Comments on: Milk the motorist - again.

By: Jonathan Robson

Jonathan Robson — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:59:00 +0000

Well said John - No ifs, No buts, No excuses, No mitigating circumstances - thats Labour all over. Just like the BBC licence tax

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8ee_1210010683&p=1

Frightening stuff.

By: David Morris

David Morris — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:51:38 +0000

If Employers in Nottingham don’t pass the parking charges on to their employees you can bet your life that HMRC will be applying a few “benefits in kind” deductions from their Tax Codes. “Hard working families we feel your pain.” indeed.

By: Travis Bickle

Travis Bickle — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:48:53 +0000

Commercial Radio would grind to a halt without all the government advertising revenue they receive. Tax doesn’t have to be taxing and all that garbage. It’s all just like the hoops they make travellers jump through at airport security points, window dressing. Substance over spin my rrrrs.

I suspect quite a bit of advertising revenue could be saved by an incoming administration.

By: AlanofEngland

AlanofEngland — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:08:20 +0000

The abolition of VED is a matter for future policy making. All I’m saying is the people who will cheat by not having the required cover, be it insurance, MOT or VED, would probably be driving unsafe vehicles that might kill someone, and they should be indentified and crushed forthwith.

By: Little Black Sambo

Little Black Sambo — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:53:02 +0000

AlanofEngland, since the record-keeping is so brilliant the display of a disc (let alone three of them, as you suggest) should be unnecessary. Before a police car pulls you over the police already have all the information they need about you and your car, whether you have paid up, had the MOT, are insured, etc. Not displaying a disc, or discs, is yet another offence, which ought to be abolished. VED ought to be abolished in any case; they get all the money they need from fuel duty.

By: Stuart Fairney

Stuart Fairney — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:32:26 +0000

For some reason I find all the adverts for the “People’s” post office even more disturbing

By: Mr Ecks

Mr Ecks — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:15:22 +0000

If these clowns are so good and they have the “number” -so to speak -of all these offenders then why are they wasting millions on witless t v ads?. Why don’t they just motor along and close in on the malefactors?.

By: Bexleyite

Bexleyite — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:13:58 +0000

It doesn’t work anyway.

My car was untaxed for 6 months, kept on a private driveway without a SORN. Nothing happened.

I used it only rarely, for a 2 mile trip to work, when it rained and I couldn’t use the push bike. I was caught on a mobile ANPR camera. Nothing happened.

I went to Yorkshire on the M1, went to the A1 through Nottinghamshire because of a tailback following an accident.

Nottinghamshire is full of ANPR cameras. Nothing happened.

Finally I went to the local DVLA office to tax the car and to pay the back tax.

They re-taxed the car and said we don’t take back tax.

It’s like the TV tax. If you don’t pay, they send you computer-generated letters based on the fact that a previous occupant had a TV and a TV licence.

Then they send someone round to knock on your door.

Who opens the door to anyone who hasn’t phoned and said we’ll be round at such and such a time?

There’s a moral somewhere.

Except for the bloke who sawed his car in half when it was SORNed but the council decided he was liable because the back bumper was over-hanging the pavement.

Now, that’s a political statement.

By: Adrian Peirson

Adrian Peirson — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:45:09 +0000

They are trying to Intimidate, they are doing it at schools too, my children are now told they are not alowed to put their arms round each other, no Physical contact at all, they are not allowed to Play British Bulldog.
Getting them used to being Pushed around by the state.

These People are ( becoming a little like? ed)Communists, Reid Straw, Mandelson, Hariet Harmthem, Prescott, they want a cowed Populace.

http://www.eutruth.org.uk

By: ROJ

ROJ — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:31:31 +0000

I think that charging companies for providing parking spaces for employees is an outrageous idea, but then, what can we expect from a Labour controlled council. But it is not really in keeping with the spirit of localism to suggest that the central government veto the idea. If more power is passed from the centre to local organisations, as it should be, there are likely to be more decisions, locally, that we may disagree with. It is up to the voters of Nottingham to express their view on these parking charges the next time they get to vote for their local council.

By: Bazman

Bazman — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:15:02 +0000

Does not apply to dumped cars. Or vandalised cars on council land. The owners rights are then above the publics right not to have a ruined and dangerous near their houses and the parts used to destroy further property True or not. I was told this was the case. When talk of council collusion in an illegal scrapyard and legal advice needed. The car was removed. Coincidence?
How many cars have been crushed? Not many I should think. To expensive.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:59:15 +0000

And let us not forget the scandal of hospital parking and the lady who was fined for watching her husband dying…..

Left wing governments easily turn to violent repression. It is noteworthy how the Guardian cartoons are much more spiteful and violent than, say, the Telegraph’s. I think this violence is caused by frustration: things go wrong, so whose fault is it? Obviously the hated Tories, who, as we all know, walk round in top hats and tails and exploit the poor workers.
I have just finished Montefiore’s book on Stalin, who had this fixation in spades: the wreckers!

By: Fergus

Fergus — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:38:00 +0000

My word, I actually agree with what is said here. I’m all in favour of selectively taxing car users to dissuade them from unnecessary car use (and use of unnecessarily large/inefficient cars). However, based on the same viewpoint, the idea of perfectly good cars being crushed is abhorrent. Does it really happen?

By: Matthew Reynolds

Matthew Reynolds — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:52:26 +0000

Just axe VED totally as it is a complex tax that does nothing to help the environment as congestion & emmissions rise . Motorists are paying too much for a state sector that wastes too much !

