Originally posted by Palmira: The socialist government, which is what Lib Dems are, are car-haters and affluence-haters. Theyve managed to weasel their way into our affluent borough and attack our good people from within. This is a beautiful and friendly place to live, where there is very low crime and most people are wealthy - a 3 bedroom terraced house over the road sold last week for £916,000. The no-hopers are jealouse of our hard efforts to live a good life, and want to stop our liberties.
Weasel their way into 'your' borough? Weren't they voted in by the residents of the borough, in a democratic election?
Anyone that spends almost £1M on a 3-bed terraced house with no off-street parking and stil chooses to buy one or more gas guzzlers wants their head read. Its nothing to do with a car hating or wealth envy, they are clearly a soft touch and a source of easy income for the council. A fool and his money are easily parted and all that.
Too bloody right - tax the rich!
There is absolutely no reason to be driving in London anyway, there is an excellent rail system to get you into the centre and once there, a bus and tube network to take you anywhere. There are many other cities in the UK where this is just not feasible and driving is much more easily justified.
Excellent stuff Palmira. Well said. Queenjane, upto the usual high standards I see...even some common sense in parts from Barky and the Nox.
If someone wants to spend their money on a £1m 3-bed terraced house and one or more gas-guzzlers then good for them! Your money, your choice. Much better than giving it to the Finbar's of this world who are jealous and bone-ide. Cut the taxes so that people who have actually earned their money can enjoy the rewards and not have to hand it out to those socialist numbskulls who sponge off the state.
Some people berate me for buying a Kia as a second car...SO, would you rather I bought a SUV? I'm not a fan of SUVs for on-road use, but the sheer lies about SUVs is just plain wrong. Some of those idiotic ramblings make me want buy the biggest, gas-guzziling SUV I can find.
Finbar you obviously dont live in London, otherwise you wouldnt be spouting this total nonsense.
The public transport is vile. I never use it, id rather walk, cycle or ride my motorbike which is how i get around whilst not at work.
As for not needing to drive in London, why is it that thousands of people do drive in london if they dont need to?
Because they NEED to do so to carry out their daily tasks. If people did not drive their cars, they wouldnt be able to go about their everyday life.
If you tax the rich, they will leave, and go somewhere else as in the Brain Drain, and then the area will demise because the largest providers of income will leave. All that would be left would be non-taxpayers and low tax payers.
Your contempt for the wealthy (and the government's contempt for the wealthy) is extremely misguided. Driving those with choices away would lead to high crime, and widespread poverty. London is one of the richest cities in Europe and if you do not welcome motorists, they will go & do their business somewhere else.
Big G, i thought youd chortle at the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. I used to live in Tower Hamlets (St Katherines Dock) and it was very nice, but there are some awful areas around there like Poplar which need bulldozing. However East London is so different to West London where i live. But there are still Range Rovers etc there too!
My S500 LWB is the last of the W220 shape so it will be very similar to my S320. I am selling the E320 and replacing it with the S500 LWB. Going to sell the E320 privately.
I have enjoyed the E-class but my clients have been expressing preference towards the S, so another S is joining the fleet accordingly!
Id love a new shape S-class, its a wonderful car, i know you dont like the styling Big G, but i love it, think its a fabulous car in every way too. There are alot of them in London already, all the chauffeurs who are better off than me have one! But i figured i'd be typically Jewish and save the money by buying a W220 shape one. Its a high spec and immaculate though.
Originally posted by Mind blowing decisions: Excellent stuff Palmira. Well said. Queenjane, upto the usual high standards I see...even some common sense in parts from Barky and the Nox.
If someone wants to spend their money on a £1m 3-bed terraced house and one or more gas-guzzlers then good for them! Your money, your choice. Much better than giving it to the Finbar's of this world who are jealous and bone-ide. Cut the taxes so that people who have actually earned their money can enjoy the rewards and not have to hand it out to those socialist numbskulls who sponge off the state.
Some people berate me for buying a Kia as a second car...SO, would you rather I bought a SUV? I'm not a fan of SUVs for on-road use, but the sheer lies about SUVs is just plain wrong. Some of those idiotic ramblings make me want buy the biggest, gas-guzziling SUV I can find.
Hello MBD, if you do that, then please can you do us a huge favour and run Ken Livingstone over with it?
Palmira, the 530d is due to go back soon and what with my job being more office-based thesedays we've decided not to have another company car. Also, we underestimated how much stuff you need for a baby, so the misses Kia is being sold and the hunt is on for a neat X to 53reg E39 530i Touring in Boston green or dark metallic blue with leather, auto, etc.
