about 1947 ?

The actual price does not matter, the change in price does. If it costs twice as much to fill the tank as it did 6 months ago that is hard to budget for and frankly not fair.

Heating oil isn't regulated in any way price wise as far as I know so the oil companies can pretty much charge what they like.

To my mind it is a responsibility of the government to do something about it when people can, more or less overnight, not afford to heat their homes any longer especially given the harsh peiords we have had in both the last two winters.

The government need to form a regulation body for things like heating oil and ensure customers aren't completely fleeced by opportunist greedy suppliers.

As a slight aside I have long said that any service that is an essential one ... gas, electricity, water etc. should never have been allowed to be privatised and I think the way these companies behave today even under so caled regulation proves my point.

Most likely because he doesn't want to be.

Why should he need to put his head on teh chopping board when he is verging on retirement anyway.

I filled up early this week and it was only £1.26 at asda :)

Asda is £1.27 here, has been for teh past fortnight.

First time its been cheaper than Tesco...I may have to switch :o

No reward points though without having their credit cards :mad:

Most likely because he is pro Europe more like. As he is near retirement putting his head on the chopping block isn't an issue is it?

Really sorry you have had the oil stolen at all leat alone three times. Takes a bit to cope financially with that sort of thing. Did the authorities take any interest or even try to do something about it?

Les

Clarke did do well as Chancellor, but he seems to have gone a bit peculiar over the Eu and dealing with criminals!

Les

It is quite simple really:-

1. Big Business, including Oil Companies are run by Tory Funders and Tory Supporters

2. Heating Oil suppliers are owned and run by Tory Supporters

3. Companies and Directors holding your pay down (while they take massive pay rises) are Tory Supporters

The Tories will never, ever, support the man in the street against big business!! That's just how it is .... and they can afford whatever price it takes to put the everyday person in their place!!

But without big business the man in the street has got nothing.

Chip

One has to lose something in order to gain something. Forget Clubcard points and go for cheaper fuel. :thumb: Why do you need a Tesco Clubcard, anyway? You shop in Aldi, you have already told us here not long ago. :D

Why on earth do people go on about businesses/oil companies fleecing the public, when we all know the lion's share of fuel prices is taxation?
Ditto no doubt for heating fuels.
Let's get out leftie blinkers off comrades.

Er because not that long ago it was a £1 a litre and it is now £1.32 a litre. At £1 a litre the VAT component was 15p roughly (17.5% VAT) whereas now it is 22p roughly (20% VAT) and duty has gone up by a penny thereby making the combined duty and VAT component of the 32p rise 8p meaning the oil companies are responsible for 24p.

Not lefty blinkers... just simple primary school mathematics :thumb:

It's possible he based that on feedback he's recieved from the electorate ?

What was the name of the Korean Oil Company Blair has ties with ?, oh the irony of TB and his multi millions.

Too bad you didn't make it to secondary school Comrade Blinkerman!
The price of oil has gone up in case you hadn't noticed. Those Arabs don't just give it away. That could account for some of the rise I guess:wonder:
My point is that the government is the major profit taker in the sale of fuel in this country(and others). For this major cut of the profit - it does absolutely f*ck all.
And you moan about the companies that actually find it, recover it, pay for the crude product, refine and deliver it more or less to your door for a measly third of the price you pay?
It may be my shortcoming - but I just don't get where you and others are coming from.
It seems there are people, like the government, who want something for nothing whilst riding on the backs of others who are prepared to get off their @rses and produce something.
Indeed, not only want something, but expect it!
Sad state of affairs IMO.

No I don't like how much the government takes but their share of the spoils is not responsible for the recent price hike or it is, but only about 25% of it.

So I dont see the point of suddenly getting up in arms about the government's part in this when 6 months ago you were quite happy.

Surely even you in you capitalist Utopian bubble you seem to live in can see that the oil companies are at least part of the problem. Record profits last year btw and forecasts for even bigger profits this year.

It isn;t solely the governent's fault or solely the oil companies' issue, I just don't get why when the price increases dramatically mainly due to the oil price everyone starts having a go at how much the government take when they said nothing a few months ago even though that amount has hardly changed. It's illogical :confused:

"So I dont see the point of suddenly getting up in arms about the government's part in this when 6 months ago you were quite happy."
What on earth are you talking about here?
"Surely even you in your capitalist Utopian bubble you seem to live in"
Ditto for this piece of nonsense as well.:lol1:

Hey Guys its all all about greed if we all left our cars at home for two weeks and used other transport the fuel price would drop !!!

