The fight against Climate Change from a transport perspective is quite simple isn’t it? We need to wean people away from oil-driven cars, out of convenient domestic flights and into trains. Listening to transport champions and making trains greener, cleaner, faster and cheaper must surely be a top priority for a Government that is serious about realising its self-appointed title ‘greenest Government ever’. Infact, I’d say such an objective should be a bare minimum.

It is incredible therefore, genuinely incredible, that train fares are expected to rise by some 30-40% over the course of this coalition’s administration.

Taken from the Liberal Democrats’ own website, the same website that contains the line “Nuclear has a dirty legacy and increases global security risks. We oppose construction of further nuclear power stations.”, we have the following:

“Liberal Democrats believe buses and trains should be affordable and reliable so people can have a real choice about how to travel.”

The Telegraph had them down as specifically pledging to “cut commuter rail fares”.

How does increasing rail fares by a third, rail fares that were already the most expensive in Europe, make travelling by train “affordable”?

Indeed, a damning 2009 quote from current Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker makes this all the more uncomfortable for the Lib Dems:

“….the government has failed train passengers for over a decade. Prices have been allowed to mount to an unacceptable level with British passengers paying the highest train fares in Europe.”

In The Guardian, the generally oafish Lord Sugar talked of the Lib Dems today in a way that I daresay a growing number of Brits agree with:

“”One thing that’s for sure, this coalition thing is an absolute joke. It’s got to be sorted out. It can’t last for long with these Lib Dems and all that. These two people, [Nick] Clegg and [Vince] Cable, in their heart of hearts never thought they would get into power, now it’s as if Leyton Orient suddenly found themselves in the Champions League. Fish out of water! Unbelievable! They don’t know what they are doing! I think Cable should … he should just give it up. They should put him in a field somewhere and give him a bit of hay.”

Nuclear power, tuition fees, rail fares and VAT rises. Nick Clegg must really love the Alternative Vote if he is willing to give up so many principles for this referendum.

Not that the buck stops only with the Lib Dems. The Conservatives are taking this country in an almost diametrically opposite direction from where it needs to move towards if the problems of climate change, inequality and social mobility are to be solved.

Many people live outside of London and other big cities and pay expensive season tickets just to travel into work each day. These increases in fares may well result in many of them deciding to move into the city to cut down on travel costs, a change to how we live that would be a hammer blow for some rural communities and would see cities bursting at the seams.

It’s the lack of joined up thinking that gets me, the myopic approach taken inside each individual Government department area that seems to ignore the whole gamut of problems that need to be addressed in their totality. Chief amongst these is climate change and if all areas of policy are inadequate then the guilty party is the man at the top, David Cameron. Zac Goldsmith must be pulling his beautifully coiffured hair out.

Vote Blue, get Green? What a joke.