A familiar refrain from certain quarters during Labour’s time in office was that the government had declared “war on the motorist”. The phrase originated from right-leaning tabloid newspapers and was picked up enthusiastically by the Tory party as an easy vote-winner with its middle class base.
With Labour gone and Tory Philip Hammond (a man who thinks that trains should stop and wait for cars at level crossings) firmly entrenched in the Department for Transport, the war on the motorist is well and truly over. The final front has been closed, apparently, with the removal of the M4 bus lane.
On its own this would not make much difference: the war on the motorist was about as successful as the war on drugs, the war on obesity and the war on Iraq. However at the same time as ending the war on the motorist, the Government has declared a new war: on public transport users.