If the country suddenly responded to the increase in tax, the economy would grind to a halt. Nearly all businesses rely on fuel-powered vehicles to transport goods/information/etc etc across cities, nations and continents, and if they didnt use petrol, trade would disappear and the majority of the nation would be unemployed very quickly.

Taxing petrol to 'stop us using our cars' is pointless rhetoric - its never going to happen, and the government knows it. Petrol can be said to be price inelastic, in that the amount consumed hardly varies when price changes. Simple economics, but creeping tax hikes of a penny here or there means a very quick increased revenue for Mr Browns holiday fund. Who, incidentally, uses a large-engined jaguar saloon frequently for short journeys, along with most of the other government ministers, lords and peers who campaign FOR environmental action.

I love the hypocrisy.

Edited 28 March, 200818 yr by skatty_01

^^^but they don't pay for there fuel, we do.

Labour are socialists,so they will do precisely what they want,when they want,and we dont have a say. Petrol,europe,whatever. They've stayed in three terms,so you cant touch them. Taxation is their main tactic,which is why we have mega taxes under Labour. Petrol is an obvious one. And the more people give up smoking,as they are,the more petrol will have to compensate. Forget petitions - vote.

the price of petrol will never drop due to any kind of petition, the reason is because we will still pay the price.

the goverment know we all need our vehicles either to go to work, or for work purposes such as HGV's etc....

the last boycot we had, if we'd have lasted another 2 days then the price WOULD have come down, but as we all gave in to pay the price as we NEEDED petrol, the price went up...

were in a now win situation. we need petrol, so goverment can control the price, then its upto us if were willing to pay it!

no matter how many petitions we have, nothing will come of them

And we all know if tax goes down on one thing, they'll just bump it onto something else instead. Like water. Or oxygen.

Sorry, I might be the only one to think this, but fuel prices aren't THAT BAD are they?

I do 25 mpg and about 300-400 miles a week, I'm on a shit wage, but I'm not exactly struggling?

i'm on a pritty shit wage with house rent, water rates, electric and gas bills to pay, i also have 2 kids to feed and i have to run a car so i can get to work.

if you had the same issues as that then i know you wouldn't be saying that shit, we can't all live with the rents on a big ass farm a mr k

Agree with you there. The way to do it is, live with rents, go uni so you get a Phat student loan, blow it on drink drugs or your car and let the people working full time pay it back!

Whats the world coming to

And we all know if tax goes down on one thing, they'll just bump it onto something else instead. Like water. Or oxygen.

Your quite right....

one way or another you'll end up paying it....

thats why when on the motorway now you dont see as many cars flying down the fast lane, instead they're crawlin behind a HGV doing 56mph in the slipstream

to be honest it doesnt bother me driving at 60mph rather than 70mph anymore, so if it saves fuel I'm all for it

I wouldn't be surprised if it was water next. With 'global warming' and all that. Water always gets compared to fuel regarding price. Especially with mineral water, and all the plastic that is used for the bottles.

this country is a joke! the country allows imigrants to come and work, which puts us brits out of work, so we have less money, then we have the illegal imigrants that come, then are put into centres, which we fund for by us, which makes us even more skint, we pay taxes from the money we earn, we pay tax on the products and goods we buy, and the services we use, all down to the robbing goverment bas-tards. we need to shut the doors to the imigrants, be more like australlia, only allow people in that we know will help and do the jobs we need them to do, use a scoreing scheme, and make them have proof they can Fking speek english and they have the skills that are required. NHS should be more like america's medical service, pay for what you use, people take insurance out in america to enable them to have the treatment, so no one turn round and say 'what happes if people cannot afford it'.

This country needs to hae a shake up, and change its ways, other wise we will be going down, quickly.

^^^good point well put, plus we need to sort out how the benefit system works, immigrants shouldn't be allowed to claim unless they have worked here for 5 years, if they have no job lined up they shouldn't come here full stop, you try and get into Canada with no job prospects or job lined up, you can't. plus we need to sort out the people that realiy on benefits to live, there are millions of jobs out there if you look, ok they may not be what you'd like to do but if you have no job i don't see what option you have? if your on the dole for 3 months then it gets stopped, or for every month your on it the amount you get gets cut.

Make people on the dole earn their living- car washing, picking up litter, road sweeping (and maintaining), and make prisoners work too!!

