20th May 2011

Apparently the big society is being reviewed, the suggestion is that it should be called the big deal, so what's the big deal?

It used to be considered part of the social contract between the Government and the public at large.

Now it's to do with we'll be fair if you play by the rules.

But who sets the rules?

Aah, there's the catch.

At present quite a few new ideas are being dreamt up that were not in either of the coalition parties manifesto's, as health workers and students are discovering.

But if you are elected on a manifesto it seems reasonable to expect that you will govern according to that manifesto.

Changes are currently justified on a number of accounts, not least that the Labour Party spent all the money.

I have recently read in a couple of newspapers a suggestion that road charging is long overdue. Apparently it is an idea whose time has come. Well call me dim but I thought we were charged for using the roads.

I have just paid  my road fund licence on line. The clue is right there in the name - road fund. A fund for the road, so that when I am driving around Cumbria on my bike I don't hit a pot hole and fall off the bike or worse into the hole (in Cumbria there are some big pot holes!). A fund for the road implies that the road will be maintained out of the road fund licence money or am I missing something?

So why should I pay twice?

Or even three times because I also pay an enormous amount of tax everytime I buy fuel. Where does that money go?

So, if we decide to start charging to use the road however much per mile can we expect to see the usage charge replace the road fund licence fee and the fuel tax?

It's essentially the difference between capitalism and socialism.

In socialism we all pay tax, the road is maintained, highway robbery is kept to a minimum and  you can go about your business happily and safely and everyone is happy

Then there is Capitalism.

The capitalists own the road and we all pay to use it. If you look carefully you will see at various points on the roads cottages called Toll Bar or simply Toll or Toll something. That is a reference to when we payed to use the road. The modern equivalent of course, is the Toll Road North of Birmingham but that is an exception because you have a choice of driving freely and quickly past Birmingham or staying in the Traffic Jam at Junction 9 of the M6.

Public or private no matter as you drove along you were in effect driving on a road which belonged to somebody and you were charged to use it.

Over the years that system gave way to a better one and we paid for the roads by means of  a road fund licence. Now the brilliant new proposal is to revert to a system that generally worked badly in the C17th and C18th and no doubt a modern day Dick Turpin is dusting off his blunderbuss as I write.

And its not just the highway. The super high way is rapidly replacing Toll Free with Toll Charges. Apple and the App. represent the new monetised super information highway. Then there is the encouragement to bloggers to monetise their Blogs through advertising (see the side bar). Or the rather odd discussion about super fast broad band in rural areas introduced as a commercial service not a public service but the rhetoric implying a public good being achieved.

Now apparently with so many people opting to replace their landline with a mobile the 'phone companies are saying that they will have to increase their prices to offset the fact that their services are losing their cost effectiveness.

That clearly can lead in one direction and one direction only.

The pot holes in the superhighway will become more and more dangerous as we trip and slip our way through the web and the future will start to rumble to the sound of the motorcycles of the inter galactic wild ones as they swerve round the pot holes and draw closer and you can hear the menacing words - your money or your life.