By: Derek W. Buxton

Derek W. Buxton — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:30:35 +0000

Such an action must under “Common Law” be illegal, it is theft.
Is there not a clause in the “Bill of Rights” that forbids fines or forfeitures without due process? What has happened to the traditional safeguards fought for by our ancestors? We are no longer a free people, we are slaves!

By: AlanofEngland

AlanofEngland — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:03:34 +0000

On the matter of paying the Road Tax and the requirement to show a valid disc, what’s wrong with that, and to take the matter further why not be required to display a valid MOT disc (now compulsory in NI) and a valid Insurance Disc (compulsory on the continent)? They are all legal requirements, and there are apparently hundreds of thousands of people breaking the laws, and guess what, we who DO pay are penalised by having to pay extra for the lawbreakers. In my view any police officer, traffic warden or local authority officer should be able to report ANY vehicle not displaying the correct THREE discs, the vehicle should then be clamped and the vehicle examined for roadworthiness. If found NOT to be roadworthy the vehicle should be scrapped forthwith, at a great saving of time and possibly lives!! Any other vehicle owners should be given seven days to pay, after which the vehicle should be legally sold to defray all costs to the authorities.

By: Patrick, London

Patrick, London — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:32:08 +0000

Well we’ve had 11 years of this (nonsense -ed) and hopefully not too much longer to put up with it. Do you know John if there is someone in the Conservative party who is keeping a list of all the nannying regulations that should be killed off? It would be a crying shame if Cameron got to be PM but then didn’t have a very clear idea of all the things that needed to be repealed or undone in short order. In fact if he doesn’t have this I think a swift sense of let-down would ensue.

Reply: I gave one such list in my Economic Policy Review

By: Rose

Rose — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:49:52 +0000

I haven’t seen this advertisement, but I have seen a similarly totalitarian one on the BBC about licence fees - twice - and I still can’t believe they could produce such a nasty little film for the audience which pays their wages. It betrays the same hate-filled socialist attitude as the one you describe: “We are the Masters now.” Thank goodness for the internet, or we might think we were living in a Kafka novel!

By: adam

adam — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:40:51 +0000

Its from agenda 21/sustainable development, the Al Gore/Maurice Strong crowd.

more specifically UNECE ‘environment for europe’ process, later renamed ‘eco forum’

members of the executive across europe went to UN issue and working groups. I have a copy of some of the conclusions, its very anti-car.
Talks about stopping all road building, pedestrianising city centres, promoting rail travel and cycling.

Crushing cars is symbolic of that agenda.

By: David Burch

David Burch — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:58:35 +0000

I am very glad that I am not alone in finding the DVLA adverts offensive. Threatening the tax payer may not be the best policy to get most of them to pay.

Getting rid of this “poll” tax as well as its friend the TV licence “poll” tax would save millions of pounds in overcomplicated civil servants and their administration systems.

Its is also of note that the TV Licence adverts on the BBC although more jokey are also threatening in a “we are watching you and we know where you are way”.

By: Tim Bull

Tim Bull — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:51:55 +0000

John: To witness real menace, you need to view the “… we’ve got everyones name and address on a database …. there’s no escape …. pay up your TV licence, or else …” production.

I’m not one to make flippant references to Huxley’s ‘1984′, but in the case of that particular ad, comparison is entirely justified.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:47:40 +0000

I have stated on here previously how much I object to the number of threatening “adverts” from government and it’s agencies that infest my TV viewing.

Car tax, TV license, carbon footprint, join the army, get training, pay your income tax, benefit fraud etc etc. I would love to know how much money Dot Gov pays out each year on TV and radio campaigns.

It seems the government is trying to put the fear of God into it’s population, could it be a frightened population is easier to control?

We seem to have developed a fine culture in this country under Nanny Labour. They are in danger of turning the criminal justice system into another branch of HMRC. When the criminal justice system is used as little more than a tax raising system, people remove their support for the system.

Hardly a day goes by without it seems, someone or some corporate body being hit by a record fine.

(Para left out)
This country has gone to the dogs over the last eleven years, I just hope when Mr Cameron gets in, he puts right all the injustices and rubbish put in place by Labour.

By: Dr Dan H.

Dr Dan H. — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:45:49 +0000

Interesting how Nottingham Council have waited until after the council elections to release this gem, isn’t it?

By: haddock

haddock — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:12:31 +0000

I would argue that many over the VED infringements are not a crime. I have just renewed my car insurance, online, and it will run for one year; not a minute more or less. When I buy a tax disc for my car it is seldom for one year; not a minute more or less; if I change cars near the end of a month the ‘year’ starts from the first of the month, that ‘year’ could be just a day or two over 11 months.
With the ability of prodnoses to check on a computer if I have paid the VED rather than rely on the date on a tax disc is it not time to stop this hidden fleecing of the motorist? How many motorists have been prosecuted that have not renewed according to the calendar but are within the 365 days they have paid for?

By: Tony Makara

Tony Makara — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:41:00 +0000

These chilling threats from the Labour government via the tele-screen are becoming more frequent and more intimidating. They tell us much about the psychology of this government and its swaggering attitude towards the people it governs. The attacks on the motorist are very much an attack on the individual. The Labour government would much rather see people collectively crammed together like sardines on public transport, by contrast the motorist is a free-spirit, and the government does not like that, so car-owners are hit again and again. Such attacks on motorists are statist ideology dressed up as environmentalism.