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Owning a car should be outlawed suggests Labour MP

38 replies

claig · 13/09/2014 01:11

It was only a matter of time before they came up with this and stepped it up a gear.

"Owning a car should be ‘outlawed’ to force people on to public transport, a senior Labour MP has suggested.

Motorists who want to drive should instead be forced to join communal ‘car clubs’ where the cars are shared by drivers and used only when needed.

Dr Alan Whitehead, a Labour MP for Southampton Test and a member of the Energy and Climate Change select committee, said the increase in car ownership would lead to ‘something approaching a national traffic jam before 2040’.

He claimed that radical action would be needed to avoid national gridlock.

In an article in the Guardian, Dr Whitehead wrote: ‘We need to consider doing something serious. What we need is a considerable expansion of public transport over the next period and a shift from car to bus, train, bike or even feet. The big problem is how to do it.’

He went on to suggest that ‘outlawing’ car ownership was better than banning car use altogether, preferring ‘regulation rather than prohibition’.


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2754252/Labour-MP-Beat-gridlock-ban-owning-car-force-motorists-share-vehicles.html

Hopefully, UKIP will have something to say about this and will put a spanner in the works of their green plan.

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claig · 13/09/2014 01:12

'What we need is a considerable expansion of public transport over the next period and a shift from car to bus, train, bike or even feet .'

How stupid do they think the public is?

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TsukuruTazaki · 13/09/2014 01:19

"Even feet" Hmm

I'm no stranger to walking a lot (lived carless in bristol where buses are rubbish) but there is a limit to how far you can walk when raining or freezing, with small children or big bags of shopping etc.

I'm all for improving public transport but bloody stupid to suggest outlawing cars.

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Custardo · 13/09/2014 01:23

We're not going to give up our cars. And the people who rule the world and make trillions won't let us find a viable alternative. But in principle he's not wrong

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claig · 13/09/2014 01:37

He is a PhD, but it's obvious that he isn't the first one to come up with this.

Finland is thinking of adopting something a bit like this as part of the all-encompassing green plan. It will be introduced by some socialists somewhere in the world and that will be used to sell it to the world's public under the scare of climate change and extinction of the polar bear.

'Finland's Capital Wants to Do Away With Car Ownership'

www.entrepreneur.com/article/235646

Chris Mullin, a darling of the left, wrote an article about what he woud do if he ruled the world

"If I ruled the world, my first act would be to phase out the private motor car. I regard the motor vehicle (and yes, I have one) as a disastrous invention. It has laid waste to our cities, polluted our environment and kills the best part of half a million people a year worldwide.

My aim would be a return to that brief golden age when the bicycle was king, when every little town and many villages were connected to the railway network and when our inner cities were habitable.

It is not an impossible dream. I knew Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, before the coming of market forces. Until 20 years ago it was a city of a million bicycles. Even ambassadors travelled by bike. The only vehicles were a few rattling trams (long since abolished), a handful of military vehicles and a few aged black Volgas for members of the Politburo. There were no traffic lights. The bicycles drifted in great, lazy rivers. At junctions they intermingled, emerging miraculously unscathed."

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/regulars/if-i-ruled-the-world-chris-mullin

Even ambassadors travelled by bike, says Chris.


The left-wing "social justice" types will step it up a gear.


"Is this a monumental restriction of individual liberty? Maybe. But, really, much depends on how you look at individual liberty: on whether you think humans should be equally individually free and whether you think that that state of existence should be able to prevail for the foreseeable future. Equity and sustainability (as well as a bit of sociability) are at the core of this proposal. I find it hard to see how those values can sensibly be served by a world of car owners. In any case, the debate is one worth having."

socialjusticefirst.com/2012/07/24/lets-ban-cars/

But hopefully, UKIP will have something to say about all of this and will stop the plan.

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BOFster · 13/09/2014 01:41

I thought you were a Tory, claig? I'm most amused you've defected, but not entirely surprised.

Shall we swap tales of outlandish things that UKIP representatives have said?

