Scraping the Stonehenge Bottom of the Barrel

RAC Foundation director Professor Stephen Glaister said: “The Chancellor collects more than £30 billion in road fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty (car tax) alone but spends just a quarter of this on the road network (Western Daily Press)

Well, good. We can spend the other three-quarters on asthma and diabetes treatment and research, bike lanes and rail. Personally I'd scrap the Vehicle Excise Duty completely. If we want to charge people for polluting the air - and who wouldn't - we can more efficiently load it straight onto road fuel duty. Directly and proportionately charges the biggest users of fuel - and therefore biggest polluters.

And yes, we should improve the A303. We should narrow it, with pinch points, so people rat running to the West Country use the M4, like they're supposed to, and the only people who go that way are people who actually want to visit Stonehenge.

And, with the money raised from my enhanced fuel duty, we can tunnel a proper "tube" tunnel - 50 yards under Stonehenge - and bury the A303 so deep it has no effect on the archaeology. Problem solved. Rant over.