Selective Hearing

I was interested to read in the Times that Sweden have gone one better than London with congestion charging having had the time to observe ours in action. Living right in the heart of the congestion zone I am a bit screwed if I wanted to, for example, take my little car to the supermarket to stock up on a shedload of stuff - since it means purchasing a weeks worth of congestion credit to do so. Forget going there on a Saturday when the charge doesn’t apply or late at night when the charge doesn’t apply (and when I could benefit from the 24 hour opening hours) - since there will always be a queue to get in and park.

I don’t bother so everything gets delivered now. For which I pay a big fat delivery charge but im past caring. In fact I think I might spend less shopping on line because you miss all those cunning special offers (“12 shamppos for the price of 10!!”)

Interestingly (if youre bored) London and Stockholm both have the same number of drivers entering the charging zone each day but drivers in London pay more and are five times more likely to be fined. Funny that, really, what with Ken in charge. Drivers in London have to remember to pay each day and can do so at a shop, by text message, online or by ringing a call centre. In principle that’s straight forward enough but actually it’s a real effort so who can be bothered. Only those who really have to drive i suppose.

In Stockholm, more than 60% of drivers have a credit card-sized electronic tag fitted on the windscreen behind the rear-view mirror. This is read electronically by beacons on overhead gantries that straddle the road at 18 points of entry to the city. The system then deducts payments from drivers’ bank accounts by direct debit.

Stockholm’s mayor, Annika Billstrom, said: “We have learnt from London’s mistakes (replace London with Ken) and have a more modern system which the motorist sees as fair (not in Kens vocabulary). We do not want to penalise people for forgetting to pay (Ken does). We recognise that it sometimes takes a while to get round to remembering” (Ken couldn’t care less. Ken just hates everyone).

See, that’s a nicer approach. Plus Stockholm’s system has cut twice as much traffic as Ken Livingstone’s scheme, despite drivers paying an average of only £2 a day!

“HRH the Mayor of London” raised the flat-rate daily charge by 60% to a whopping £8 last summer without any consultation. Then cunningly sent out consultation forms to people already paying the charge to ask if other London Zones, like Hammersmith, should be exempt or not. They are HARDLY likely to say yes are they. So Hammersmith gets the scheme now too. And Ken gets to say he consulted ‘everyone’. Clever eh.

Stockholm will also have a referendum on September 17 to decide whether the scheme should continue.

So there we have it, if it were needed - further proof that Ken is a despot.

I’ve no problem with CCTV in London at all. We’ve lived with it since the happy days of Irish terrorism and by and large they do make me feel safer, are good for catching terrorists as we saw last summer etc. The Swedish system they describe above is (apparently) far less intrusive.

The latest cameras here are SOMETHING ELSE!

Here’s a cluster I spotted recently straddling a residential road in Lambeth. And that’s only half a section – this thing stretched out over half the street.

Compare with regular versions:-



I gather that TfL are heading to Stockholm and plan to bring the new system to London in 2008. We''ll see how fair the system ends up once Ken gets hold of it.

Whilst on the ranting topic of Ken.... (bear with me here). A few months ago I wrote again to his office and asked him why I had been accepted and then unaccepted onto the housing scheme for first time buyers. I got a reply a few days ago. I was told in no uncertain terms that as Im not a ‘key’ ‘worker’ I cant join their special club.

‘Key’ ‘workers’ is a term used by Ken Korp to highlight the ‘much more desperate’ plight of public ‘service’ workers trying to get onto the housing ladder. Private sector workers -who earn the -SAME MONEY- don’t get a look in, ya see.

Ken’s response was that he sympathized with my plight and was trying to widen the term to include bus drivers.

Eh? (mental image cue SouthPark: “Drugs are bad kids mmmkay?”)

I used the term PRIVATE WORKER about 20 times. At no point did I mention that I drive a bus for a living. OR that I was remotely concerned about bus drivers getting onto the housing ladder. Id make a crap bus driver. What was he trying to tell me?

The following week I get a great big pull out colour newsletter telling me how Ken is ‘listening to me’ and ‘working with me’ for a better city.

*sarcastic evil smile*.

It also has a ever so helpful small detachable section for me to request the brochure in Urdu (and maaaaany other languages). Just in case.