plutocracy . . . yada yada yada . . . cock-weasel . . . . . British public transport is shit . . . etc . . .etc

These two themes seem to be prevalent throughout the press these days with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's latest report and the ongoing debacle of Metronet. The third string to this bow is, of course, the government's climate policy which is as full of holes spewing carbon and pollution as , well, as a cheap, Chinese-made plastic collander.

So why, dear listener (I'm listening to the radio and it appeals to me to address you so), why is it that we tolerate being treated as serfs? I must take a bus to work today at a cost of £1.45 per trip. An interesting observation is that that £2.90 would allow me to travel an impressive 25 miles (ok, so that's shit fuel economy but I drive a 1.6 Nissan Bluebird- you try and get a decent car for under £500). I can assure you that the trip to town is barely 2.5 miles, so why the extreme expense?

Today's Independent cover story suggests an answer, this story inside has more.

when will the absurdity of the formula, more roads = less congestion finally be perceived by government?

I thought this was sort of proposal was a thing of the past but apparently not. Can anyone ever imagione the government allocating £5.1bn to the rail network? Yeah. Right.

These links might elucidate the matter further.

1. link 1
   
2. link 2
   
3. link 3
   
4. link 4
   
5. link 5
   
6. link 6
   

Additional:

In response to the comments I would like to rephrase a sentence above. It should read: "Can anyone ever imagine the government allocating £5.1bn to spend directly on the rail network and rolling stock instead of penalty payments to the regulator, director's bonuses and marketing campaigns?