TWO: GEOCENTRIC COMMENTS ON CAR WARS.

The following essay discusses some of the main events in the war over the government’s road building programme.

The Tories’ Loony Roads Programme.

In october 1987 a hurricane hit south east England causing 17 fatalities and nearly £1.2 billion in damages[1]. At the time it was alleged the hurricane was a freak of nature unlikely to occur again for 150 years. In october 1989 the country was battered by winds of 115 mph and torrential rain that claimed 13 lives. During the night of 25-26th january 1990 another massive storm hit the country. Fortunately for great brutland the storm was at its most ferocious over north western europe where it wreaked so much damage that the insurance bill alone, excluding uninsured economic damage, amounted to $4.6 billion.”[2]. Such was the ferocity of this storm that europeans adopted the american habit of anthropomorphizing major storms and called it Windstorm Daria. Over the following month another massive storm hit the country and three more hit north-western europe. In great brutland, the two storms killed 60 people and caused damage estimated at £2.4 billion pounds.[3] They caused even more damage than the infamous 1987 hurricane, "The Association of British Insurers puts the total cost of the 1987 hurricane at £1.2 billion. Estimates for this year's storms are £2.5 billion."[4] In north west europe, Windstorm Daria was followed by Windstorm Herta, Windstorm Vivian and Windstorm Wibke. These last three storms .. “piled up $5.8 billion in losses”[5] - insurance losses, that is. The general economic damage was far bigger. The total insurance cost of the damage caused by the four storms on the european continent came to £10.4 billion. It was almost as if the Earth was intent on a raising political awareness in europe about the threat posed by global warming.

Sitting quietly and serenely in the department of transport’s carpet lined, air conditioned offices, blissfully at peace with himself in the midst of these four gigantic storms, oblivious to everything around him which was not concerned with boosting his career prospects after he left politics, was cecil parkinson, the secretary of state for transport. The only winds which ever caught his attention were juicy windfall profits from selling state assets to his chums in return for a few directorships. Undaunted by claims that these monstrous storms were manifestations of global warming, cecil blithely "unveiled plans to spend £5.7 billion on roads in England over the next three years as part of a rolling programme to invest at least £12.4 billion in the 1990s." This was, "the largest road building programme ever undertaken" - exactly the type of government action needed to exacerbate climatic disasters and typical of the sort of response to be expected from someone who looked upon the Earth not as a spectacular living entity with an incredible array of Biodiversity but as a free market globe spinning in the vast dark expanses of the universe primarily to enrich the Earth-rapist shits turning the Earth into a lifeless desert.[6] The department for the promotion of the interests of multinational road/car/oil corporations had forecast that a vast road building programme was needed because lord macalpine, the tory party's treasurer and chief fundraiser, wanted a pay-off for his company’s donations to the tory party during the 1980s and because, "traffic could rise by 142% by the year 2025."[7]

The huge increase in the government’s road building programme represented a defeat for thatcher who wanted to strangle government investment in roads in order to open the way for private investments in the road network.[8] The policy announcement was so sudden the government had no idea where the money would come from to pay for such a gigantic programme.

The government’s road programme led to a new bout of anti-roads protests like those first seen in london in the early 1970s. But it was nearly three years before the first major protests took place - although whether the so-called ‘dongas tribe’ spearheaded protests at Twyford Downs is not so clear. The government’s response to this outbreak of civil disobedience was to employ some new, and draconian, tactics; the hiring of a private detective agency; the photographing and surveillance of all those participating in the protests; the hiring of a private security firm;[9] illegal arrests;[10] protestors being threatened with massive fines based upon the most outrageous interpretation of laws which existed even before tarmac was invented[11]; and, finally, legislation to ban roads’ protests. But the violence and injustices inflicted on protestors at Twyford Downs only intensified opposition to the road building programme and soon anti-roads groups were set up around the country in glasgow, newcastle, Oxleas Wood, the m11, oxford, etc.

