I am very excited about the first mass-produced electric car for the European market being made in the North East. Hopefully this will be the first of many such vehicles. I will be saving up for one.
Of course I would not need a new car if the Grey Parties had invested properly in Public Transport. Here in rural North Yorkshire it is near impossible to hold down a job without a car. We should be cancelling all the big ticket road-building programmes and investing in public transport, especially in rural areas. Even the High Speed rail link between London and Birmingham, welcomed by many in the South East, in my view should take second place behind a massive expansion of ordinary railway services across Britain.
But if you are a motorist, one of the big mysteries of life is how the price of petrol always goes up significantly BEFORE the Chancellor's budget. Every year it is the same. Garages across the country all raise their prices at the same time. This year it has increased between 5p and 10p a litre in a matter of days. Then when the extra tax is put on petrol at the budget, the oil companies pretend the price hike had nothing to do with them.
Mind you, the value of the pound dropping has not not helped, pushing up the price of oil in Sterling. This is the direct result of "Quantitative Easing": the Government euphemism for printing money. Any GCSE Economics student knows that if you print money, you devalue the currency, causing inflation in the economy. We have not yet seen that inflation fully impact on the economy, but it is coming. Linked with the dip in the economy during the bad weather, with the VAT increase and the cessation of the scrappage scheme to come, I predict that worst of all possible worlds, stagflation (stagnant economy linked with inflation). Then of course, if, God forbid, the Tories form the next Government we will have massive cuts in public expenditure, deepening the recession even further! The End is Nigh!
Looks like I will not be able to afford my new Nissan Leaf after all. Unless of course, Sanity prevails and the country votes for the Green Party. We need Government investment in things that will create jobs in a sustainable economy. The Green Party are fighting for an immediate £44bn investment package, to create over a million new jobs that will start building the 21st Century infrastructure that Britain needs, with public transport that works and with warm, cheap to run homes. So, don't panic: just vote Green!
