Building a by-pass through road user charging.

Winterbourne is a village not far from here. It's both a traffic hotspot and an electoral problem. There's some local pressure for a by-pass and it was this issue that helped the Tories capture all the seats at the last local election (whereas the previous administration had a good splattering of LibDems). The LibDems remain the largest group on the council, however, and traffic and planning is in LibDem hands.

It's quite clear that Winterbourne won't get a by-pass. It's impractical, improbable and wouldn't do the slightest bit of good for Winterbourne's traffic problems. A great deal of the traffic comes from, or goes to, places well inside the arc of any meaningful by-pass. Nevertheless the Tories promised it but, of course, can't deliver. The LibDems promised they wouldn't deliver it and will continue to not deliver it, which won't help at all when trying to get re-elected.

Simplistically what needs to happen is this: the LibDem traffic planners solve Winterbourne's traffic problems, placate the locals, claim victory then sweep all before them at the 2007 local elections. Easier said then done.

I've heard that the council has applied for a pilot road user charging scheme. Unfortunately, applied in Winterbourne it will simply pave the way, so to speak, for a disastrous by-pass.

One assumes that the strategy will be to price the traffic-clogged center of Winterbourne highest, and therefore by necessity, the surrounding roads lower. The cars which would previously have gone through the center will disperse into several narrow rat-runs: the country lanes which lace their way around the village.

These country lanes have very little capacity and will quickly become overloaded. This will generate a legitimate cause for complaint among those who live along them, those who are now regularly queuing on them, and those who have a genuine reason to be going that way. The response will be to increase the price of these roads, driving traffic back into Winterbourne or simply onto other narrow lanes.

This situation will yield a greater demand for a way of driving around Winterbourne (thus avoiding the high road use charge) without getting stuck in a narrow lane. The obvious solution will be to widen the lanes. Then make the widened lanes join up. Then join them neatly onto what's currently the main road.

And as if my magic, a by-pass. But a by-pass at a high cost, in a haphazard location and just as ineffectual as one built straight off. Road user charging is not a valid way of addressing localised congestion.

When is a bung (not) a bung?

Is it acceptable for the central party to bribe local parties in target seats to select particular candidates? That is to say, should the party be in the business of slipping "large sums" to certain campaigns based solely on the gender of the candidate?

It appears that it is acceptable, and that this practice will grow in the future, limited only by available funds.

http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/agenda.html?id=575&navPage=conferenceagenda.html (See the penultimate paragraph of the section titled "What the GBTF did between March and the election", about two-thirds of the way down.)

If the party is going to spend cash to get more women candidates it must at least be open and honest about it, not try to hide it away in a quango.

Rather unconvinvingly, the GBTF claims not to give any material advantage to women candidates after approval. Yet they've set the precedent of distributing extra funds to seats that have selected women. Any local party going into the selection process would do well do bear this in mind.

Up next, similarly funded task forces for racial balance, then religious balance? Maybe one for political balance (for candidates who aren't LibDems)? All "overwealmingly" supported by a nominally liberal party ostensibly opposed to centralism.

Of course Simon Hughes is already onto that last one.