The roads’ programme had the personal support of john major.[12] The government reinforced its commitment to its road building programme by boosting car sales in the 1992 pre-general election budget.[13] After the general election, as the economic depression continued to worsen,[14] public expenditure cuts had to be made in the budgets of a number of government departments. But, no cuts were made to the road building programme. In the unofficial autumn budget of 1992, "The 6.3 billion national roads programme has been protected from Treasury cuts at the expense of spending on BR. Mr MacGregor said all 40 of the national road schemes planned to start next year would go ahead."[15]

Despite the increasing criticisms of the sheer lunacy of its roads programme and the growing anti-roads protests, the government, with what seemed to be like a born-again commitment to road building, continued to add to its road-building programme. In june 1993, the government announced plans for a £300 million new motorway in south wales .. the m48[16]; and, in july, the widening of sections of the m25 motorway to 14 lanes.[17] It was estimated that at the pinnacle of the government’s enthusiasm for the roads’ programme, the cost reached a staggering £23 billion.

The reason for the government’s renewed commitment to the road building programme was that it was regarded as the key to economic recovery and thus the eventual re-election of a tory government.[18] The apogee of its support for road building was the decision in the budget of march 1993 to raise vat on domestic fuel. The government’s road policies have been criticized on many grounds but few critics have suggested that the reason for the introduction of vat on domestic fuel was to enable the government to pay for its road building programme. This programme was so gigantic it could be funded only by a huge hike in current taxes or by the introduction of a new tax - but since raising income tax would have been politically unacceptable, and raising transport fuels would have run counter to its plans for a road/car led economic recovery, the only option left was the latter. When the chancellor, normie lamore, announced the new tax he argued that it was needed to meet the government’s international commitment to curbing the greenhouse effect.[19] This was nonsense, of course. Normie was a lying, Earth-rapist shit who, as has been noted above, had adopted various measures in his previous budget to boost car sales and refused to curb the huge subsidies given to company car owners.[20] If he’d really wanted to reduce Carbon emissions it would have been better to tax transport fuels. His ‘we’re only trying to save the Earth’ excuse was so ludicrous it could not even explain why vat was slapped not merely on the consumption of domestic fuels but on energy meters.[21]

Although many greens disputed the government’s claim that vat on domestic fuels was the best way of reducing Carbon emissions none of them alleged the tax was being introduced to pay for the government’s whacky roads programme. As a consequence there was no condemnation of the sheer injustice of a taxin which old age pensioners and the unemployed i.e. the carless, were being forced to pay for a road building programme for rich motorists.

The Shift in Public Opinion about Private Transport.

Despite the lengths to which the government went to promote new roads, public opinion became uneasy about the policy. Although it was not directly hostile towards new roads[22] there was growing disenchantment with various aspects of private transport and this disenchantment increasingly focussed on the obscene scale of government expenditure on roads. There was public concern over carnage on the roads; lenient sentences handed out to motorists found guilty of causing fatal car accidents; and car pollution which was causing a dramatic increase in the number of asthma cases, especially amongst children.[23]

The government seemed to realize that if it was to carry out its road building programme then a number of sops would have to be offered to prevent the various resentments about private transport from undermining the roads’ programme. Thus to appease the large number of people appalled by the high level of deaths on the roads the government introduced a variety of road safety measures such as the sudden installation of video cameras along some of the country’s accident black-spots to persuade motorists to obey speed limits and thus reduce car accident fatalities.[24] These quickly bore fruit and the number of fatalities dropped from 5,000 in the late 1980s to 3,000 in 1993.[25] To appease those distraught by lenient sentences given to speeding motorists, the government created a new offence of dangerous driving and set the maximum sentence at 5 years and then a short time later to 10 years.[26] More stringent mot car exhaust regulations were introduced to appease those worried about asthma.[27] In a policy reversal, the government also stated its intention to explore the feasibility of motorway charges - although whether this was to placate those worried about the costs of the new road building programme or to provoke motorists into giving more vocal support for roads is not clear.[28] Despite the government’s tactical manoeuvres, public opinion continued to shift away from the excesses of private transport but this didn’t often mean wholesale support for public transport. Opposition to the roads’ programme increased even more after july 1993 when seven protestors were jailed for contempt of court regarding protests over Twyford Down,[29] “Yesterday, 24 organizations representing more than 5 million people and including Greenpeace, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the National Trust and the RSPB met to consider ways to oppose the road programme.”[30]

The Government’s Reconsideration of its Roads Programme.

