9:18 pm, June 4, 2008
DO you feel ever so slightly offended by Gordon Brown calling David Cameron a ‘used car salesman’ – we mean, come on, he doesn’t even like cars and rides a bike to work!
Ok, we jest, but we’re not joking about the remark. Tory leader Cameron told Prime Minister Gordon Brown he will be ousted if he does not drop his ‘deeply unpopular’ plans for higher Vehicle Excise Duty on more polluting cars.
In angry question time exchanges in the House of Commons, he challenged Mr Brown: ‘Don’t you understand that if you don’t get rid of it, they will get rid of you?’
But the Prime Minister said the Tory leader sounded ‘more like a used car salesman’.
Campaigners say the tax should apply to new cars only, rather than all cars bought since 2001. Owners of some of the oldest cars could face a tax rise of as much as £200 – a move which the Conservatives and many Labour MPs say will hit poorer drivers the hardest.
However, Mr Brown insisted that 24 of the top 30 models of car would incur the same VED or lower.
But Mr Cameron hit back: ‘What you are doing is treating the Ford Focus as one model – in fact there are 40 models of the Ford Focus. You’ve got the saloon and the estate.’
He said owners of only three of these 40 models would be better off and added: ‘When are you going to stop using such dodgy statistics to back up your figures?’
Sounds like the Tory boss has got a point – but could you really bring yourself to vote for him…?
