Free Unicorns!

That's an offer not an instruction.

As the party manifestos are getting launched this week, those sceptical about them will be claiming that unreasonable promises are being made and I have heard the term "Free Unicorns" used.

But Autocar today are taking a different tack on unicorns.

They list a series of motoring unicorns - cars that are very, very rare on our roads.

It made me think Vauxhall Signum - I see one of these regularly around where I live and wonder how many are still about.

But no.  Autocar go with the aesthetically- challenged Ford Scorpio, the also-strange-looking Seat Altea Freetrack and, amongst others, a car I'd forgotten about altogether, the Mercedes R-Class.

They also give a mention to the Volvo S80 V8. Any political party offering me a free one of those unicorns can definitely have my vote.

I suspect it won't be The Greens.

Why I'm Voting Labour Tomorrow

For the past five years, The Tories & Liberals have been punishing the firemen.  And the teachers.  And the librarians, the doctors, the nurses, the binmen, the Town Hall staff, the police, the soldiers, the street cleaners, the school crossing patrols.  In fact anyone paid by the public purse.  Apart from the politicians.

They have been punishing them for the crimes of the bankers.  This annoys me.

David Cameron says that this austerity is the fault of the mess they inherited from Labour - the huge debt-pile.

Except there is nothing wrong with debt - properly regulated and properly accounted debt.  How else does he expect people to buy these properties that he's forcing the Housing Associations to sell off cheap?  It is the same way Thatcher sold off the Council-owned properties in the '80s.  It is how most of home-owning Britain buys its homes.  It's how I bought mine.

It is with a mortgage.

The problem comes when corrupt bankers decide to give mortgages to people they know cannot afford them.  Then they sell those debts on to other bankers, gullible ones or incompetent ones or greedy ones who then sell them on again.  Until the people who can't pay don't pay.  Then we have the big crash and the world governments have to step in.  That is the real cause of this austerity.

The bankers seem to have gotten away with this though - certainly there aren't any languishing in prison anywhere - and I'm pretty sure they are not worse off than they were five years ago.  Cameron says that the economy is recovering now.  I'm not convinced.  I'm certainly worse off than I was five years ago.

So what about the other parties?

UKIP are just Tories who have argued with their constituency parties.  They have some very right-wing ideas.  They would probably try to reintroduce fox-hunting.  And smoking in pubs.  And probably fox-hunting in pubs.

I live in England so couldn't vote for Plaid Cymru, DUP, Sinn Fein, SNP etc. even if I wanted to.  Although if I lived in Scotland I would be asking myself why The Sun was saying Cameron is no good, vote SNP whereas South of the Border, the Sun is saying Cameron is wonderful and the SNP are trying to hold Britain to ransom.

Next question - what is this doing in a motoring blog?  Where are the usual inane comments about Formula 1 or Top Gear?

Well that brings me on to The Green Party.  Less than a month ago, they wanted to ban my car.  And my wife's.  And, almost certainly yours too.  They have now relented a bit on that and just want to fit future-tech speed limiters to all new cars.  Bad enough in itself but reading the rest of their transport policy does sound like war on the car-owner.

So, that just leaves Labour then.

I Drive a Green Car

It's a V6 2.5 litre all-wheel-drive Jag - but it is green:

I know it's a bit blurry, but that's because it is on Google Streetview.

It also goes faster than "the majority of EU national maximum speed levels"

Which means that the Green Party want it off the road - along with just about every other car that is currently on the UK roads.

Six Green Party members have noticed that this may not be a vote-winner.

Caradvice.com.au alerted me to the story here.

Which prompted me to check out The Mirror story here.

Which prompted me to check out The Green Party's own Website for their Transport Policy.

And sure enough - it is in there - it is well-hidden but it is in there:

"TR310 Vehicles would not be permitted for road use that had the ability to travel at greater speeds than the majority of EU national maximum speed levels."

Now I could be in favour of this...

...if it meant that the majoirity of EU national speed limits were raised to 200mph - the M6 Toll Road is a bit like that now - although it is mostly Zafira Drivers who speed along there for some reason.

But what I suspect the Greens want is for us all to drive around in slow cars.

Perhaps something pre-war - with rubbish brakes and rubbish fuel economy and rubbish passenger-crash-zones and horrific emissions.  They don't want to ban that, but they would ban a Smart Fortwo II 0.8 CDi:

To be fair, I also wouldn't mind that being banned - but that's for different reasons.

The Greens' transport policy looks like war on the motorist.   There are 570 paragraphs and it includes the word "holistic" which is never a good thing.  It also advocates a lot of  "public awareness campaigns" to tell us why what we are doing is wrong.

Believe it or not - I am environmentally friendly -  I cycle and I recycle - a bit - and I don't use my car for unnecessary journeys - but if the Greens want to try to engage with me, they are going to have to be a lot more understanding of the modern world and the fact that people can get a lot of enjoyment from cars and driving.  The world looks very dark under the greens.

Dark green.

Like my car.