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claig · 13/09/2014 01:45

'We're not going to give up our cars. And the people who rule the world and make trillions won't let us find a viable alternative.'

Custardo, the people who rule the world intend to make us give up our cars. They use puppets and left wing types to sell it to us. They want to restrict our progress and lifestyles. They know that there will be resistance from the people and from UKIP, but they intend to use behavioural psychology nudge theory type techniques to change public behaviour.

"The goal – banning private cars – says nothing about the means adopted to reach that end. The most effective routes to that end are up for debate. But the direction in which much behavioural research is heading tends to accept that people change their behaviour in response to external stimuli. To that extent, more effective and lasting change is usually better-achieved by means other than traditional mandate and prohibition."

socialjusticefirst.com/2012/07/24/lets-ban-cars/

Socialists will be funded to help in the behavioural psychology techniques used to change public attitude along with documentaries on the polar bear.

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claig · 13/09/2014 01:47

'I thought you were a Tory, claig?'

Not anymore. I liked Thatcher, but this lot aren't Tories.

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claig · 13/09/2014 01:53

'I regard the motor vehicle (and yes, I have one) as a disastrous invention. It has laid waste to our cities, polluted our environment and kills the best part of half a million people a year worldwide.'

That is what the Labour luvvie said. But the motor car has liberated people, enabled them to travel and gain employment and deliver goods and services to people. It has freed up the lives of ordinary people and has given them independence. And of course the public transport buses that the socialists would still allow us for the time being are also "motor vehicles" and are certainly not a "disastrous invention".

Puppets don't make policies. These things are in the works because of the really powerful people who want to turn the clock back and deprive ordinary people of their freedom, independence and mobility.

Hopefully, UKIP will do something about it.

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halfdrunkcoffee · 13/09/2014 10:22

Well, I am all for reducing car use, improving public transport, increasing the number of car clubs and promoting walking and cycling. But banning private cars altogether is probably going a bit far.

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AuntieStella · 13/09/2014 10:29

I'm assuming that, despite an urban seat in Hampshire, that twat of an MP is actually a Westminster villager?

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goshhhhhh · 13/09/2014 10:33

I wouldn't mind if there was a suitable alternative - living in a village with one bus (& possibly soon to be none) busses a day. With a husband not driving due to illness that's not much fun. I'm not sure how I would make work work - iyswim - as I travel all over the place. Wouldvwecall have to live in towns & no one ever visit the countryside? What would we do 're housing? Would everyone pay a transport rather than road tax to subsidise the increase in (substantial) investment that would be needed.

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Coffeethrowtrampbitch · 13/09/2014 10:42

He is probably behind the times.

The idea behind driverless cars is that you would be more likely to hire one than own one, you'd order it when needed and send it away once you are finished. With so many issues with parking everywhere, it would be more inconvenient to own a car you were responsible for all the time.

But there certainly isn't the road infrastructure to support more people owning and operating cars, there will be gridlock long before the date mentioned. This is even without the serious environmental problems, or the fact that 3-4 children a week are killed in road traffic accidents.

I think driverless car techonology will hopefully avert this as a problem, I do not see how banning cars will be feasible. People have been led to believe they are a desireable and essential part of life, if they are suddenly banned there will be an outcry.

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ElephantsNeverForgive · 13/09/2014 10:54

He can come and visit me for a week, then my parents and then DF.

All of us live in different, rural, totally public transport free places.

DF is a lentil weaving veggie, who wouldn't own a car if it wasn't utterly essential.

However, she's also a on call, specialist doctor, with two DCs. Not having a car is not an option.

For any of us improving public transport and care sharing doesn't work. Everyone works in totally different directions and different hours.

What would help is much better school buses. Many parents don't use them because they take two to four times longer than going in the car. Flat rate charge means it's cheaper for many sixth formers to get a lift.

Extensions to community mini bus services, so there was some way for DCs and young people in their first jobs to get to and from work and home from after school clubs.

Parking at all stations, to reduce congestion in local cities and larger towns (if you don't get the 9am train, you can't park and take the car instead).

