Out of touch. Out of office.
 

Anyone hear Harriet Harman on Radio 4 this morning? John Humphrys asked her how the Govt were going to help people who are struggling with food and fuel prices.

Regarding fuel, this is the help we can look forwards to.

The Govt are going to talk to oil producers about increasing supply.
The Govt are going to look into new technologies.

So don't worry, Gordon is on the case. We're saved! :brickwall

I envisaged millions of people screaming at the radio, CUT THE BLOODY FUEL TAX. SCRAP THE INCREASE IN VED.

Exactly what planet are these people on?

The fuel duty is a fixed sum - The increase in oil costs does not affect it one jot.

VAT is however, affected, and there is an argument for the Government saying at the beggning of the year, "We need to take X Billion from fuel this year", and they then adjust the duty on a monthly basis to compensate for fluctuations (making up the balance with the VAT take)

However people would need to be aware that this could mean that fuel duity would go up as well as down. But at least you would have 12 month chuncks of pretty stable fuel prices.

Regardless, a straight cut in Fuel Duty is not going to happen, without some caveat, regardless of what party is in power.

It's the same old retorhic, same old bull sh!t and same old politician's waffle. There's no way they'll cut duty. This would compromise their own interests. These people aren't affected by the issues being discussed.

Its ok though, as Brown says he is "the man to put things right"
Which is about right I guess. You broke it, you fit it........ lol

Awaits political lecture!

No lecture, just a question. In what way has Gordon Brown been responsible for the increase in the cost of Brent Crude?

Fair enough, blame him for all the crap he is responsible for, but this is not really his doing unless I have missed the point.

Seems a lot of the increase is due to speculators (if you believe some of the media) as was the recent/current credit crunch. Flash could have done more as chancellor to regulate the banking industry. So, yes, it is partly his fault!

Dave

Agree with Pete. The government requires an income of x billion, by reducing fuel duty it would just need to be gathered somewhere else, unless of course lower public spendinng or higher borrowing enters the equation.

I'll say what I said ages ago. We need MPs who get the average UK wage with no expenses. The pensions, salaries and expenses of modern day MPs bear no relation to what the average bloke on the street gets, which IMHO, makes them incapable of properly representing us.

Didn't say anything about oil, I was referring more to the UK and society lol

However was a light hearted dig, rather than political statement. Kicking a man when he is down and all :D

However, as the fuel price rises, the value of the VAT on each litre rises with it. A 10p rise at the pumps if it were so simple would equate to a 1.7p per litre rise in VAT. Which would be in excess of what what budgetted for in the budget. So would it be fair to cap the VAT in some way on the fuel ?

There has been widespread collusion between the banks and hedge funds, of which some estimates suggest that 60% of the current oil price is due to their manipulation of the markets.

Personally, I wouldn't put it that high but there is a massive amount of speculative activity forcing prices higher and whilst there has been some media coverage I'm surprised that it hasn't received a wider audience.

There again, its far easier to blame the Government that understand the real facts, although your point about Greedy Gordon is well made but unfortunately letting the banks make a quick buck is preferable to letting them go to the wall which is the other option.

Like I said, the way to do it is to declare you yearly expectations for fuel revenue at budget time, then adjust the fuel duty per month accordingly.

You can't adjust or cap the VAT rate - That would open up a whole other raft of issues.

The thing people need to accept though is that in exachnge for stable rpices, you may end up payng more per litre than you might under the current system if the price of oil drops - It's not a one way street

Problem is, I would trust the average man in the street to run a piss up in a brewery, let alone the country.

If you want top people, you have to pay top wages. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

cut the benefits of lazy t**ts that refuse to work or are fraudulently claiming disability/incapacity and make them go back to work

I used to work (for a short time) for the benefits agency and the fraud that goes on is unbelievable:mad:

But as per any high end job, you always get some frauds in there somewhere.
Not all of them are worth the money they are paid, on all sides.

Is that meant to be ironic?

Tax rises of course!

BBC NEWS | Business | Brown doubles North Sea oil tax

What has that got to do with the recent rises - given that this happend in 2005?

