The first minor consultation that Manchester City Council carried out showed clear signs of grooming for the correct answers (written about previously in this blog) where people were ‘coached’ into giving the answers over a period of time. There’s nothing wrong with a public information campaign, but not if its public funded, and purely one-sided. We may have all seen for example the large signs saying “how would you like 3 billion pounds of transport investment” and then in tiny print at the very bottom nearly out of sight “funded by a congestion charge”
I’ve been shocked at how much of OUR money is being spent on very biased ads for the charging plans, we’ve all seen the TV ads ”asking people for their views” with a well-known coronation street actor walking past miles of traffic jams and distressed drivers….
The council’s plan for success
If there were to be a referendum, which I’m now sure there will be, it should have public money spent on both sides of the argument. The way around this is to spend all the public money available now, to groom people in advance of a snap referendum. I feel more confident of this because I overheard a marketing team discussing this very plan today in a cafe. Plans were being discussed on how to reach the right people to market a YES campaign to prior to a referendum being called. A short film has been made, and plans were discussed about inserting the DVD into the pages of the MEN to target commuters who travel into the city. The plans discussed included the amount of funds they had available, with potential for more funding on the table to carry out the ‘grooming’ plan. Their target is to be primarily train users, and catchphrases such as “We’re going to make your life better” for the title of the DVD were bandied around. (with talented marketing bods like that on the campaign, maybe the NO campaign doesn’t really need to worry too much!) In the interests of democracy lets have another public funded campaign equally as skewed, perhaps entitled “we’re going to give you a 30 year mortgage you never asked for” or “We’re going to spend million of your cash selling the roads you’ve already paid for” or my personally favourite “We’re going to ruin your economic competitiveness”.
Naturally there are some questions you can ask which will gaurantee a Yes or a NO. Do people want to pay to drive their cars NO do people want better public transport YES. Both these are too simplistic, and it disgusts me that the city council takes the latter basic misleading approach to something so significant. Of course having an extensive light rail system will enhance our city a great deal, but its only the system we were promised a decade ago without the charge. What people want to know is:
- How much EXACTLY will the loan repayments be
- How many cars will need to pay £5 per day in order to make this
- what profit will be left after the REAL running costs of the scheme
- How many people are likely to be caught by the fines, and how much will the fines be
The strategy in general is to make the scheme seem so cheap and capturing so few people, so that is seems less threatening. At the same time its somehow meant to raise such a vast amount of money, which Congestion Charges never do. So whats really going to happen? Who pays if the sums are wrong? By how much will prices increase and what area will be covered by the zones when the sums don’t add up, this is what we really need to know…..as inflation rises, what will the true costs be in 5 years time, and who will still be paying the charge in 10 years time as new engine technology means cleaner cars and more cars running on combinations limiting petrol consumption? Its very easy to imagine how this will be caught on the wrong side of the technology in a few years time….how long was the loan for again, 30 years?
The charges will be forever, ever larger, ever more expensive, managed by a council which finished bottom for ‘value for money’ and financial transparency’.
