Charging to use Heathrow

How cynical and how typical of the UK today! If it moves tax it, if it doesn't move tax it, what the hell just tax it.

The answer of course to cutting pollution is to cut the number of flights in and out of Heathrow. Air travel is far too cheap and lots of passengers land at Heathrow not to enter Britain but to catch onward flights to other destinations. There is no need for such traffic so a better way would be to surcharge all passengers 'passing through' Heathrow en route to their destination.

Banning private cars altogether from the airport would also be a good idea. Of course as in all things today in modern rip-off Britain it is all about profit. Pollution and congestion are just two of several convenient arguments for squeezing more money out of people one way or another.

A decent government (something we simply do not enjoy in the UK) would consider taxing the aircraft operators and airport operators in order to subsidise UK holiday resorts whose businesses have suffered for decades as a result of Britons being encouraged to holiday abroad. One must also wonder how many Brits would choose to holiday outside the British Isles if the amount of currency each person was allowed to take out of the country per trip was limited to say £100.

Of course the real issue is that there are simply too many people residing in the UK, too many car owners, too many travellers, poorly maintained roads etc etc an infrastructure busting at the seams for at least the last couple of decades and no hope whatever of positive action to redress the balance as the politicians are more interested in popularity than competent management of the country.

Heathrow adds to congestion and pollution by treating Heathrow Express and Connect as a cash cow rather than a viable option for most (ie non-business) passengers.

Yep as I said 'what the hell tax it' seems to be the norm in run down rip-off Britain unless you are a global like Amazon or a certain level of Banker, Insurer, Stockbroker or company director. The whole country is fairly corrupt from the very top downward, giving money to the treasury is akin to burning the equivalent in notes on a bonfire, our politicians simple don't understand the concepts of living within one's means and balancing the books without the various mechanisms of creative accounting used to demonstrate how well off we all are. Councils, banks, companies etc are all playing the same game and at the very bottom of the heap some individuals have learnt to use similar techniques to have a good standard of living without working.

As for APD I'm sure Brits pay it to leave the country by air but I'm not at all sure that those passing through Heathrow from one country to another are charged for the privilege! While you quote 1994 as the date of introduction of APD it was not new, it simply had a different name. The last time I holidayed abroad and travelled by air was in 1973, 15 days in Ibiza for around £75 in a nice hotel hiked to £80 by the Heathrow airport surcharge of £5, my recollection is that the surcharge resulted from fuel shortages due in the main to production restrictions imposed by the middle eastern oil producers at the time. Some will remember that vehicle drivers were all issued petrol ration coupons that year too as it was envisaged that there would not be enough petrol and diesel to keep motorists, businesses and emergency services all on the road. In the event we never needed the coupons as the fuel crisis abated.

These days we pay a whole raft of taxes that never existed when I was growing up, tax cuts are meaningless, we all pay far more in taxes than the government suggest, that is set to continue as every one seeks new ways to fleece us, the government, the councils, the banks, the insurers, the wholesalers, the retailers etc. Perhaps the only honest organisations are the manufacturers who have little or no choice but to raise wholesale prices to cover the ever increasing costs of raw materials. But no matter how one looks at it, it is a worldwide game in which everyone but the taxpayer is a winner!