Guru

Guru was an original signatory to the anti-road-pricing petition on the 10 Downing Street website. Can you imagine the costs Guru would incur on his fleet of Jaguars, Bentleys and all the other automotive exotica stored in his temperature controlled museum/garage?

The idea of having some black box under the bonnet tracking Guru's every movement is unthinkable. The very nature of Guru's business can require deep stealth and the element of surprise.

So Guru was interested to receive a personal e-mail from Tony Blair this morning, telling him why he was wrong to sign the petition, that he had the wrong end of the stick about road pricing, and that the government was pressing ahead with its road pricing plans anyway.

Here's an extract:

Evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. Road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and in Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes.

Plainly a petition of 1.8 million of Guru's disciples isn't enough for this government. So Guru will have to resort to a method of more proven recent success - a large donation to the Labour Party. It worked for Bernie Ecclestone. You never know, it might even speed up the award of Guru' long-overdue honour. Lord Guru of HR has quite a nice ring to it.