Ah well...at least we asked.

As Onslow would say "ah niicee" - Ramblers are entitled to a choice, drivers aren't. Says it all really. Perhaps another petition should be started, demanding that Smilling Tony and his Chums define exactly animals are more equal than the others, just so's we know.

Richard

That's easy. Anyone he went to school with, anyone who has done him any favours and anyone contributing to party funds are more equal than the others. Motorists and especially 4x4 drivers are the least equal of all.

A

The email you are thinking of is probably the one that those of us who signed got, directing is to a web page that repeats that it's all for the environment, bunnies and cuddly polar bears. And the butterflies.

Here it is;

If VED is essential, then how come so many categories don't pay it (or have a zero rate if you prefer) ? If it costs £160 to collect it for my car, then surely it costs £160 to collect it for my IIA. Conversely if it costs £0 to collect it for my IIA, then it must cost £0 to collect it for the car. On seconds thoughts it might be wise to keep quite about it, they might realise that it does cost something to print the bits of paper and maintain an IT system.

Oh, and apart from when they are under an anaesthetic, when were polar bears cuddly (fascinating creatures, but I wouldn't want to cuddle one).

Adrian

"The Government believes that VED ensures all motorists contribute to the fixed costs incurred in maintaining the road network..."

Contribute??? VED raises about 80m a year (or is it 80bn) of which about

12m/bn is returned to us in the form of a road building programme. (Numbers are right, order of magnitude may be wrong.) That's like charging me £13, giving me back a £2 pint of beer, and then claiming that I am "contributing" to the cost of my drink (and I should be grateful it isn't more).

The arrogant, slimy, hypocritical, word-twisting bastards. I loathe this lot with a poison I have never felt for any politicians before - and I am old enough to remember Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Thatcher. (I was born under Churchill, but too young to remember that!)

Arrrgh.

They even admit it: "VED provides an important source of Government revenues to fund public services"

As for your description of them, I couldn't agree more.

Never mind that, how come a car addict like me with four cars, who works from home, pays more VED than my one-car neighbour who commutes for an hour to work every day!

Personally I can't think of many more scary animals than bears! People get all misty-eyed about them, they are impressive but damned scary above all else.

Politicians are far worse - polar bears don't attack you at home ( unless you live around the arctic circle of course)

Derek healthy distrust on anybody who thinks they can tell me what I need

Well, I see that the PM's reply to those who don't like the ID card (note he's ignored the one about the road tracking scheme) has come in, straight into the spam sin-bin, so if you're at all interested in weak, carefully worded arguments that deliberately don't say something but say enough to put that something into your head as if they had said it, then watch your spam bin.

The funny bit is that it ends "Yours sincerely, Tony Blair", what a laff!

Yes, I got one of those. It's all a clever plot, I now realise. Set up a petition site and get the email addresses of all those who disagree with your policies, then take the opportunity to email them all with a long and rather dull explanation of why they are all WRONG. This called the Big Conversation or Listening To The People. They are like a religious nutter I once had an argument with at Uni - if you agree with them, fine; if you don't, it's because you have missed some major revelation and it's only a matter of time before you fall into the "correct" way of thinking. It is never because they may possibly be wrong.

That's a beautiful example of an oxymoron.

Partially, or even largely. You talk a lot of sense. But I disagree with your phrasing of the hunting lobby as "them", as opposed to "we". In the face of tyranny [1], we are all hunters, anglers, smokers, whatever. Benjamin Franklin: "we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"?

[1] Ten, even five years ago, I would have laughed at anyone using this word to describe a British government. Now, I think we are heading that way, in small and "acceptable" steps.

Well yes, I'm actually in one of thiose hobbies that could be wiped out if the government feels there's political gain to be had, I fly radio controlled planes and a couple of recent accidents have drawn the government's attention.

It's already dam near impossible to get planning permission just to fly in a field a mile away from anyone!, H&S is getting silly, the child protection laws mean that few dare introduce kids to the hobby, and the spectre of compulsary licensing is on the horizon.

Anyone seen the film V for Vendetta?, some of it is typically far fetched and silly as for any action film, but the underlying message is a chilling warning where this country is heading. There's a chancellor ruling by whim backed by a police state, anyone they don't like is labeled a terrorist and detained without trial, Moslems have been demonised to the point they've all had to be 'removed' from the country, there's a camera on every street corner with P.A. and state TV telling us what to think, hmm. Greg