The government’s failure to placate public concern about the roads’ programme led to its first retreat - the dropping of the proposal for an east london river crossing which would have carved up Oxlees Wood. A few months later it dropped plans for a second ring road around oxford and a number of other roads, “in the last nine months the government has cancelled or revised seven schemes including the plan to drive a road through Oxleas Wood”.[31] And, on 31st march 1994 secretary of state for cars, john macgregor, published a roads review in which 49 road building projects were supposedly scrapped.

These changes seemed like a major victories for the anti-roads movement, “The last year has seen some dramatic changes for the better in transport policy.”[32]; “The recent Roads Review, where around 50 schemes were dropped and many more put on the back burner, is an indication of the very real pressure that the Department of Transport is under.”[33] Unfortunately, with the exception of Oxleas Wood and oxford’s ring road, all that the government was doing was dropping schemes at the end of the £23 billion programme. It was easy to shelve schemes which wouldn’t be built for a decade or more. The amount of greenland saved by the cuts in the roads’ programme were minimal.[34] Even worse was that at the same time as the government dropped a number of road schemes, it also announced it would speed up the implementation of the remaining roads’ programme, "Environmental groups fear that plans to be announced today to speed up the government's £23 billion road building programme will limit opportunities for public consultation."[35]

A New Ally for the Government’s Roads’ Programme.

The apparent successes of public opposition to the roads’ programme looked even less substantial after the intervention of the european community. Whilst carlos ripa di meana had been commissioner for the environment, the ec had been a considerable stumbling block to the government’s road programme. But after john major stitched up a deal with jacques delors to sack di meana[36] and replaced him with .. wait for it .. the european community’s transport commissioner, karel van miert, the european community dropped its opposition to a number of major road projects and began to aid the government’s road building programme.[37] The ec was eager to fund new road schemes in great brutland which would link up with motorways in the rest of Europe.[38] The ec enabled the government to replace the schemes it had dropped with new, ec funded, schemes.

In conclusion, the government’s retreat over its road programme was more apparent than real. There was no doubt that it had been forced to drop two major road projects, but on all the other fronts it was continuing to steamroller its way forward.

The Government’s Retreat over Its Roads Programme.

By late 1993 an increasing number of tory mps were starting to conclude that the government’s roads programme was a political liability to retaining their marginal seats in the next general election - after all, it was suspected that christopher chope, the tory mp for southampton, lost his seat in the 1992 general election because of his wholehearted support for the upgrading of the m27.[39] It was pointed out that, “A tory backbench revolt is looming against the government’s £23 billion road programme after research showing more than 90% of the large schemes considered ‘controversial’ by the department of transport are in conservative constituencies. Of the 103 roads schemes the DoT considers “highly controversial” more than 90 pass through tory constituencies .. Mr Walden tory MP for Buckingham described the roads programme, “You have a philosophy that is dangerously one-sided, almost ideologically skewed , underpinned by a primitive image of freedom of the car and against railways.”[40]

In october 1994, john macgregor was replaced as secretary of state for transport by dr brian mawhinney. This was not a mere shuffling of faces but represented a change of policy. Whilst macgregor had been a pro-road bigot, mawhinney was not, “The transport secretary Brian Mawhinney has given a clear signal that the government is preparing a dramatic U-turn on road building, reversing a decade of policy.”[41] He uttered views which would have been alien to his predecessors, “I am happy to talk in detail to the green lobby about how they see transport policy developing and ask them how, for example, the government could persuade people to get out of their cars and use public transport.”[42]

