"Radical�, "drastic", "draconian" are three of the terms being used to describe the scale of public spending cuts across the country. No-one is to be protected from these cuts. After all, as Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are very keen to remind us, we are �all in this together�. Similarly, for many years, there has been cross-party consensus on Humber Bridge tolls: they are too high, they are a tax on south bank residents and they put a brake on pan-Humber growth. Numerous Humber Bridge Toll campaigns have sought to address these issues, in a bid to help the local economy and motorists, and recently a fresh attack on the tolls was launched after councillors unanimously agreed to mount "full-scale resistance" to a tolls increase, and many were given fresh hope that the tolls could be slashed after all and in line with North Lincolnshire Council policy. But it emerged that one of North Lincolnshire�s own Councillors had voted for a tolls increase at the last meeting of the Humber Bridge Board. Bridge board members were asked to vote on proposals to increase the toll from �2.70 to �3 for cars in the last week of September. Councillor Keith Vickers, also Vice Chairman of the Board, voted in favour of the proposals claiming that it was a legal stipulation that tolls were forced to rise every two years. Interestingly, this is not the case and none of the other North Lincolnshire representatives on the Humber Bridge Board voted in favour of an increase. Summing up the situation, Councillor Mashook Ali, also a representative from North Lincolnshire Council on the Humber Bridge Board, said: "This council has a policy of fighting for the abolition of the tolls. I do not understand why Mr Vickers voted in favour of increasing the tolls.� However, Councillor Vickers as Vice Chair of the Bridge Board, was about to play what he believed to be his trump card, when he announced that the Bridge Board could use savings achieved from a maintenance contract to freeze the tolls through to April 2012 � an eminently sensible way of ensuring hard-pressed bridge users were not hit in the pocket by yet another toll hike. Word leaked out that the Bridge Board was to seek approval from the Department for Transport to use the �5m saving for this purpose. Yet the Department for Transport was quick to reply that it would not be possible to use the savings in this way. Everyone had assumed, wrongly it turned out, that Government had been contacted first by Councillor Vickers to check the facts prior to his supposed face-saving announcement. Millions of people in this country face a bleak financial future, and a rise in the Humber Bridge tolls is something countless people cannot afford. Cleethorpes Conservative MP Martin Vickers, whose constituency contains Councillor Vickers� ward, has now written, along with other MP�s from both sides of the Humber, to transport ministers calling for the Board to be allowed to take forward its original plans to prevent any increase in the tolls this year; �The tolls impact on individuals who need to access the health services on the north bank and also act as a barrier to economic development in northern Lincolnshire." Clearly, Councillor Vickers is way out of touch with the many local people who elected him in Barton upon Humber and with Humber Bridge protocol. More surprisingly he is out of line with his own party but they, no doubt, will quickly forgive and forget his mistake. His betrayal, on the other hand, of the electorate of Barton upon Humber, the people of North Lincolnshire and all Humber Bridge users will no doubt be met with far less compassion and tolerance which ultimately, for Councillor Vickers at least, could prove very costly in the forthcoming local elections.