The Conservative Party has decided to go down the culture war and anti-woke route in a desperate attempt to retain some votes in the upcoming general election. The latest idea is to stir up the idea that insidious forces of the left are stoking a “war on motorists”.
At the Conservative Party conference, Mark Harper, Secretary of State for Transport, made a bizarre speech in which he, amongst other nonsense, declared that the concept of 15 minute cities was “sinister”. He said, "what is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.” For the full text of what he said, see Harper conference speech.
By saying this, he was supporting the conspiracy theory that is going around social media that leftist councils are trying to restrict people’s movements in towns and cities. In fact, it was only a few months ago that his own department debunked this notion in an official government response to a petition that was calling for referendums on 15 minute cities. The petition said, "We want the Government to pass legislation requiring local, legally binding, referendums to approve 15-minute cities before such a policy can be implemented. Public referendums must be held on these policies.” In response, the government said, "The 15-minute cities concept is not national planning policy. Local Planning Authorities can set planning policies locally. These are not subject to referendums.” For the full response, see government response to petition.
Another madcap idea that Harper came up with was for the government to launch a parking app so that motorists across the country could use the one app to park anywhere, doing away with the need for motorists to have several different apps depending on where they wanted to park. At first, this might seem to people to be a sensible idea but it is somewhat strange that, of all the industries that could be nationalised, such as oil, gas, electricity, railways, water, neither the Tories or Labour are prepared to countenance doing that, but the Tories are proposing to nationalise the parking app industry! What Harper said was, "our plan includes a new national parking platform, ending the need to install numerous apps just to park your car”.
Presumably, it will be called the Great British Parking app. But as for the practicalities, is Harper suggesting that all councils will be compelled to rip up their contracts with Just Park, Ring-go or whoever they have signed up with and, instead, take out a contract with Great British Parking? Or will GBP operate in addition to the commercial apps and people can choose which app to use to pay for their parking? Will GBP be cheaper for councils/motorists than the current free market providers? Will compensation be paid to the current providers of apps for taking away all or at least some of their business? My prediction is that it will never happen. Just another one minute soundbite consigned to history.