Post by teejayexc on Feb 18, 2007 12:17:42 GMT
Got Mail - From The Main Man! Sunday February 18, 10:29 AM
Tony Blair is to email the one-and-a-half million people who have signed an online petition against plans to bring in road pricing. He will tell them it is needed to help tackle the growing problem of traffic congestion.
Writing in The Observer, the Prime Minister admitted he did not expect to win critics over immediately.
But he said the petition, on the Downing Street website, had provoked a useful debate.
Mr Blair said: "I believe road pricing is surely part of the answer here
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as it is in many other countries."
The PM noted that, after being criticised in the past as a "control freak", he was now "under attack for allowing dissenting views on my own website".
The strength of feeling against Department of Transport plans for a national scheme reached such levels at one point that it brought the site down.
The petition calls the policy "sinister and wrong" and warns the charge would be unfair to those who live away from their families, and poorer people.
Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander has accused its organisers of spreading myths and pledged to go ahead with plans to pilot the scheme.
Can't wait! Trev
Tony Blair is to email the one-and-a-half million people who have signed an online petition against plans to bring in road pricing. He will tell them it is needed to help tackle the growing problem of traffic congestion.
Writing in The Observer, the Prime Minister admitted he did not expect to win critics over immediately.
But he said the petition, on the Downing Street website, had provoked a useful debate.
Mr Blair said: "I believe road pricing is surely part of the answer here
(Advertisement)
as it is in many other countries."
The PM noted that, after being criticised in the past as a "control freak", he was now "under attack for allowing dissenting views on my own website".
The strength of feeling against Department of Transport plans for a national scheme reached such levels at one point that it brought the site down.
The petition calls the policy "sinister and wrong" and warns the charge would be unfair to those who live away from their families, and poorer people.
Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander has accused its organisers of spreading myths and pledged to go ahead with plans to pilot the scheme.
Can't wait! Trev
,the Eurocrats didn't like the result so will keep trying to get another vote until the result suits them 
