introduce widespread traffic calming) was one of the first local authorities forced to sell its corporation bus fleet. One first rate coach builder I knew left (Stagecoach) Ribble Blackburn depot to become top man at Hyndburn Transport, only to leave after a couple of weeks later because the urgent repair workload (due to running over traffic calmed streets) was impossible to keep up with, he was such a good man that Ribble instantly gave him his old job back. Corporate Stagecoach picked up Hyndburn Transport on the cheap in a bent deal arranged with the bent Labour leader of the council who pushed the traffic calming in the first place, the first class engineering depot ( on a prime site ) was asset striped and sold. Other corporation transport operations have fallen to the corporates since due to being unable to even break even, and not being able to access new investment for more modern vehicles. Another false economic growth investment scam was "disabled access to public transport," the corporates were all for it after sorting a bent deal with the minister in charge who's son was employed in a top management position by one of them. Just for the extra interest payments alone it would have been possible to provide a 24/7 dial up free taxi service to anywhere in the UK for anybody claiming DLA. Perhaps this prime example of politically correct lunacy is the main reason why its far cheaper per mile to run your car than use public transport because the fares are so high now in many areas. We have now reached a point where local authorities are forced to subsidise the majority of bus services using the council tax, the corporate bus operators taking the angle that if they can't turn a fat profit they wont run the service. Thatcher's bus privatisation plan has been amply proven an abject failure, short of total re-nationalisation the way forward now is efficient regulation with the bus operators turned into virtual road haulage contractors to the local council, who would collect all the fares and organise all the timetables.Both the above false economic growth generating scams come via the EU but more recently motor industry funded alleged charities have been set up to demand legislation on the grounds of "road safety", but their impact has been nothing compared to the influence of environmental NGO's on government policy. Perhaps their first major victory was when Ken Clarke introduced the Road Fuel Tax Escalator, of course big business said nothing perhaps because they were prepared to run with anything which could prevent the top rate of income tax being increased and the resultant drop in funds to their "stock market parasites," (hedge funds and the like.) It didn't have any real impact at first but Labour was favourite to win the 1997 election and if there was a working brain between them they must have realised the RFTE made particularly northern manufacturing industry uncompetitive. However, Brown just carried on with it and by 1998 I can recall that hundreds of once well secure job for life "household name" manufacturing jobs were being lost every week. This continued until the Farmers For Action fuel protests and ending of the RTFE in 2000, but by this time the "stock market parasites" had got it into their DNA that asset stripping British industry was far more profitable in the short term than actually trying to run it efficiently. By this time global big business had organised itself into a virtual Corporate Multinational Cartel ( CMC ) which prevented any real competition in an alleged " free market ", with direct services to the public contracted out to franchise holders in many cases. I suspect that the general public have no idea what the vast majority of FTSE listed companies actually do any more, and therefore it is impossible for members of the public to take any direct "consumer action" against them by withholding their trade. Take the toxic waste dumping in Africa more recently, it is impossible to decipher which major company was actually responsible, almost everyone in the chain escapes vicarious liability with the investment in the "shell company" which probably goes bust to pay the fines being insured by credit default swaps etc. The sting in the tail is that if it was not for alleged environmental groups bleating about non existent toxic pollution from waste incinerators with the latest technology we could have created well paid sustainable jobs in the UK.That neatly brings us onto the next eco scam, household / industrial waste incineration or lack of it as far as the UK is concerned. Eco groups have bleated so loud over the last 20 years about toxic emission that most brain dead politicians (at least where engineering or science is concerned) have done everything they can to appease them. Many councils are now contracted to mega expensive "waste treatment plants," which probably cause anyone local far more noxious smell than any incinerator could ever do. The most logical way to dispose of waste is to incinerate and generate electricity, in rural areas where the potential smell is well away from residential areas but also to allow the construction of glasshouses in order to use any waste heat in order to grow the exotic fruit and vegetables currently imported by environmentally damaging air freight. Of course the UK is not allowed to do this because it hits the CMC in two areas, the energy sector ( electricity from incineration could reduce market prices ) and the airlines which indirectly hits the oil section of the cartel. Environmentalists have made a big noise about disposable carrier bags and other alleged excess packaging but if they were burnt to generate electricity we could reduce demand on other fuels. The UK has 300 years supply of good quality coal in the ground yet the environmentalists say we should not use it because there would appear to be doubts about the practicality of the most expensive option for capture of CO2. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel plants can be significantly reduced growing Chlorella, a fast growing