They are not interested, Les. By the time you notice the loss, the event has already happened, days ago. We are looking at alternative heating now.
No one gives a monkeys chuff about folks living in the sticks with no other alternative, even though we pay our taxes like everyone else :(
If I was younger I would be "outtahere"

Maybe because everyone was so close to or already beyond breaking point those few months ago, and had been for several years before then? If you think back to what the mood of the nation was when New Labour were at their absolute low in popularity, just before the banking crisis, there were 3 or 4 main areas of public concern at the time: continual micro-management to the Nth degree of every last little thing by central govt, repeated and persistent gross govt incompetence in the form of multi-£billion IT and other projects going t!ts-up, humongous data leaks and the like, and last but not least the inexorable rise in the cost of fuel, which always hit the motorist doubly hard because any increase in price of the raw material was exponentially inflated by the govt's percentage-based tax-take on it. Cue the banking crisis, Labour find themselves a bit of breathing space for a couple of years, while the public take their eye off the ball so far as the political world is concerned, and then move on a couple of years more to where we are now. You can probably argue the case either way about the other main gripes people had about New Labour style govt, but so far as fuel prices are concerned the situation has just steadily kept getting worse. The govt must know full well that their contribution to the pain it causes people is rightly seen as disproportionate, so they shouldn't act like it's nothing.

Excellent points well made except for one thing.... the 'govt's percentage-based tax-take on it' isn't percentahe based, fuel duty is a flat rate of 59p per litre regardless of whether a litre is £1.32 or £1 or whatever.

Jeez it's not diffuclt to grasp.

A litre of fuel is £1.32 and the duty on that is 59p When fuel was £1 a lite it was 58p.

So why are we blaming the government for it. If we aren't, but are just complaining at the amount of money they take as tax why weren't we doing the same six months back when they were taking the same amount (as near as damn it)?

Wrong on two counts. One, although the total tax-take on petrol includes a large proportion of flat-rate tax, it's a tax one which the govt keeps on putting up, and two, the whole price including the flat-rate tax is VAT liable. Any way you want to look at it it's percentage-based.

Which is not remotely the same as perdentage based :confused:

VAT makes up 25% of the government's take, the rest is flat rate. So it is very definitely not percentage based overall, not even close.

Good try though ;)

Just use Tesco for the petrol nothing else.

Clubcard points get transfered straight to airmiles, which in turn goes to help increase my carbon footprint :smug:

I also pay for fuel with American depressed, which also gives me airmiles. :D

Well, if you are happy to pay a lot of tax, don't complain and if you are not happy to do so, do complain about it.
I have never been happy with the amount taken, but that is more to do with my belief that the public services provided are second rate. Obviously, this is not the government line and perhaps it is not yours;)
Put simply, (IMO) the money raised is being wasted. Are you getting it yet?
AFAIK there is no law to stop the government reducing the excise it takes in order to facilitate the vicissitudes in the price of crude.
And that really, is the point I was making.

The EU. The government have had to ask the EU to reduce the tax in "remote" areas.

Dave

Hey I am with you on all your points, but I also feel that the oil companies play their part too. Yes I know they have to get it out of the ground, trasnport and refine it etc. but the price they set is done so by a futures market and has little to do with the costs involved.

In the meantime they turned in record profits last year and will do so again this year and by quite some margin. I know they can do this, but given that petrol is almost an essential to many people there should be some modicum of responsibility here.

I just think that when the price goes up everyone seems to completely ignore the profiteering oil companies and starts moaning about the tax whereas I, like you, think the tax level is wrong no matter what the price of fuel at the pump and for the same reasons... they waste it as, for instance and like you say, public services are second rate.

Finally I too am sick of hearing Osbourne and Cameron telling us how difficult a fuel duty stabiliser is to implement. Wel guys if that is the case (and I don't believe for one second it is) then you shoudn't have put it in your manifesto. As it happens they are getting an extra 7p a litre through the increase in the price and the VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% so they could easily do something if they really wanted to.... and that of course is the key... they don't!!!!

Thing is the pump prices are having a real effect on the economy and I can seriously see a double dip recession on the cards unless the government take their heads out of the sand and actually do something. I watched an interview with Alaistar Dalring yesteredy and as much as SN may not like it he spoke a lot of sense. You cannot cut away at an economy that is not growing and just talking about growth will not make it happen!

OK I will shut up now ;)

I think you have to go farther Pete.

Modern day politicians are mainly from the same mould in that they are in the game (which is how they regard it) for a career and that is what really counts as far as they are concerned.

NL with their egregious lying leader were in it for the long term and the way they did that was to borrow as hard as they could go and use the cash to make the economy look good in order to effectively buy votes even though the country was heading down the tubes. However much you bluster you cannot get around the fact that they ruined our economy while sucking up to the banks and did precious little of any real significance for the people and this country.

The present bunch are led by a man who prostrates himself before the memory of your hero the grinning self seeker and models his career on him. The very last thing this country needs.

We desperately need a real leader who wiill work towards the good of this country and its people. We don't need those who make promises in order to get elected and conveniently never mention them again once in power. We are being rogered big time by the corrupt bunch over the water and this lot just sit back and let it happen. Whatever you think about Maggie Thatcher, she would never have allowed this bunch of hyper expensive unelected creeps over the water run our country to their own advantage as they are.

You can try to put NL on a pedestal all you like, but the rest of us are not so blind that we cannot see through the lies and broken promises on both sides and I for one am getting heartily fed up of them all and worried where it is all leading to.

Les

Me too;)
I also find myself in general agreement with what you say in your post.
The sooner we get out of our need for oil (and it is inevitable) the better, is the only positive we can draw from this in the long term.