Originally posted by Palmira: Finbar you obviously dont live in London, otherwise you wouldnt be spouting this total nonsense.
Thankfully not.
I used to live in Surrey though. 20mins on the train to Waterloo, then on the tube to most parts of London. No problems.
Seems to me that all Londoners want all the benefits but none of the drawbacks of living there. They are quite happy to take the inflated salaries but continually whinge about congestion, public transport, blah, blah, blah.
The Brain Drain, as you put it, is already here, people from all over the country move to London.
Your neighbours with the £916k house will pay more council tax than those with a house of lesser value. A tax policy brought in by your beloved tories. What's the difference between that and taxing cars that pollute more?
What is your solution to global warming and other environmental issues? Do nothing? Hope everything will be OK?
Originally posted by Mind blowing decisions: Much better than giving it to the Finbar's of this world who are jealous and bone-ide. Cut the taxes so that people who have actually earned their money can enjoy the rewards and not have to hand it out to those socialist numbskulls who sponge off the state.
Some people berate me for buying a Kia as a second car...
MBD, I am neither jealous nor bone idle. What makes you think that? I certainly don't sponge off the state and probably pay more tax than you.
I commend you for buying a Kia, good choice. Thought about one myself a while back.
Originally posted by Palmira: Finbar you obviously dont live in London, otherwise you wouldnt be spouting this total nonsense.
Thankfully not.
I used to live in Surrey though. 20mins on the train to Waterloo, then on the tube to most parts of London. No problems.
Seems to me that all Londoners want all the benefits but none of the drawbacks of living there. They are quite happy to take the inflated salaries but continually whinge about congestion, public transport, blah, blah, blah.
The Brain Drain, as you put it, is already here, people from all over the country move to London.
Your neighbours with the £916k house will pay more council tax than those with a house of lesser value. A tax policy brought in by your beloved tories. What's the difference between that and taxing cars that pollute more?
What is your solution to global warming and other environmental issues? Do nothing? Hope everything will be OK?
Pollution/Greenhouse gases and emissions from cars only account for 15% of all pollution in the UK.
the rest is industrial, domestic and environmental. Households cause a huge amount of pollution, so does the Aviation industry.
Idiots like Robert Redford go on TV spouting hideous nonsense that theyve purchased a Toyota Pious and are doing eco-friendly things, then he hires a private jet to fly somewhere - which is thousands of times more polluting than a car of any kind.
Global warming is a natural environmental phenomenon. We have had the ice age, and the stone age etc.. Climate changes occur naturally from time to time and are little affected by cars.
It is just easy for the government to see a car as a cash cow and rip off its owner for no good reason other than to generate even more state income.
As far as living in London and enjoying the benefits is concerned: Why not? We pay for the rest of the country, and all those work shy people who point the finger at SUV drivers and successful people, wanting them taxed so that they can fund the useless and the idle.
This is supposed to be a free country: live and let live. Not rip off those who dont deserve it.
You get a better deal as an uninsured motorist who hasnt registered his car or taxed it. They cant trace you and make you pay all these ridiculous charges.
Thank god you dont live in London finbar. No doubt youd be one of Ken's supporters, antagonising the good people who just want to be left alone to get on with it.
Re: Council Tax: LB of Richmond and LB of Wandsworth are among the lowest council tax areas in the UK despite the high property prices. Reason: Longstanding Conservative local authorities.
I dont agree with council tax, its unfair on older people for example. But the labour authority areas are always higher because labour is the party of tax.
I bet alot of people wish they hadnt pilloried Mrs Thatcher for introducing the Poll Tax where everyone pays £200 flat rate for everything they use. Certainly better than paying over a thousand - and todays council tax is based on 1991 house values too so its comparable with Mrs Thatchers Poll Tax. At the time it seemed a bad idea, but it is fair. Everyone pays the same for using the same services.
Mr Cameron is talking about giving older people a concession with council tax.
I hope he shows the same sympathy for us motorists who are being treated as a piggy bank for the current useless administration.
Unlikely Cameron will do that, Palmira. He's Blair with a slightly darker blue suit.
So far, the Tories tax cut plans are piffling, bordering on non-existent. For the last two elections, Lab and Con have been arguing over tiny differences in tax plans, and thats how its going to stay. The basic fact is, our crowded little isle doesnt run without significant taxation across the board. You might get a better deal regarding motoring if the Tories somehow got back in, but they'll lump it on somewhere else - depressing but true. Didnt the Tories introduce tax on domestic fuel bills? Not nice on the elderly.
