KEN Livingstone is in his element. Two days after a million people marched in his city to oppose Tony Blair - the man who tried to bury his political career - Mr Livingstone presumes to steal the headlines from the Prime Minister.

The London Mayor is a politician not to be ignored. You either love him or loathe him. That divide will grow deeper still after today, when he launched the world's biggest congestion charging scheme.

Motorists and business leaders have condemned him as a fool, environmentalists have hailed him as a visionary. Only time will tell.

It is hard not to admire Mr Livingstone's courage. For decades, people moaned about the traffic nightmare in Britain's capital, and did nothing about it. Politicians were too fearful of upsetting motorists.

Mr Livingstone, it seems, is willing to be vilified. He has done something. With few exceptions, everyone driving into central London now has to pay a daily £5 charge.

The scheme represents a failure in long-term transport policy. Too few people have been persuaded out of their cars and on to public transport; now they are being prized out. Mr Livingstone once offered a carrot to travellers to make the switch, with the Fares Fair cheap travel programme on London public transport.

Now he is wielding the stick.

There is also an anomaly at the heart of the congestion charge. If too many people respond as he hopes and leave their cars at home, the charge will not raise enough money to invest in public transport.

Most crucially, today's experiment exposes Britain's desperate need for an integrated transport policy. However ambitious Mr Livingstone's intention, this remains a local scheme.

Here in York, the council's radical approach to cutting jams was dealt a blow when the Strategic Rail Authority shelved plans to reopen branch stations.

What we require is a national blueprint for traffic management, involving much greater investment in public transport. In its absence, many cities will be watching the London congestion charge scheme with great interest.

Updated: 10:34 Monday, February 17, 2003