W ho said this? "The nation wants a national road system
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which meets its expectations. The Government aims to provide it" Answer: The Conservative Government in 1990. Now who said this? The state "cannot, and should not try to do everything". Answer: Conservative Prime Minister John Major in 1995. And there we were thinking that the money we pay in vehicle excise duly and Fuel tax would be used by the Government to give us the national road network we need. How silly of us. According to the PM's Mansion House speech last week, that's not how it works at all. In order to reduce public spending to below 40% of national income something's got to give. And that something is the £1.8 billion-a-year trunk road programme. Don't Fret. The private sector is just waiting to rush in [sic] and take over all those axed projects and then er...charge us For using the roads that the Government should have built itself with the revenue raised from us road users. As scams go, it's a peach. According to Mr Major it means "tough choices between competing prioritie". Tough For whom? We all know what the Tory party's "priorities" are—tax cuts of sufficient magnitude to bribe us into saving the Government's collective skin.
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