Has this Government totally lost the plot with its current taxation policy? After the farcical 10p tax increase, we see more ill thought-out policy over vehicle excise duty.

In less than a year's time, people who bought cars as long as seven years ago could face a doubling of their car tax.

In his budget Alistair Darling claimed it would "encourage manufacturers to produce cleaner cars". I'm prepared to stand corrected, but I am not currently aware of a time machine that allows manufacturers to produce cleaner cars that were already built seven years ago.

This policy is not about changing future behaviour, something I am very much in agreement with. It hits people who already own cars.

In Labour MP Rob Mariss's own words: "It is retrospective tax. I am in favour of prospective green taxes to change people's decisions when buying a new car. But taxing them heavily on a car which may have been bought seven years ago does not seem a good way to go and will discredit the concept of green taxes."

As I have argued before with regard to Landfill Tax, this Government is destroying the public's faith in green taxation and this cannot be allowed to continue. As with the 10p tax, and Landfill Tax, it says one thing but means something else.

We were told all about the "tax cut" from 22p to 20p, but it kept quiet about the 10p tax con. We were told endlessly how these new VED bands would discourage people from buying big gas-guzzling SUVs, but it kept quiet about the increase for people driving seven-year-old Ford Mondeos.

The one achievement this Government has managed is to unite people of all political persuasions against it - groups as widespread as the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greenpeace have come out in condemnation of this idea.

Coun Nigel Ayre, Galtres Road, York.