As Crude goes up in price the G take more from our oil companies due to the windfall tax on north sea oil. Would it not seem sensible to pass this extra revenue on to the motorist in terms of a few pence off the price of unleaded. Its prudent (you only cut unleaded by the amount of extra tax you get from north sea revenues) and its sensible as the last thing you want to do when people are struggling with finances is push them towards bankruptcy.

If I were in power I'd have capped the average petrol/diesel price at 99p/litre by reducing the duty on it/removing the VAT until either the price came down or the economy showed signs of recovery.

Lets face it the average middle clash brit worker is struggling to make ends meet, the Government need to take steps to ease the weekly burden so we can push through this hard time. Now would be the time to be handing out tax breaks and incentives to business to stimulate the economy.

A word on speculation in the oil markets also. Crude is traded in physical delivery futures (current delivery is for June 2008). If speculation were really the dominant force in the crude market then the traders who were speculating would have lots of oil piling up in their offices. This is not happening. Speculation is no doubt helping to drive the price up but not by much. Ultimately the world is demanding more oil than ever and supply is not growing, hence price increases.

Look what happens now. We pay top wages (inc. expenses) and get a shower (of all parties) of MPs who it would be an insult to monkies to call them that ....

Dave

MP's, average men/women or not, are elected by the general public, not hand picked because they hold several degrees.

I think it's a facile argument saying the more you pay the higher the grade of elected representitive, which is essentially what you are saying.

My point is that because of the significant benefits associated with the post MPs are increasingly out of touch with the average person. Simply retaining these benefits, or indeed paying them yet even more, will make them increasingly out of touch with the electorate in these times of hardship, even to the extent there is further resentment towards them. From this you will get legislation or non action on the subjects that do not reflect the direction and will of the average person.

It saddens me you feel the more a person is paid the better they will be at their job, especailly a post where you're supposed to represent your local electorate as well as the electorate as a whole.

We don't pay top wages at all. We poay a good wage, but compared to what these people could earn in the private sector it is not "top".

The average person in the street does not have the intelligence to make informed assesments and decisions on many of the matters that MPs do. That is exactly why we delegate the reposnibility for making these decisions to parliament. So that these people can pour over legislation and make informed decisions.

In every single walk of life, the more qualified people will go for the higher paid jobs.

If you paid average wage, thos epeople that we currently have as MPs would by and large go to work in private instituions.

Decisions made by MPs are not simply about what we have in our pockets. There ar eoften extremely complex discussions which require more insight than what you read in The Sun


MPs aren't hand picked - But candidates are...

Er, no. Futures markets don't work like that. Contracts can be rolled, you don't have to buy a supertanker if you're currently long Jun08 Brent. :)

Really? Demand has dropped off lately whilst supply doesn't need to grow given that refinery capacity is running at about 80-85% but we're constantly fed the 'hard data' that this is all the fault of China which consumes around a quarter of the US's consumption.

Look at the LPG market. Similar situation, demand isn't the driver and the current CIF prices don't bear any relation to physical stocks, let alone demand drivers.

Just one point, the increase, be it due to demand, be it speculators, what I want to know is where is all the extra money going ?

THE OIL COMPANIES/OPEC AND THEIR SHAREHOLDERS !

Again, the rich get richer whilst d1cking everyone else, now dont get me wrong I am a captilist but when it gets to the stage where a few people hold all the wealth its got out of hand.

Maybe its OPEC doing this, I reckon they are stacking away even more cash than normal so when it does run out the members can diversify into other areas.

They are showing their hands to early though, this if sustained will force people into other ways to generate energy and alternative fuels, I reckon the oil wont run out, I reckon it will get so expensive nobody will want it before its done with. So we need to do what we can to lessen, then cancel our reliance on bloody oil.

I hate being dependant on the whims of Russian Billionaires, Investors that fooked up the market looking for new avenues, Middle Eastern Trillionaires and Gordon F'ing Brown's whims making my limited car use stupidly expensive.

The Gov make around 50p per litre in fuel duty and another 18p in tax per litre, so why on earth would they scrap it ;)

The sound of Gordons coffers = "KER-FECKIN-BIG-CHING" :D

I haven't read such a myopic load of old tripe on here for ages.

Theres still Petes ideological bum buddy Martin2005's posts to read then......

:lol1: