to privatise the building of infrastructure, allowing companies to milk profit from what should be public development.
Reeves hosted the first meeting of the British Infrastructure Taskforce at No 11 Downing Street on 18 October. Whether this taskforce replaces the similar British Infrastructure Council she had already formed is unclear. Both are made up of private financers from banks such as Lloyds and HSBC and investment funds like BlackRock.
The goal is the usual: privatised profit, socialised losses. As the British Infrastructure Council admitted in a breakfast meeting in June:
Executives at the breakfast discussed ways in which the UK Infrastructure Bank and the British Business Bank, both taxpayer-owned, could be liable for the first loss on complex and long-running projects
One scheme Reeves is floating is private finance initiative (PFI)-style deals for building infrastructure. In the vein of TBI’s road rental charges, the government would introduce potentially indefinite user charges (tolls) to compensate private sector cost and profit.
Featured image via Tony Blair Institute – YouTube
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Take away the fuel duty completely and I am all for charging by the mile.
It makes sense especially with EVs taking on the role of cars.
But exempt, must be fire, police, ambulances, buses, and all armed forces vehicles…
I would imagine with this current government it would be an added tax on top of car tax just as fuel duty will always go up, tax anyone affluent and extravagant enough to own a vehicle!
That well known idiot Blair is thinking of ways to take more money from everyone just as he did when in power, we lost more of the NHS to private health under his watch than the Conservatives under Thatcher, these people are no better than Tories make no mistake
It would mean anything transported will go up in price, so much for getting the U.K. to be working and producing goods, more money out of everyone’s pocket regardless if you own a vehicle. Why not advocate to get goods back onto the railways, it’s the more sensible move, good for the environment but obviously not popular because the transport companies would go bust, less revenue for this greedy government who care for nothing and no one apart from the rich…once again money talks.
I totally agree with D. Palmer, apart from Blair being ‘an idiot’ – Blair, and all the other so-called ‘idiots’ influencing our lives, (from politicians to bloggers), know exactly what they are saying and doing, and why.
Charging by the mile seems reasonable and appeals to the selfish gene we all have, (I don’t drive), but it’s the sneaky thin end of the wedge. I read that the Silicon Valley geeks and billionaire usual suspects are already talking of removing elected governments from our lives and letting private firms run everything!
Illegal streaming bulldozed and morphed it’s way into becoming legal via things like Spotify, which has killed new music and stolen musician’s livelihoods in poor financial payments for their music. Uber are using similar illegal practices, (despite billions in fines), and the exploitation of its drivers, etc, to wipeout local taxi firms in cities and towns around the world. (The clue is in the name). Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook from his friends, came to a financial arrangement in court later, and now it is almost impossible not to have an account on that platform, if you want to run a business or have some kind of interaction in the modern world.
We already have only a few supermarket firms monopolising our food retail in the UK, again using ruthless questionable tactics.
The sport and cultural world has and is going the same way. They are all just money-making rackets for the already super-rich; UK football companies owned by foreign investors, fans ignored, and now they want to smash the traditional football league. (I’m angry, and I have no interest in sport!). Even the once a year nonsense of Eurovision has been opened up to Australia(?), and it’s only a matter of time before it is rebranded the ‘International Song Contest’, so America can win every year.
Jerry Springer begat Jeremy Kyle. Ratings, money, and indulging our worst prurient instincts became more important than good taste and protecting the vulnerable from themselves.
Charles Saatchi in the 80’s ‘disrupted’ and fast-tracked the monetisation of the traditional organic arts ecosystem in Britain; the selling of manufactured celebrity artists soon took precedence over talent. (I have over-simplified for brevity). Simon Cowell did the same to Saturday night ‘entertainment’ and the seeking out, ‘nurturing’, (and mocking) of new young talent, and we have seen the recent deaths such systems produce.
Whether it’s road tax, the NHS, sport, high art or low art, these are not isolated events, imo, they are all linked. These are the warning signs of our potential future, a future that seems very close and likely to happen.
P.S. And let’s not forget the monopoly of Ticketmaster et al, and ‘competitive pricing’. Imagine that on ‘popular roads’ during ‘popular time periods’?!? Oh! We’re only charging you more to reduce traffic and pollution! Yeah, right…
It used to be called the “Road Fund License” before that just got rolled into car tax.
What goes around, comes around. Nothing ‘original’ here. Move along.