Chain gangs american stylee

Have to say in my defence that I dont think it'l make one iota of difference either but I am a firm believer of making your opinion known to the government both by voting and by petition.

No vote, no opinion

Make people on the dole earn their living- car washing, picking up litter, road sweeping (and maintaining), and make prisoners work too!!

Chain gangs american stylee

actually thats a really good idea, why pay people to sweep the streets and shit when the government are already paying people that are capable of doing that, make them earn there money.

You what, this whol global warming shit is really starting to piss me off! We will NOT kill the planet no matter what we do to it, it will out-live the human race regardless of what we throw at it!! The real killer is the over-population!! U need a licence to drive, u need a licence to fly but any idiot can have a baby and it's them that is the biggest drain on the ecomomy/resources!

And now we've got all the immigrants coming over and having babies (in this already over-populated country)

Vote BNP I say!!

This thread has a lot of things in what people are just too scared to say, but what everyone thinks.

We are taxed on what we earn, then we are taxed on the tax of what we earn. We pay tax on everything we buy, unless its for business use. But then we're taxed on what we earn from our jobs anyway arent we!

All this to fund our failing health and education services, public transport that is useless, roads that are worn and potholed, and a never ending stream of migrants, be it legal or illegal, filling our already overpopulated country.

This is the kind of thing that makes normal, hard working, tax paying people want to fuckin screw.

What did we do to deserve this shit!

http://www.labour.org.uk/contact

http://www.labour.org.uk/contact

Tempting

Wonder how much hate mail they get.

http://www.labour.org.uk/contact

Tempting

Wonder how much hate mail they get.

Someone should link them up with this topic!

That being the case lemme just say Labour WONT be getting my vote especially with Gordon Brown at the helm

Saying that we pay the most tax in this country is just wrong (did you read that in the Daily Mail by any chance?), most of mainland europe pays more in terms of total average tax figures per person. And in a worldwide list the UK is no where near the top.

I think fuel tax stinks. So do the current oil prices which is the reason for the current increases, fuel duty hasn't risen since last october and increases have been below inflation rates since about 2000. That's not to say I don't think fuel duty is too high, but the current increases are down to oil prices, it's as simple as that.

well imigrants fill the jobs that the british public wont do so illegal ones yeh are bad but some of the legal ones are good because they are doing the jobs that no-one else wants to do , so people on the dole should be made to do these jobs and we should have stricter rules on what people we allow in to the country , the thing that pises me off is people on the dole who are being picky about jobs , F**KING MAKE THEM DO TOSE JOBS by cutting there dole , from my uni to the local town there are THREE buses a day !!

well the goverment use monetry policy to control the economy and at the moment they are trying to get people to spend and so they are making sure people are spending it on petrol , they lower interest rates so people will spend more money and reduce saving , so by raising petrol prices they are just ensuring it is going back in to them .

and children there are people getting way above average annual income in money from the goverment cause they have 12 children , in china they used to dont know if they still do but u used to have a limit on the number of children !!

just my quick rant and my 11p

Edited 28 March, 200818 yr by mattdavies

Saying that we pay the most tax in this country is just wrong (did you read that in the Daily Mail by any chance?), most of mainland europe pays more in terms of total average tax figures per person. And in a worldwide list the UK is no where near the top.

Isn't France something like 40% of wages goes on tax?

Not sure but places like Germany, Belgium, Austria pay a shit load more income tax than we do. VAT is 19% in Germany as oppose to our 17.5%.... we might pay more fuel duty than them but looking at the bigger picture we pay less total taxes.

Even if the government do cut fuel duty they will only do so if they can claw it all back some other way, it's a huge cash cow for them and the country wouldn't be able to survive without all that money coming from somewhere.

I have no idea what the solution could be but all I know is that for the forseeable, if you want to spend less on fuel duty, drive less :(

if you want to spend less on fuel duty, drive less :(

The harsh truth, but truth none the less :(

Ooh, this is a good one. From wikipedia but still

Or drive a Polo. For a car that's considerably more sluggish until it climbs,the pizza is thirsty in comparison to the old bike-carbed beast. Yeah,we see the headlines today and are told 22 percent of babies born last year have foreign mothers. Only half that 10 years ago,when Labour came to power. Did you vote? No? Tough then,shut it. But one thing you can do is use less fuel,stop smoking,etc.