EMISSIONS: Kilian Doyle blows a gasket a week
I'm sure it won't have escaped anyone's attention that new cars could be considerably cheaper in the near future, following an EU ruling that promises to increase competition in the marketplace. By this time next year, car dealers will be able to sell as many different brands from their outlets as they like, rather than being restricted to selling those from a single manufacturer whose franchise they are operating, as is largely the case now.
The move is designed to erode the power of car manufacturers "in favour of increasing consumer benefits" (it says here). In plain terms, it means loads more showrooms, loads more choice, loads more cars.
Now, anyone who has been unfortunate enough to stumble upon this little corner of obnoxiousness in the past and is aware of my opinion on the iniquitous proliferation of cars will probably feel confident in his or her ability to predict my reaction to that particular bit of news.
Ordinarily, there would be an apoplectic tirade literally jumping off the page, grabbing you by the throat and demanding you barricade every port in the land. Or else a devious plan advocating a concerted campaign that involves the purchase of thousands of police stingers and leaving them strategically placed yards from every showroom in the country.
But no. I'm more serene than that. Simply because I don't believe it'll ever come to pass. Cars here will always be the most expensive in Europe. Do you really think that just because the regulations supporting an artificially inflated market are relaxed, the prices will relax too?
Predictably, the motor industry is already passing the buck and warning that, unless the tax on new cars is lowered, prices will stay the same. "Our hands are tied," they say. And I'm an ornamental cabbage.
Well, it's time this beauteous brassica brandished the gauntlet and challenged our great leaders to do something to prove him wrong.
I'm quite happy to step down off my high horse on this one and accept that cheaper cars to a population who are getting steadily more and more shafted financially would be a welcome relief.
So, go on Government, take a risk, and call the car moguls' bluff. Slash the tax in half. You never know, it might even win you some votes, and, God knows, you're going to need them. Perhaps sooner than you think.
Anyway, I've been getting a lot of e-mails recently accusing me of being anti-car and even more anti-driver. I plead innocence by way of ignorance, as I'm neither. When in town I still confidently place my trust in public transport.
But it emerged a few short weeks ago, hidden though it was under the barrage of more headline-grabbing financial outrages, that spending on public transport for 2003 is going up by less than half a per cent over this year's paltry sum. Yup, you read it right. And what's inflation? A dozen times that, at least. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
But the realisation that things weren't ever to be as I had envisaged when aul' Mr Brennan, an affable, honourable man by all accounts, told a room full of us soaked, teeth-gnashing and slavering journalists the very day this glorious figure was revealed that we shouldn't worry, things were under control.
We wouldn't need to spend as much next year, anyway, sure hadn't he "already bought the trains". He neglected to mention there's no tracks to put them on.