The price of political cowardice

The government’s u-turn on road pricing is a depressing act of political cowardice. Steve Richards has a spot on column in The Independent today on the matter:

“In this context there is a big risk that the fashionable “new politics”, in which leaders seek a dialogue with the voters on every policy, will lead to bad rather than better government. Petitions would have stopped some of the most effective policies over recent decades, many of which were unpopular at the time and became popular later.… Sometimes leaders must take tough decisions and hope the plaudits will come later. Tough decisions will not be taken if leaders are so obsessed with short-term popularity, the instant verdicts on the internet and the petitions of unthinking protesters. Instead, they will take the seemingly safer option of standing still, like the traffic that is doomed to get nowhere while road space is free.”