imlach

Of which I'm not, but there you go....resorting to petty jibes which don't advance the discussion has always been your pathetic style.

Fuel prices are not HUGELY different within the EU. It's swings & roundabouts as overall taxation always is. France are not paying 20p/litre for example...they're up at 1.40 euros too...

Petrol has not risen hugely beyond inflation. It was 80p/litre at times a decade ago....for personal usage, fuel is a luxury item. Unlike staple food.


Public spending is never popular. As I said before, the majority of the people who voted, voted for it....if they got taken in by the policies, that's annoying.

Most of us can see what needs done. I'm very apolitical on this one. Fuel duty is not the first thing that needs reduced as a priority.

imlach

There we go again eh. Any organisation that doesn't share your opinion are nutters are they? If everyone thought the same, life would be so dull.

Reality

Here's where the money's going - and haven't things improved across the public sector board

72,000 extra people employed by King Tony this year - No wonder he got back in !

imlach

What I find SO amusing is that if this board had existed in the mid 90's, you'd all have been moaning about the bloomin' Tories and how unfair taxation was and it was time for Labour to be in power to change things.

10 years later, you're moaning about bloomin' Labour and how unfair taxation is....

Oh how I laugh

ajm

Why just compare with Europe? 42p per litre in Guernsey. What is it about our country that dictates our fuel should be one of the most expensive, and yet our public transport alternative is one of the worst? Bad, inefficient and wasteful government.




I never reaslised that getting to work was a luxury. I must be more grateful in future for the privilege of being free to move around on the roads I pay for.

We are not debating prioritires here with other examples of overtaxation, we are simply saying that fuel is overpriced, and that the majority of that is because of tax, and as a consequence we have a right to be miffed about it.

Dracoro

Interesting. Let's look at it today, about 62p (approx) is tax, so 62% of the total is tax. That's a lower %age of tax than 15 years ago!!!!

imlach

Guernsey? Oh I see...a good example of an industrialised EU nation then Guernsey is an exception, not the norm.

In your OPINION fuel is overpriced. The price reflects the current worldwide supply/demand cost. Simple.

I'll let you carry on with your pathetic jibes anyway. It shows a certain maturity

SJ_Skyline

Steady on, this may just have some mileage in it!

Reality

And don't forget the tax on the Oil companies - That all adds to the cost of petrol - which is then taxed again (and then has VAT added). Then there's the tax on the Oil Company employees and the tax on their sub-contractors etc etc etc.


Let's face it - if it wasn't for Tax petrol would cost 2p a barrel (allowing for inflation).

Abdabz

ROFLMAO Shoe Leather tax and oxygen tax to follow, but its OK Arnie will go to Mars and have it off with Sharon Stone and then the dark girl and see a baby in a blokes stomach, but it will all be OK in the end

Seiously if you've concerns about the here and now then fair enough, but the scoobynet doomsday book is yet to be published

ajm

You smell of poo!

unclebuck

Not at all. It's just that organisations such as Sustrans, Transport2000 etc are funded by the government seemingly to formulate ever more outlandish 'green' policies that could then be foisted upon the rest of us with little or no consultation or balanced discussion. Where is the government funding for organisations such as Safe Speed for example?

I don't mind these people having whatever opinions they want, however when they try to force them onto the population at large as these organisations are doing they cross a line in the sand and become zealous fanatics - hence, green lentil munching nutters.

Did you know that Hitler was a strict vegetarian?

SJ_Skyline

I can't somehow see Transport2000 invading Poland...

unclebuck

Sorry I left the icon off the end.

ajm

I reckon they would if enough Polish drove 4x4's

scoobylav

Not normally picky me but the majority of the voters actually voted Conservative.

AC-scoobie

Refreshing to see some one who knows what he is talking about.

SJ_Skyline

source

Labour 9,566,618
Conservative 8,785,941
Lib Dem 5,985,414
DUP 241,856
SNP 412,267
Sinn Fein 174,530
Plaid Cymru 174,838
SDLP 125,626
UUP 127,414
Respect 68,094
Ind Kid Hosp 18,739
UKIP 605,973
Green 257,695
BNP 192,746
Scottish Soc 43,514
Veritas 40,481
Alliance 28,291
Scottish Grn 25,760
Liberal 19,068
Others 252,466
Turnout 27,148,975

AC-scoobie

See democracy don't work, only a third of us wanted that scum bag blair in charge, first past the post isn't democracy it's a joke.

imlach

Absolutely agree as regards fairness of the voting outcome.