The first step in the retreat came in the november 1994 budget, when the chancellor announced a dramatic reduction in the roads programme; an increase in petrol prices of 11.25p a gallon plus £5 increase on vehicle excise duty (car tax disc).[43] On december 19th 1994, mawhinney released a report by the standing advisory committee on trunk roads recommending changes in the cost-benefit analysis to take into account the congestion caused by new roads.[44] Mawhinney supported the recommendation to drop 6 major road schemes and to put another on hold. In addition .. “all 270 planned major road schemes will be re-examined. Plans to turn the m25 into a new 14 lane super-highway now seem sure to be axed. It also puts a big question mark over all plans for new motorways, major routes around cities, and even river crossings.”[45] On january 20th 1995 selwyn gummer, secretary of state for the environment, announced plans to .. “bring cleaner air to every one of Britain’s towns and cities.”[46] In conjunction with this announcement, mawhinney also unveiled .. “a 20 point action plan on transport.”[47] At the end of february, mawhinney announced further measures, “Motorists driving vehicles which breach legal pollution limits face a fine of up to £2,500 or an immediate ban on their vehicle, the government announced yesterday, in a package which includes a permanent system of roadside spot checks.”[48]

Reasons for the Retreat.

The road building programme was expensive but given that the government was still intent on introducing the second phase of vat on domestic fuel when it announced the reduction in the roads’ programme in late 1994 the money would have been there if it had wanted to proceed with the programme. The fact that the government was intent on pushing through the second rise in vat even though it had curbed the road programme indicates that the government’s objectives had changed and that it wanted the money for another purpose - perhaps to fund tax cuts before the next election. When the chancellor was forced to withdraw the second rise in vat, the roads’ programme became comparatively more expensive[49] which could mean either further cuts in the road programme or alternative means of financing roads - for which see below.

One of the important reasons for curbing the road building programme was that it had become irrelevant in terms of the government’s original objective of helping to push the economy out of recession. By the end of 1994 the economy was expanding. It had come out of the recession in early 1990s when it was struggling in the exchange rate mechanism. The economic danger in 1994 was that the economy might overheat, the exact reverse of what it was a few years earlier. The roads’ programme had become a liability rather than an asset.

Although in march 1993 normie lamour had insisted that vat had to be levied on domestic fuel to help save the Earth other tories argued that the tax was needed to help reduce a budgetary deficit caused by spiralling social security payments brought about by the recession. This too was nonsense, a bit of right wing bigotry .. “according to the government’s own figures extra social security spending caused by the recession accounted for less than one third of the £30 billion leap in public spending. And government spending chief Michael Portillo has admitted pre-election spending plans were largely to blame for the huge increase that forced tax rises on the government.”[50] The major part of this increase was the government’s £23 billion road construction programme.

The Role of Civil Disobedience.

The question which arises is how much did the government’s retreat over the roads programme have to do with civil disobedience? It has been suggested above that the underlying reason for the retreat was the fading need to use road construction to help the country out of an economic recession. The most direct political cause of the retreat was a backbench revolt by those who believed their seats were threatened, “No fewer than 12 tory MPs in marginal seats face public hostility to unpopular road schemes.”[51]

Other factors also need to be considered. Firstly, there was a struggle within the cabinet between the transport secretary and the environment secretary selwyn gummer who went to considerable lengths to undermine the roads programme. A massive article in the daily (furrier) mirror outlined the damage caused by cars. This article was so critical that even members of the green party wouldn’t have dared to write it.[52] Secondly, the implementation of the roads’ programme was handled very badly. The sheer number of new roads alienated many people and inspired others to opposition. Whereas the tories had carefully dismantled the trade unions piece by piece, by the late 1980s the tories had become so arrogant they simply announced a huge road building programme in the belief that they could oomandoze their way over any rebellion. The government was so arrogant it believed it could even alienate its own supporters, “The magnitude of the threat to rural England is enormous. Many of the routes seem deliberately intended to open up new areas for development.”[53]

This is not to devalue the role of civil disobedience against roads. The actions taken by many protestors, involving considerable personal sacrifices, were magnificent and heroic. Without the publicity generated by these extraordinary actions there may have been much less public opposition to the roads programme and thus much less pressure on tory mps to oppose the government’s proposals. Another major success of civil disobedience was the huge cost it inflicted on road builders/government. It was no longer possible for contractors to build a road to schedule or to cost (if that had ever been the case anyway[54]). If the costs of these actions was added up they would amount to at least a bypass. Under those circumstances where the government had little money to spare because of a recession, any increase in costs would have had a comparatively bigger impact.

