BROWN SHOWS HIS PRIMARY COLOURS - A VERY FAINT SHADE OF GREEN

I felt Gordon Brown’s ‘green’ tax come into effect this week after I received an e-mail informing me that the cost of my flight to London next month had increased.


It said:

“You may have heard that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, recently announced that Air Passenger Duty (APD) - a tax implemented, controlled and collected by the UK Government - is due to increase on all flights departing from UK airports after 1 February 2007”

Well, there’s no doubting where EasyJet are laying the blame!

And fair enough, they’re certainly not wrong. But what is interesting about the tax is where it goes. As a ‘green’ tax it is (allegedly) implemented to reduce the number of flights and thus reduce carbon emissions.

Now, dear reader, let me tell you what the tax meant to me. My flight cost £8.99. It now costs £18.99 – an increase of almost 110%. But I’m still flying to London for just £18.99!

The same journey by train, on the same date would cost £55 and take twice as long. If I drove, the cost in petrol alone would be £35, with London’s congestion charge raising the cost to £43.

So how, with air fares so low at the moment, will a simple £10 tax stop people from flying?

The answer is, it won’t.

Instead, it is simply another of Brown’s stealth taxes, swelling the treasury’s coffers to be spent on education and health – two departments with bank accounts leaking so much money they make a Thames water pipe blush.

This ‘green’ tax is not helping protect the environment, it is simply increasing the burden of tax on the British public – now the most highly taxed populace in Europe.

If Gordon Brown really wants to be seen as a ‘green’ Prime Minister and challenge the Tories on it, he is going to have to go much further.

Tough on global warming, tough on the causes of global warming. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?