Splitters!

🙄

Can I put long shot bets on the outcomes of your long shot bets?

23 of 24, my knowledge of NI politics sadly lacking

Marty McFly hey I’ve seen this one before.jpg

You mean it was easier to promise stuff before you acquired power and now it turns out that governing is difficult? Say it ain’t so!

Seems legit

And that was the only folly the people of Springfield ever embarked upon, except for the popsicle stick skyscraper, and the 50-foot magnifying glass, and that escalator to nowhere.

I think you’re still missing the point but I’m going to assume that it’s intentional now.

It’s been real, chatting with you. Have a good life.

I’m not using the same fuel as other vehicles? Isn’t that kind of the point?

Look, in the end, the tax regime is there to encourage and discourage behaviour in line with overarching government strategy. If the strategy is to stop burning stuff, that should be encouraged and enforced through multiple channels including taxation.

We already pay vehicle tax, same as all other vehicles? If it’s about taxing vehicles per road mile, let’s do that for everyone.

But let’s also put in place an overall tax regime which contributes to the strategic goal of carbon reduction, a multi-faceted aim.

Well, the oil and gas subsidies to private companies that are making record profits currently stands at 18bn, so that makes a big impact in your figure.

I suppose the other thing I’d ask is how much you think climate change is going to cost the UK on an annual basis in pure economic terms

Strategy: let’s stop burning oil which the planet can not afford

Things that support strategy:

• end oil and gas company subsidies
• don’t drill for more oil or start fracking
• invest in and promote public transport
• promote EVs for personal transport

You see how this goes? We decide on the macro level aims and then come up with a range of policies which support those goals

It’s a really interesting point and I hadn’t thought about street parking as an uncosted benefit before. I suppose the suburban semi with a drive also has street parking, which means that they get the benefit too, it’s a public good, but they’re only using it for visitors or n+1 cars. No easy solution for that.

The key point I was making though, before we get too distracted by the parking argument, is that for those of us driving electric without home charging it’s already very expensive and it would be nice to rebalance that if we’re going to move to per mile road pricing.

It is also strange to move just one vehicle fuel type to per mile taxation, rather than all of them.

I’m in a first floor flat, I park on the road outside. On street parking would be sensible but as you say, not mandated at present.

I’m not sure where you’re based, but here in the UK about 60% of urban homes don’t have off-street parking - much of our housing infrastructure was built before cars were a thing.

The complaint is that without off street parking, there is nowhere to put an EV charger, so you have to use public charging infrastructure. Public charging has higher costs, by about 6x.

If the government really had an aim to reduce UK carbon emission, which is its stated position, then encouraging use of public transport and electric transport would be a strategic choice which this new road tax and the increased tax levels for public charging don’t seem to support.

There are many ways in which this could be resolved, none of which are being pursued by this government.

For those of us who can’t charge at home, who are already paying sky high rates for electricity, this is just another kicking on top of the kicking that we’re already getting for the crime of not having big enough houses for charging ports.

Another short-term, non-strategic, ill thought through policy. Yay.

And then walk into a shop which is running its heating at a temperature just slightly cooler than the sun

I wonder which was which

Why is it not symmetrical though?