For a number of years the government did not take anti-road campaigns seriously because the protests were ineffective i.e. they were based on reason and persuasion. As soon as the campaigns became more serious the government outlawed such protests. The government was so incensed by civil disobedience to the roads’ programme that it was one of the major factors behind the decision to criminalize such protests.[55]There are many radicals who condemn the criminal justice bill as draconian but it was hardly to be expected that the tory government would not try to stop those who threatened the interests of its multi-national corporation paymasters - if tory mps did nothing to help their paymasters who would pay for their holidays, their hotel rooms, their expensive dinners, their beer/wine/whisky tasting sessions?

The cjb clearly highlights the limitations of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is primarily for those rich enough to afford a fine or who are willing to walk into prison. It is not a form of protest which is open to those who don’t even have the money to travel back and forth to events, lawyers’ hearings or to court, let alone pay off any fines which might be imposed.

Success for Environmental Groups?

Doubtlessly there will be many in mainstream environmental organizations who will claim that the government’s abandonment of a small part of its 1990 road building programme is a marvellous success and shows what can be achieved through reason and gentle persuasion. The fact is, of course, that what has been achieved is that a hyper-ambitious programme to cement large parts of the countryside has been reduced to more manageable proportions. To claim that reducing the government’s plans for new roads has made things better in reality is utter nonsense. In reality, since 1990, the problems caused by transport have got worse and worse - there are more cars on the roads, driving increased mileages, and there are more roads which are currently triggering off an explosion in development projects along these new links.

The battle is far from over. Firstly, great brutland, like any other over-industrialized nation, seems doomed to produce more and more cars, and construct more and more roads, simply to prevent the economy from contracting. It seems as if cars are no longer needed for mobility (this could be achieved more efficiently by public transport) and roads aren't needed to increase access (since this could be done by rail). More cars and roads are required primarily to boost the Brutish economy. The Brutish road/car/oil industries will have to be kept going no matter what damage they cause to the Planet's ecology.

Secondly, even though the department of transport’s absurd argument that new roads reduce congestion and decrease pollution has been consigned to the waste recycling plant, this does not mean that the dot’s cost-benefit analysis is suddenly going to start concluding there is no need for any more roads. Cost-benefit analyzes can be rigged to reach any conclusion the cost-benefit analyst desires and the twits in the dot who promoted the idea that roads are environmentally friendly are bound to find a new excuse for proving that more roads are needed. It doesn’t matter that the new rationale might be absurd as the previous one, as long as it enables the dot to push through new road proposals before it is, once again, forced to find another rational.

Thirdly, state funding for roads will be replaced by private investment.[56] Finally, if present trends continue then in the decades to come the number of cars will continue to increase and, as the congestion builds up, so public pressure will swing back in favour of more roads. Even worse is that even if support for public transport continues to grow it will never be a success if it has to compete with cars and the number of cars is allowed to go on increasing. Public transport will be a success only if the number of cars in the country is dramatically reduced to open up the way for more public transport.

Diversions.

Single issue campaigns against roads are of limited value. What is needed is a geocentric campaign promoting Reforestation and opposing all damage to the Earth in Carbon debtor countries.

Firstly, campaigns should be fought on geocentric grounds i.e. the impact which roads have on the Earth’s life support system rather than on environmental, ecological or humanistic grounds.[57] There are geophysiological reasons for demanding a total cessation of road building in this country, as in so many other over-industrialized countries.[58]

Secondly, campaigns should highlight that the Earth’s life support system is being destroyed by the exponential growth in the number of cars, kids, cattle, capital and carnage. There are geocentric reasons for banning cars in this country. At the very least, anti-roads campaigns should be fought not only against roads but against cars. If the number of cars is not reduced then the demand for more roads will continue to increase. Demanding the reduction of one without the other is absurd and, in the long term, futile.

