The future UK, and the rest of the world. . . Maybe.
Due to environmental concerns there is a global shortage of the raw materials necessary to make batteries suitable for electric vehicles, and predictably the cost of an electric vehicle (EV) has risen sharply putting the lease of an EV way beyond the average-persons reach. Many average-persons who need transport have resorted to buying up old petrol and diesel cars from local museums and private collectors. These vehicles are then fitted with a black-market conversion kit that allows them to run on home-fermented-alcohol or bio-diesel. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the government who have introduced a ‘Home-Made-Fuel-Tax’ which means every litre produced comes with a £30 tax penalty. According to the government this new tax “should discourage the average-person from fitting one of these conversion kits, discourage the average-person from creating their own fuel, and encourage the average-person to go electric!”.
To the average-person this may seem like the government is purposely keeping the raw materials in short supply so as to artificially keep the price high, but this certainly isn’t the case. In fact there is literally an endless supply of very young African children working 14 hour shifts 6 days a week in the mines of Western Africa extracting millions of tons of ore a year, it’s just that Africa is so very, very far away, and transporting the raw materials is so very, very expensive! Every party-member echoes this during a TV or radio debate whenever the question is allowed to be asked. This of course is similar to how OPEC is currently allowed to restrict production to ensure huge profits today.*1
The price per KW/Hr of mains electricity as risen to such a high level that no one who isn’t a Party-Member can afford it any more, and it is now considered an absolute luxury. Solar panels for home use have been illegal for some years now as all production has been set aside for national use only. Solar water heaters are allowed as it is still considered unhygienic to wash in cold water, or in the lakes and waterways as many started to do once the mains water was turned of in an attempt to stop the annual water shortage. Rain water is now collected by every average-person and used for washing and cooking once filtered and sterilised.
Those average-persons lucky enough to have been able to afford an electric vehicle before the restrictions were introduced have had to adopt some very unorthodox methods to give their vehicles enough charge to be even remotely useful. An alternator connected to a bicycle is the most common, with users spending upwards of 4 hours a day pedalling in the same spot just to get enough charge for their daily commute. One enterprising farmer has even installed treadmills for his cattle and sells the electricity he produces to neighbouring homes in return for them working his fields 14 hours a day every day. Predictably most households now have upwards of 8 children just to buy enough electricity so the rest of the family can have one hot meal a day.
Motorways and major roads which once carried millions of tons of goods each and every day, and allowed millions of motorists to have the freedom of travel all over the country in the privacy and comfort of their own vehicles have now had their inner lanes converted to tramways. These tramways – two per carriageway – are what is now used to transport those same goods and people up and down the country. Only now, as was common in the US, carrying goods will always take priority over the comfort of people.
The passenger trams with their poorly insulated and draughty carriages receive their electricity through overhead cables, this electricity being generated from local solar and wind farms dotted along the tramways and surrounding areas. All coal, gas and diesel power stations have long gone extinct (not because their fuel supply has run out, it's just that a small group of protesters complained about smog one morning so all traditional power stations were allowed to fall into disrepair and were never started up again once they broke down. Incidentally, and quite poetically, these very same protesters started to die out around the same time the power started to fail, presumably unable to cope with the harsh ‘New Normal’ world they so longed for!
Obviously, the tram service can be a little sketchy after night falls, especially on a still night once the wind drops. Passengers on the trams are always advised to carry a sleeping bag, candles and a weapon just in case. The trams carrying goods, however, have their own on-board diesel backup generators so these can run no matter how unreliable the external power becomes. Along side the driver of the tram, sits a hornsman whose sole purpose is to press the horn if anyone ventures onto the track in front of the tram. Patrolling the carriages is a 2-person security detachment whose main task involves keeping a watchful eye out for any passengers from a stranded passenger tram trying to hitch a ride home. With over 100,000 volts at their disposal their cattle prods make an excellent tool for detaching even the most determined stow-away!