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smokepole · 13/09/2014 11:12

It defies belief doesn't Claig that the Majority of posters on this site are Labour Voters . This is the utter 'shit Labour are going to start coming out with, they are putting their markers down, to start the brainwashing of people. After the brainwashing has been completed new taxes are then going to be levied on cars, they will be very careful though, they will allow any car up to 1.6 Litres will pay minimal tax. You can't upset Public Sector Workers, Union members or plastic Socialists. Anything over 1.6 Litres will be hit with punitive taxes in the same mould as 'Mansion tax'. This is of course a clever ploy by the Labour party, because as it feeds what keeps the party going 'Envy' and the taxes on the whole don't effect the Labour vote. The Labour voters that are effected by these taxes, are so 'rich' these extra taxes will be a drop in the ocean and more than justified in keeping the 'populus' on side.

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KnittedJimmyChoos · 13/09/2014 11:17

Owning a car should be ‘outlawed’ to force people on to public transport, a senior Labour MP has suggested

only learned to drive at 30 + after years of being subjected to life threatening and horrific public transport you will never ever get me out of my car.utterly disgraceful.

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claig · 13/09/2014 12:27

Exactly right, smokepole. This is a slow public persuasion campaign and it will be backed up by higher taxation on certain cars and higher parking charges and less parking spaces etc etc - all the nudge techniques that the moneyed elite employ to keep ordinary people down. It won't affect the rich in their chauffeured limousines or the puppets paid for out of the public purse, it will only affect all of us.

KnittedJimmyChoos, you are exactly right

"being subjected to life threatening and horrific public transport"

The luvvies never mention the real risks of public transport late at night as the drunks get on and mug people for their phones or anything else. Cars provide an element of safety and security that public transport cannot. But that won't affect the puppets in their limousines paid for out of the public purse either.

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KnittedJimmyChoos · 13/09/2014 13:43

Yes Claig, also left at lonely bus stops at uni waiting for bus that never arrives, a target sat on a main road, with no means of getting home, late at night at stations, lifts not working, forced down alley ways and so on. And yes gangs boarding trains to rob and intimidate late at night, as well as the crippling cost, the safety aspect of us all crammed on cheek by jowl with not enough seating...list goes on.

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Veritata · 13/09/2014 14:05

A proper car sharing arrangement makes some sense in some areas. It's not particularly logical that I use a car to drive on my own at the beginning and end of the day to and from work, and the rest of the time it sits outside my house or my office doing nothing, and that thousands of other people do exactly the same. If a convenient car pool arrangement were set up which means that I have access to a car when I need it and that the number of cars around is reduced by thousands, I'd be perfectly happy.

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claig · 13/09/2014 14:05

Exactly.

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claig · 13/09/2014 14:06

That was to KnittedJimmyChoos. They never mention personal safety in all their talk.

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Custardo · 13/09/2014 15:22

Tags claim wars are waged over oil. Millions died. Our soldiers die so rich people can stay richer and you think the fu king socialists have some master plan to beat them. Delusional.

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Custardo · 13/09/2014 15:23

Tags claim is supposed to read ffs claiq. Kindle refuses to swear

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claig · 13/09/2014 15:37

'Kindle refuses to swear'

And rightly so.

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Sicaq · 13/09/2014 15:40

Several environmental thinktanks say that cars in future will be leased rather than owned: the idea is to keep materials out of landfill. I haven't heard anyone link car leasing to public transport before; I don't we have anything like the infrastructure ready yet.

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claig · 13/09/2014 15:42

'Our soldiers die so rich people can stay richer and you think the fu king socialists have some master plan to beat them'

The socialists are puppets of the rich people. It is the rich people who are annoyed that the plebs are using water, oil, energy and food resources. It is the rich people who want us to stop eating meat because they say it "harms the planet" and it is the rich people who want us off the roads so that there is no congestion and gridlock for them. It is the rich people who want us squashed up on public transport late at night without protection. The socialists have no masterplan, they are just puppets who follow the plan of the rich people who want to cramp the lifestyles of ordinary people.

Prince Charles is saving the planet, the socialists are just puppets.

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