The Royal Mail has promised to go around all the post boxes in the voting areas and get all votes posted by the last post today and then deliver them for counting at 10pm tonight. So if you want to vote you can!

There seems to a lot of heat about the vote in the media but a lack of interest on the part of the those who will be affected.

Maybe that’s because people believe that the votes will keep coming until we vote the right way – "Yes." Certainly that’s what several people I’ve talked to have said.

How will the vote go?

It’s difficult to predict because of the apparent massive apathy and the equally passionate supporters on both sides of the argument.

In one of the letters in today’s Manchester Evening News I noticed that one (long) letter pointed out that small businesses would move out of Manchester. Workers would start at a time that allows them to go through after the charge period thus creating another congestion.

And the congestion charge supporters brightly point to the fact that the traffic infrastructure will be massively improved by the government money. A point I remain to be convinced by.

After all if there’s talk of delaying needed aircraft carriers what’s the likelihood of Manchester receiving all the promised money? Remember we were promised money for the Metrolink expansion by the "New" Labour  government who decided not to bother after all.

I still remain in two minds on the one very optimistic hand I want to believe that the money offered would improve the Metrolink to all areas, including the Trafford centre and Manchester Airport.

On the other hand I remember the broken promises of bus deregulation, of other transport initiatives and of the downright lack of belief in the truth of a politician’s promise.

Good luck Manchester, how ever it goes!

I was minding my own business on the M60 car park the other day when I noticed a tiny car zip by in the middle lane. The thing that caught my attention was that it had a large pole stuck vertically up on the roof to which were attached what looked like 4 cameras.

Then another few days later I saw a similar car driving through Blackley.

I noticed one of these same types of cars in London earlier this year when I was with a client. He explained that the cars had been used by Google to take images of every corner of London so they could create a virtual London anyone could “walk” through. The cars had then been taken by Ken Livingston (then Mayor of London) to help him with policing of the congestion charge and/or parking.

So it looks as though we’ll be able to walk through a virtual Manchester in due course.  Will the little cars be used to police the congestion charge I wonder?

It does all seem to be very Big Brother. Maybe George Orwell’s vision didn’t arrive in 1984. Maybe he was 24 years late in his prediction?

And then to cap it all I got caught by a mobile speed camera operating from one of those anonymous looking white vans!

A virtual Manchester is going to really help anyone looking for a house as they’ll be able to wander around the neighbourhood and see the shops, the schools and all the houses.

The only downside maybe Greater Manchester will adopt the cars for enforcement of everything – litter, jay walking, speeding, incorrect parking, congestion charging .

Is the next step to equip everyone with a pair of glasses with cameras on them to record everything you do to see if you break the law? Interesting times…

When the Manchester Evening News reports on a leak of a poll conducted by NOP I was interested to find that the leak shows that 57% agreed with the congestion charge when it was related to the ?3 billion cash for public transport.

There’s lies, damned lies and Statistics. And in particular statistics relating to polls.

When I was doing my MSc in Management Sciences at UMIST we were shown just how easy it is to manipulate statistics by emphasising the questions a particular way.

I’m going to wait to see how the question was phrased to see whether it made a difference to the answer.

However, I have a few thoughts before the report is revealed on Monday:

1. Were the people interviewed living in the city centre and therefore completely unaffected by the charges?
2. Were the people interviewed students and again completely unaffected by the charges?
3. Were the people interviewed regular rush hour drivers who use Manchester during the rush hour?
4. Did the people involved use public transport regularly?
5. Were the people interviewed Manchester residents?
6. Did the people interviewed have large incomes?

Does this poll now make the bid “acceptable” to the councils involved in setting the charge? And the answer is of course it does!

But if the poll asked loaded questions the result is not a fair reflection of what the public believes. But it’s now given the councils the ammunition they were looking for to move forward and slap on another road tax.

And quite honestly I object to the councils spending  vast sums doing research, advertising the concepts and softening us up to accept the charge.

What happens next is the councils decide that instead of ?5 they’ll charge ?4 to make us relieved and so we think, “oh, that’s not as bad as ?5, we can go with that.”

When all the time none of us ever wanted congestion charging in the first place.

Update on Congestion Charging Poll:

Apparently NOP used random phone numbers across Manchester councils.

So if they’ve phoned 100 people in Bury, all of whom work in Bury and will never cross the congestion charge boundary those people will be happy for the congestion charge to be there because it will mean better public transport overall.

So I hope they asked everyone if they commute into Manchester during rush hour everyday first…what’s the betting?