Back on the subject, of course car choice is a consumer right, just accept the tax consequences.
An old college friend of mine has been thru two 4X4s - a Freelander V6 and then an X5 (a true SUV). She's a Ken and Chelsea resident and swapped to a black Prius T-Spirit, which she absolutely loves, as does her 9yr old daughter. She cant believe how she ever put up with her hulking two previous cars. A victory for common sense.
The public transport is vile. I never use it, id rather walk, cycle or ride my motorbike which is how i get around whilst not at work.
A little contradictory that statement.. "The public transport is vile." "I never use it" How do you know it's so vile then? Or are you just basing your opinion on how the "lower orders" like to use it. Or are you going to recount a story about how you had a simply GHASTLY train journey a while ago and how that shows just how bad it all is..?
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Global warming is a natural environmental phenomenon. We have had the ice age, and the stone age etc.. Climate changes occur naturally from time to time and are little affected by cars.
That's right fly against all scientific opinion on the matter. As a chauffeur you clearly know better than the people with PHDs. Not sure what you've been smoking exactly.. But the stone age was not a climatic phenomenon...
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As far as living in London and enjoying the benefits is concerned: Why not? We pay for the rest of the country, and all those work shy people who point the finger at SUV drivers and successful people, wanting them taxed so that they can fund the useless and the idle.
I'm beginning to think you post this stuff just to get peoples backs up.. Certainly the way you'd pop over to the other side, post something inflammatory and then disappear again hinted that was your goal.
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You get a better deal as an uninsured motorist who hasnt registered his car or taxed it. They cant trace you and make you pay all these ridiculous charges.
If you feel that, don't tax or insure your car. See how long it takes for the government to catch on, but make sure you have some spare cash around for when the police impound your Mercs, wouldn't want em getting crushed...
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Everyone pays the same for using the same services.
So multi-millionaires living in huge mansions pay exactly the same as a single mother in a one bedroom flat. Yeah great move.
so, Palmy, just HOW did Ken Livingstone get into power?
not VOTED in, by any chance?
and if so, then his presence can only be blamed on the apathy of those 'voters' who didn't turn out?
St Katherine's Dock?
blimey, a posh place to live?
Last time I was there...IN the dock, as it happened....was when I took the Board of Trade Lifeboat Examination..which I passed!
Most of the buildings around the dock area were wharehouses...or bombsites!
and as a bus driver out of New Cross depot, I used to ferry hundreds of London Dockers to Surrey Docks....'cos it was a Dock in those days...not some fancy residential area with pretensions.
and I once lived just off the Commercial Road...near Limehouse Cut....EVENTUALLy got used to the smell from the Tanning factories!
I even lived in Brockley Rise.....and Harrow.....never dreamt me grotty little flat would ever be worth quarter of a million....
all pre-Thatcher, of course....how times have changed?
Like thinking that grotty banger of a modern family car I once owned, would now be considered a Classic, by those with rose-tinted eyeballs! It's still a grotty motor to me!
to me nowadays..London is no more representative of England and English life than Moscow!
QJ! Excellent stuff, that must have been so different, and it shows how things have changed in a short space of time (20 years?) I wouldnt move back to that area now, was only there for a year & prefer West London..
Where i live is quite English, among all my friends i am the only non-born & bred british person.
It is a fabulous place to live, and if you love cars, youll see all kinds of exotica parading up and down the high road. If only the morons that sit behind desks in Local Government would develop a sense of reality and stop ripping us off.
Originally posted by Palmira: Pollution/Greenhouse gases and emissions from cars only account for 15% of all pollution in the UK.
As far as living in London and enjoying the benefits is concerned: Why not? We pay for the rest of the country, and all those work shy people who point the finger at SUV drivers and successful people, wanting them taxed so that they can fund the useless and the idle.
This is supposed to be a free country: live and let live. Not rip off those who dont deserve it.
Thank god you dont live in London finbar. No doubt youd be one of Ken's supporters, antagonising the good people who just want to be left alone to get on with it.
I love the way that you pompously talk as if you are the spokesperson for all Londoners and Ken Livingstone somehow sneaked into power. Fact is it's your fellow city folk that voted in your Lib Dem council and Ken Livingstone. Now, I realise that you are from South America and the concept of a fair, lawful, corruption-free election may be an alien concept to you but it is actually the norm in this country. Your views are actually those of the minority, like it or not.
