[sustran] Parris column

[Jonathan E. D. Richmond]

I reprint below the second part of the Matthew Parris column in today's
Times. It is about why a Conservative is in fact going to vote for Ken
Livingstone for Mayor, and the reason comes down to the Mayor's courage in
implementing road pricing.

                                      --Jonathan


The Times, Opinion June 5, 2004
By Matthew Parris

Ken Livingstone is a shocking man. Laugh if you like, but I honestly
suspect he still sees himself as a potential leader of the Labour Party.
His self-belief and his effrontery know no limit. One of the few great
communicators in British politics, he is also shameless, merciless and
tireless at self-promotion. From the moment, decades ago, when in an
internal coup he ousted the defenceless moderate Labour colleague whom the
voters had just elected as leader of the Greater London Council, I have
regarded him as a political assassin. Mr Livingstone is a modern brigand.

But he is a brigand not without ideals and convictions. His convictions,
many of them, are madcap; but he has the courage of them. In an age when
the talk is about the vision thing and the reality is about the
saving-your-skin thing, Mr Livingstone has the imagination to grasp big
new ideas and the intellectual self-confidence to stick to them. New ideas
in public administration (or, as it is now fashionable to write,
governance) are likely to meet early doubt, or someone would have adopted
them already; but Mr Livingstone believes in ideas, and this nerves him to
push ahead.

Though it may sound a nerdishly technical subject, road pricing is the
biggest  almost the only  new idea in administration since privatisation.
Both, as it happens, are free-market ideas. All over the world, those to
whom traffic congestion in urban areas is a major problem have been
talking about road pricing; but apart from a few crude and limited schemes
in places such as Singapore, no great city has dared to face the challenge
head-on. Decades ago we British came close to introducing a scheme in Hong
Kong, then chickened out. Tory think-tankers have been yapping about road
pricing for about 30 years.

Labour likewise has rehearsed the arguments (unanswerable) for making
drivers pay for their use of a commodity (asphalt) for which demand
exceeds supply. It is absolutely obvious, it is urgently necessary, and it
has to come, and everybody knows it will come. But no politician has dared
to draw up a plan, make the case, and make it loud and clear.

Before Mr Livingstone, that is. He calls it congestion charging, but
whatever it is called it must be the future of private motoring (well
beyond our major cities and towns) in every crowded and rich nation in the
world. I feel proud that Britain is the first country, and London the
first capital, to face up to this. A single individual has been
responsible, and without him it would not have been done.

I love to see ideas made important again in politics, and to see courage
rewarded. It was a sad day when Mr Livingstone returned to the party fold
but, wolf that he is, I dare say his plan is to savage the sheep. He
remains the closest we have to an Independent candidate for the London
mayoralty.

Shuddering that my pencil should wander anywhere near the word Labour, I
am nevertheless resolved. So, sorry, Steve. The cross will be shaky but
the box will be clear.

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Jonathan E. D. Richmond                               02 524-5510 (office)
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Transportation Engineering program
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