THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Think of the children in Africa that mine the cobalt.
Oh I forgot virtue signallers don't count them. Collateral damage they used to call it I believe.

This is the 1st time I have been accused of being a virtue signaller. No, I rather be a horrid person watching a team who pays ugly football for a despised club.

Anyway a bit more signalling

https://blog.greenenergyconsumers.org/blog/cobalt

https://earthworks.org/declaration-on-m ... ransition/

Stick that to Elon Musk.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

Remember the Tories suggested expanding the congestion zone out to the north and south circular. That would have impacted on ALL petrol and diesel vehicles. Khan said no.

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I like clean air and low traffic

In economics the price you pay for something should equal the resource cost of what is involved in the transaction; the labour, minerals, profit etc involved.

Assume you drive a car 5 miles and it costs you (say) £1 which includes insurance and petrol.

But there are other 'external' costs involved e.g the wear and tear on the road and the air pollution.

If the costs of 'clearing up'/sorting these by 'the council' (or whoever) are say 50p then the personal cost of your journey (£1) does not reflect the true resource cost to society of making that journey (£1.50). You are essentially only paying £1 towards the 1.50p worth of 'resources you use.

Now of course there are taxes on insurance, the car itself and petrol. Let's say these equal 30p ....well for a start these taxes disappear into the general funds of The Treasury rather than specifically improving air quality or public transport ie 'sorting the problem'. Therefore someone else pays the remaining 20p to sort the problem that you caused. Same applies to alcohol and cigarette consumption.

Of course it is not possible to exactly measure the total/true costs of a car journey and therefore not possible to say what the tax to 'sort it out' should be.

However the principle of taxing someone (or a firm) to raise funds for the external 'problems' they cause from buying something/producing something is perfectly sound. It is very disingenuous to just say it is 'wrong'.

The phrase is 'Polluter Pays'. The person/firm that causes the problem should pay for it to be sorted - not someone else.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

You’ve clearly not heard Nadine Dorris or Dominic Raab talk if you think they are trained in anything let alone media

It won't come here.

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MK since '74