PR should be brought in ASAP.
The only slight downside of PR is that you often end up with no overall majority, which can make getting things done a bit harder.

imlach

Forgot to add, it's not just 1/3 that voted for Labour....it was about 1/6 of the voting population as nearly half the voting public didn't vote. Eejits.

So, under 20% of the voting population voted for Labour.

Makes you think.

CavT

The UK has had a deficit since time began, just like every country other than Saudi Arabia (big fuel producer!). Gordon Brown isn't going to clear the deficit alone with the fuel tax, and frankly, I don't want him blowing all my money trying to reduce it so quickly. The Government are perpetuating the myth that Hurricane Katrina, Iraq and OPEC are the sole bad guys here. They have been quoted as saying "reducing the fuel tax won't affect the price." Well, thats quite obviously bollocks, because if they reduced the fuel tax by 10%, then so it goes that at the time of the reduction, my fuel would be 10% cheaper! Thats just basic maths. Ok, the current situation in New Orleans will still affect the price, but for the moment, my fuel would be cheaper.

I have to travel quite a distance to goto work. I drive an array of cars that with the exception of a Citroen AX (Classy!) are not exactly the most fuel efficient cars in the world, if this fuel protest does go off next week (as I sincerely hope it does!), I will be fully in support of it, even if it means cycling/staying in a hotel so that I can get to work.

Enough is enough. 5 years ago, the people of the UK grew a set of *****..... would be nice to know they haven't been castrated!

imlach

That's simply not true. There have been budget surplus's of late. Obviously they don't persist for long because generally a chancellor will use them the next year for additional public spending and/or tax cuts etc etc.

No-one said that the aim is to clear the deficit SOLELY through fuel duty. The point is, the chancellor will be under pressure NOT to increase the deficit further, which cuts in fuel duty would cause.


The myth? What myth? What has caused crude oil prices to double in the last year has been so so many global factors....

- Soaring demand from China & India
- Production issues in USA/Ecuador/Venezuala/Iraq/etc
- The Yukos issue in Russia was also an issue earlier in the year
- Refinery fires in USA
- Hurricane Katrina knocking out Gulf Of Mexico rigs/production/refineries
- Fear factor of more hurricanes/production issues
- Speculative traders on the worldwide commodity exchanges considering all the above and reflecting the fear factor in the futures prices.
- Large companies (eg airlines) speculatively trading oil futures to protect themselves against further rises

In all of this, the government have NOT raised fuel duty in the last year or two. It has been deliberately frozen, and also the planned fuel duty rise for Sept 05 has been scrapped.

So, perhaps you could outline what the UK government has done to so hugely influence worldwide oil prices. You've mentioned they're at fault, but not given a reason why.

OllyK

Wrong - 1/3 of the people that voted, voted for them, which means 2/3 of the people that voted did not vote them in. The majority voted against them and they STILL got in. But our inadequate voting system is a different issue.

imlach

I 100% agree....I maybe could have worded my statement better. I was trying to say what you said so succinctly...as I said in a post above, less than 20% of the UK voting population voted for NL.

OllyK

1 - I agree, but VAT is percentage based and so the more base oil prices rise, the more the exchequor gets via that anyway.
2 - Petrol isn't an out an out luxury, you can't just stop using it over night, usage can be reduced if home working is supported / enforced by the governement along with better public transport and changes to housing policy.
3 - Bollox. We only have a defecit due to Brown's pi$$ poor management of the exchequor. If he kept his spending in check and the government as a whole looked to cut waste and become more efficient, it would cost us less and so we would need to pay less tax.

imlach

Agreed, but it's only 1.75p in every 10p rise....and this method is used for all duty based revenue collection - alcohol/****/etc....to somehow devise a scheme whereby vat was charged at a variable rate would be an admin nightmare (more job creation which you hate!).


Although he was in surplus in the early part of this century.....be interesting to see a chart of surplus/deficits over the last 2 decades.

G-STAR

I'm afraid it's not as simple as putting it down to just demand and supply. You have to also look at the price elasticity of demand of the product - in this case, the quantity of petrol purchased/consumed changes proportionately less than the change in price. Hence petrol is an inelastic product, purely because the majority of individuals either aren't physically able to, or refuse to, abandon the product and/or find substitute products.

However, surely that does not take away their right to kick up a fuss regarding the cost, regardless of who's to blame?

imlach

Yes, but we're talking about global industrial demand wrt to China/India etc.

G-STAR

Your stance is that individuals/businesses should simply stop buying/consuming petrol from forecourts across the UK, and my argument is that it's not as easy as that; significantly influencing the global demand for oil isn't achievable via that method.