The Treasury have said that the only time further changes to fuel duty can take place are at the next Budget – which has been postponed from March until April 22nd, after the duty rise comes in.They almost sound surprised. It's just his way of helping "hard working families".
Do you think the Budget has been postponed to push through a duty rise unchallenged? Do you think it's fair that 71% of the cost of a litre of fuel goes directly to the Treasury? Should Brown be held to account for breaking his promise not to raise fuel duty?
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Thursday, March 19, 2009
Petrol to Rise by 2p a Litre Courtesy of Gordon
Did you know that fuel duty is going up by 2p on April 1st, bringing to 71p in every pound the total taken by the government? No, me neither. In July last year Gordon Brown promised to freeze petrol duty for the full year, by which I guess he meant the tax year. However, he broke that promise in December by adding 2p to compensate for the cut in VAT. This angered the freight industry who are able to reclaim VAT but not fuel duty. The PetrolPrices.com website asks a very pertinent question...
Only 71p in every pound? Frankly I'm amazed it's not more. It is absolutely outrageous of course. Multiply by 4.5 ish to get the amount per gallon, a man's measure, not this piffling little French revolutionary litre. Plus there's VAt on top. A tax on a tax. Now that is outrageous. Fuel duty is crippling the haulage industry. Why does the government hate us so much?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Darling and Brown were desperate for falling oil prices to lead to falling prices at the pumps, unfortunately the 30% fall in the pound against the dollar has wiped out almost all the potential gain from the 65% fall in the price of oil.
ReplyDeleteAnd why has the pound collapsed? Perhaps because we are worst placed to weather the economic storm, because we have highest government deficit, because we are borrowing ever more and guaranteeing ever more bad debt?
And who did that - oops, Darling and Brown!
What a double-act!
Their timing is just spectacular, as always. NIMEX has just smashed through the $50 psychological barrier and, following the FED's effective devaluation of the dollar yesterday, is trending skywards.
ReplyDeleteWonderful news in a recession.
You couldn't make it up.
There is a 65% tax on petrol under Labour.Under tories it would probably be 60%.Talk about 2p a litre is a smokescreen to cover up this act of grand larceny.
ReplyDeleteMust be some defective eyesight involved somewhere here, cos everytime they fire off the gun it hits them in the foot.... still happy shooting Gordo....
ReplyDeleteTime for some mobocracy and politicians should remember the mob are the demos too
ReplyDeleteSod that, I'm going LPG. Mind you, the bugger'll probably end up whacking up the duty on that before he's ousted too.
ReplyDeleteBob: you could always get a diesel car, and run it on vegetable oil. That's probably easier than LPG. At one time it was strictly illegal to run vehicles on waste cooking oil. The Internet tells me, though, that this policy has now been reversed. Apparently our lords and masters don't even tax it, unless you recycle on a commercial scale. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteBiofuels generally have been controversial because they have pushed up food prices, but recycling waste oil seems to provide obvious environmental benefits. This makes you wonder why these fuels weren't always legal, but that's the government for you I suppose.
John Moss is right. The gamble was that the Pound/Dollar ratio would remain roughly static. And this despite innumerable warnings from virtually all quarters that the Sterling was going to fall through the floor - because these two idiots had already clearly signalled there'd be a massive increase in Government borrowing.
ReplyDelete"Hard working families"? Care to define "families"? What about all the single people - don't they count?
And "working"? There are ever fewer of them by the day. So maybe the increasingly unemployed populace won't count, either.
Maybe this increase is because Brown thinks it is 'The Right Thing To Do".
We're heading for a Summer of Discontent.