Maybe because, in two years time, the West coast main line will be full.

As in at maximum capacity

Just the massively powerful Road Transport Association - or is the Freight Transport Association? - and their various links to certain members of previous Conservative administrations.

Yes, but are "We"?

Are you planning on keeping it the same way when you're in power HK just so you get free RAC cover? Eh? Spit it out! Answer the question!

* goes into a Boulton mental rant *

I'm a rail fan. I don't think I need to add anything further.

Yes but the problem is that road users do not pay the full costs of the road network, no matter how much they think that they do. We could do with a higher green tax on freight to encourage a switch to rail or even canal.

Is it me, or have people actually started thinking about policy? Did the department for Culture not get that memo??

You'll have fun when people start discussing the licence fee

Easy abolish the license fee, it is a regressive tax and is just that, just another tax. Let it get paid for out of general taxation. It would save hundreds of millions in collection and that money could be used for broadband investment.

We need a Minister for Blaming The Previous Administration.

Ohhh that's us!

Mark

I forgot to get back to you on this

Why would you be controversial? Though I did have a notion of you and Mark trying to make Star Wars compulsory in schools

You may laugh now …

Mark

Be careful what you wish for - the prequels could be your Book of Revelations-style controversy

I think you'll find that motorists pay a lot more than is spent on the roads.

"Since 1997 Labour has been on the lucrative receiving end of colossal increases in tax receipts after millions of additional motorists have qualified to drive and purchased cars/fuel/insurance weighed down by VAT or other taxes. But the size of the major road network has increased in size by a paltry one per cent during the decade and a bit that the party has been in power.

Less than 20 per cent of the £50bn we cough up annually in motoring tax is returned to us via safer, smoother, wider or fresher roads. To put that another way, most of the £6.2bn Labour grosses a year in VAT on vehicles, plus the further £2.6bn it grabs in "company car tax" is reinvested in the network.

But the £5bn plus it makes in VED, plus the £36bn or more it trousers in VAT and other taxes on fuel is sheer "profit" which is free to be spent on other, non-car-related items."