The other lanes of these new tramways, although in a very poor state of repair having not being repaired since motor vehicles were banned from them years before, are now designated cycle lanes. Without motor vehicles helping to keep these cyclists aware of their surroundings they now just meander from lane to lane totally oblivious to any other road user – the only thing they even remotely fear is a collision with a tricycle, but even that rarely results in anything more serious than a scraped knee or a bruised shin.
That is changing though, sink holes are starting to appear at an alarming rate all along the major tramways. These sink-holes, some of which have swallowed whole groups of cyclists never for them to be seen again, pose quite a challenge for some of the less experienced riders, those on mountain bikes are usually OK.
Those who dare venture out on their bicycle after dark put themselves at risk of not only getting completely lost in the pitch-black of night, but also from being robbed by bandits that have set up camp along the way. The police did their best to respond to any call for help, but this was quickly stopped once the law-suits started flooding in accusing them of ‘restricting a persons right to make a living’ costing the government £millions in compensation claims. Obviously the government did get most of this money back through the new ‘Income Tax On Government Compensation Claims’ they introduced to combat these claims. But still, the hard work of just sending someone to hear the claimant was too much hassle so it was deemed better for everyone involved just to let the bandits rob people. Besides, these very same bandits offer customers great second-hand deals on bicycles and help to ‘Keep Britain Moving!’.
The consumption of meat has pretty much been eradicated now, and almost every average-person is registered in central government as vegetarians, some are even registered as vegans, but these are judged to be extremists and most certainly are not to be trusted on any level, certainly not with a government position.
Only Party-Members*2 are allowed meat in their diet, which they all enjoy in large quantities during their many meal breaks, all of which is delivered to them at home as part of their compensation allowance for doing ‘their bit’ and getting on with the burden of looking after the needs of the country, and to a lesser extent the average-person.
The ‘Vegetarian Act’ was introduced by the government in response to animal rights activists who were concerned by the amount of methane produced by domesticated cattle. The government encouraged average-person to comply with the new law by introducing a new ‘Animal Tax’ which saw the cost of meat products rise 1000% year-on-year, until it became so expensive it was cheaper to pay the newly introduced 'Cannibal Tax' than it was to buy a pound of sausages.
The introduction of this new tax coincidently (and conveniently*3) saw the decline of most household pets and wild mammals across the globe.
*1. OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) sets the rate at which its members (13 countries) will extract crude oil from the ground which then sets the cost to their customers as demand is reasonably steady although constantly rising. This makes them very rich and the end user very poor in relative terms. No other product is managed in this way, if a group of footwear manufacturers decided to club together and ‘fix’ their prices then the monopolies committee would get involved and break up their group, but oil production . . . It makes way too much money for the worlds governments for any one government to step in and break up their monopoly.
*2. Party-Member is the new term for what we currently call an MP (Member of Parliament) this change was seen as a great step-up from the antiquated multi-party democratic society in use previously. The Conservatives, Labour, some other 'changeling' parties, and most of the rich people all formed a single democratic party that now governs the UK. A similar system was introduced in each and every other country around the world, with the exception of three others, but once they’ve been ‘encouraged’ by more carpet bombing they will install the same system too. The One-Party-Democratic-System was chosen in response to the wasted effort required to encourage the average-person to get up and vote every now and again. This always seemed a ‘Pointless’ chore when the average-person was asked, so it was decided to relieve the average-person of this burden “for their own good!” giving them more time for leisure activities.
*3. According to animal rights activists, and also government sponsored animal psychologists at the time, it was deemed cruel to keep an animal of any kind as a ‘pet’ therefore all female animals would have to be chemical sterilised so they could no longer breed. This led to a lot of angry owners, and especially breeders, who took to the streets day after day to protest. Unfortunately the ‘Party-Police’ seized upon the opportunity to raid the homes of these breeders during their absence and take their ‘pets’ away to the newly built euthanasia centre (built from the proceeds of the 'Animal Welfare Tax'). A lot of the animals just died out naturally, but it will always remain a mystery how so many larger animals just disappeared from locked homes and gardens. Another baffling mystery was how so many meat pies could still be purchased from certain corner shops.