Rightly or wrongly they are perceived as terribly fuel inefficient. That is a concern but the main problem I have with them in urban areas is the safety hazard they pose to pedestrians and other road users. You have to admit that there is something very inappropriate about a huge SUV with Bull Bars in Chelsea .
On the other hand there is much to be said for people being able to spend their hard earned dosh as they please, but I think if they want to do this perhaps a nice manor house in the country with more than a few acres would be suitable.
Something a bit more compact and appropriate for London though.
I have to admit the thought of Palmira tooling around London in his Smart Car does bring a smile to my face and I would be more than willing to pay a fiver for that sight .
But Palmira don't worry too much . You can gain comfort in the fact that they are built by Mercedes .
Yes yes, avro im sure youd derive much merriment from such a sighting, whilst i struggle with the little rollerskate along the Kings Road... Most amusing! I got driven home from the M-B dealer in one once and it was like a lawnmower!!
Finbar - a corruption-free elected government? Labour?? You must be joking. Theyre the closest to a communist dictatorship this country has ever seen.
Today, theyre talking about stiffing us all with high taxes for our kitchen appliances, lightbulbs and charging mileage tax as well as road tax and huge airport tax on cheaper flights. Its all nonsense and proves that they do not care about you or the environment, instead realising that theyve already taxed everyone until they bleed, and have wasted these taxes on poinless projects for the unemployable, mass immigration & free housing, benefit cheats and folly projects, so now they need to fleece us out of millions more.
I still maintain that this SUV tax - parking permits costing as much as £400, and road tax between £600 and £1000 plus mileage charge and new car tax & VAT, plus a gallon of fuel going up by a massive 44p in tax - is all an envy tax by the left-wing idiots in power & is tantamount to furthering their idea of taxing everything that moves until it strips us all of our freedom.
However if youre a criminal you are allowed every right and freedom you ask for.
Motor vehicles only account for 15% of the world's pollution - the rest being domestic, industrial, agricultural, aviation and natural change.
The government care as much about the environment as you do about the price of cat food. If they really cared, theyd stop yobs throwing their litter onto the street at night etc - but that doesnt make them money.
Re: Labour being elected: in 1997 when they came to power, the reason for the huge majority was voter apathy. Most people have given up with politics altogether because they get a shafting whatever happens. Livingstone gets the vote of scroungers & no-hopers who keep him there because he feathers their nest. The majority of professionals here in London dont vote for him, or for anyone - hence his victories by default.
Time for a motorists revolution, i think. Where are the pro-motoring people in the media or on TV? They never get airtime. Its always a one-sided, emotional and irrational argument.
Originally posted by Palmira: Yes yes, avro im sure youd derive much merriment from such a sighting, whilst i struggle with the little rollerskate along the Kings Road... Most amusing! I got driven home from the M-B dealer in one once and it was like a lawnmower!!
BTW Palmira I was laughing with you not at you . I can agree with most of your sentiments. This is just another tax grab. In most places what we call National Insurance is called 'Income Tax' and the portions for pension and health care are paid for by the employer not the employee. In the Forces we pay something called 'Charge in Lieu of Council Tax' which is about double what my council tax is back in England. When I queried the army staff as to why we had next to nothing in the way of services I found that this 'charge' goes to the general coffers and we don't see a penny of it .
The tax on flights has not been mentioned as something that will actually cut down on air travel but rather as how much it will raise for the general coffers.
Another tax grab by Labour 'Who would of thunk it?'
Hello MBD, if you do that, then please can you do us a huge favour and run Ken Livingstone over with it?
That sadly is against my religon, so instead we should strap Red Ken to the back of one of his beloved bendy-buses. And when the bus blocks a yellow box junction our Ken will get linched by the angry drivers.
bottom line...if you choose to run ANY vehicle that can be seen as irresponsibly greedy, as is your right in this country, be prepared to suffer the rantings and ravings of both informed experts and misinformed morons.....personally, as iv already stated, id ban ALL private cars from heavily polluted built up areas and get the public transport to run on time, be clean and run on vegoil or a similar sustainable fuel.....bit like a green mussolini!!!
i CHOOSE to own several cars at one time, ranging from 40mpg plus superminis to 12 mpg behemoths usually...i try to use them responsibly...i try to cycle or walk whenever possible...i like to think i try to do my bit......i reckon my argument about keeping old cars on the road vis vis purchasing new ones holds water....its consumerism run amok that encourages such profligacy by motor manufacturers...no one NEEDS a new car every 6 months or year.......unless it seems you live next to that bloody jones family everyone seems so desperate to keep up with!!
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I got driven home from the M-B dealer in one once and it was like a lawnmower!!
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