Bold is beautiful

I'M A collector of historical objects. Part of the collection is a tram ticket from 1953 for a ride, from my home in Brixton to Kennington Oval where I went to school. Why did I keep it?

Because that ride was part of Last Tram Week and coming to Blackpool brings back memories of those clanking beasts.

This is not nostalgia. It's a genuine regret that we got rid of the trams rather than modernising them.

Croydon's Tramlink is one of the most successful investments in public services we have seen in the capital. It's the envy of all of us in other parts of the city. I was also in Strasbourg recently for a Council of Europe meeting and rode on their wonderful new trams. The system was brought in by the city's socialist mayor and she won re-election during a period of enormous disruption while it was being built.

The lesson I draw is that voters are looking for boldness in their political leaders to solve our transport problems.

Believe it or not, I was planning to write that before I heard the best line from Tony Blair's conference keynote speech: "We are at our best when we are at our boldest."

BOLDNESS should not be confused with wrong-headedness. Some people may think congestion charging in central London is bold. Perhaps.

It's also a regressive tax in that it bears hardest on the least well-off car owners. It' s also an expensive tax to collect: 50p in every pound of revenue will be swallowed by set-up and running costs. The suggestion that it will be scrapped within months of start-up if the public reaction is hostile is cavalier in the extreme. Friends of the current project will have some explaining to do over the waste of the pounds 200 million development costs.

Copyright 2002
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