Unfortunately, the anti-roads’ protests have made few significant criticisms of cars. Just as was the case in the anti-roads protests of the 1970s, the car itself has managed to stand aloof from the grubby political squabbles between the loony, pro-road, Earth-rapists and anti-roads protestors. Sadly, one of the main reasons for the car’s unchallenged status is that many anti-roads’ protestors are car owners.[59] The current spectrum of opposition to roads includes not merely middle class nimbies, professional environmentalists,[60] but ‘travellers’ and even ravers drawn in from protests against the criminal justice bill. Travellers have somehow been granted a green dispensation for the ecological damage their fleets of vehicles are causing. Ravers are mainly anti-political young people whose main form of entertainment is all-night parties many of which have been organized on what is left of Wilderness areas in the country. Reaching these parties often entails lengthy car journies around the countryside. For example, “Some people had organized a party on some MoD land perfectly out of the way (sic). The police .. pushed everyone one way - people were trying to get into their cars (sic)...”[61] Large areas of Wildlife habitats are being trampled into the ground by ravers and their cars, and being spoilt by the dumping of large quantities of consumer waste. These car-owning, oomano-imperialists have got nothing to do with green politics and quite why radical greens and Animal rightists have anything to do with them is incomprehensible. To the extent that anti-roads campaigns neglect cars (as well as kids, cattle, capital and carnage) then it is reasonable to argue that such campaigns are a diversion.

The fight to protect global commons is a diversion. It was sad to see that when the twyford 7 were released from prison they were photographed in front of a banner highlighting global commons - as if the fight over Twyford Downs was simply an offshoot of a campaign to turn the Earth into global commons which would, presumably, give local people the right to exploit all the resources i.e. Wildlife in that part of the commons which they controlled/managed/owned. But then the people running the ecologist magazine aren’t in the slightest bit interested in Animal rights or Animal freedom.

The fight against the cjb is another diversion.[62] It was sad to see the way that the extraordinary fight against the m11 seemed to be hijacked by the fight against the cjb. A banner was draped over the huge scaffolding erected over the last remaining houses in claremont road. It was doubtlessly filmed by many television companies around the world. Did it condemn cars for creating the need for this road? Did it condemn road building? Did it indicate the scale of the devastation currently being inflicted on the Earth? Not in the least. It was a banner protesting about the cjb - as if the past year of struggle hadn’t been about roads or cars or the Earth but was a pre-emptive campaign against the cjb. The means had become the ends.[63]

Over the last decade or so leftie-greens have been running around reacting to the tories’ agenda. First it was the wapping lock-out; then the 1985 miners strike; then the poll tax; then the miners again, and now the cjb. There are doubtlessly people who have organized opposition to each and every one of these policies almost as if opposing tory policies has become a way of life. But, in what way are these issues related to the Earth? In what way do campaigns on these issues raise awareness about the pending collapse of the Earth’s life support system?All of them are irrelevant to the struggle to protect the Earth. If greens can’t even set their own agenda then they are not going to save the Earth. The campaign against the cjb is not as important as the mcshit case nor the campaign against gatt. It has no relevance whatsoever to the fight against global warming and the destruction of the Earth’s life support system.

The final diversion concerns attempts to reduce car exhaust pollution. This is a double diversion. Firstly, the real issue at stake is not that car exhaust pollution is killing humans but that it is killing the Planet. Secondly, the issue is not that cars are releasing Carbon emissions which are boosting the greenhouse effect but that cars are damaging the Earth’s life support system and thus boosting global warming - after all, it is perfectly feasible, as greenpeace have demonstrated, that in the future cars will not run on fossil fuels and will not boost Carbon emissions. The damage which these cars will cause to the Earth’s life support system, however, will be extensive.

The one overwhelming advantage of the government’s criminal justice bill is that, in effect, it has put anti-roads campaigners into the same predicament as the Animal Liberation Front. In the past anti-roads activities were easy because the criminal law was rarely involved. But now such protestors face the same legal penalties as those trying to stop Animal exploitation. The tory eco-nazis government obviously believes that anti-car campaigns are as much of a threat to the continued exploitation and ruination of the Earth as the Animal Liberation Front. Now that the tories have lumped these two groups together it is about time that these groups celebrate their common identity and stopped pissing around with irrelevances such as the poll tax, the cjb, global commons, etc., etc., etc..