Yesterday's fuel protests by road hauliers organised by Transaction 2007 did achieve excellent mass media coverage.
Clearly Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his glove puppet of a Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling have had their Whitsun holiday interrupted, and they are now waffling about somehow exhorting international oil exporting countries to increase production, something which has never worked in the past.
They are also giving mixed signals about the issue of the October fuel duty increase - is it going to be scrapped or not ?
The media have also piled on the political pressure by claiming that there is also going to be reversal of the unfair increase in car tax on vehicles registered after 2001 (why could this not just apply to new vehicles ?), quoting Cabinet Ministers Jack Straw and John Hutton, but there seems to be some backsliding on this from the Treasury.
There also seems to be some media spin about as yet undefined promises to Do Something About "fuel poverty".
Is that going to be another 10p tax fiasco bribe, if so, where does the money come from ?
Will it involve another intrusive, demeaning and wasteful bureaucratic disaster like Gordon Brown's tax credit system ?
Meanwhile, Tuesday's electricity power cuts, affecting hundreds of thousands of consumers, including hospitals etc. show how precarious the National Grid is, due to the lack of investment, caused by Gordon Brown's taxation policies.
The fact that the electricity companies deliberately withheld details from the public, of when electricity supplies were likely to be restored, for "commercial market reasons", show another aspect of the dubious Enron style energy speculation artificial market which was introduced by this Labour Government.
Surely this highly regulated market has failed, once there are actual power cuts to hospitals etc., and trading in energy capacity futures should be temporarily suspended ?
There was also news yesterday that the de-commissioning costs of old nuclear power stations is set to increase by an unknown number of billions of pounds, from the current £73 billion estimate.
Everywhere you look, there is a Fuel Crisis, over which this Government is failing - they only ever seem to promise to "tackle" or "address" such problems, but they never actually "solve" any of them.
There is a window of opportunity to get the Government to change their wretched energy and fuel policies, in the hope of saving themselves from political oblivion, provided that the angry public keep up the pressure on them.
Keep protesting and keep lobbying the politicians (of all parties).
This government is slowly but surely bringing this country to it's knees. You can shout, squeal, boycott and protest as much as you like but will it change anything? NO! It is a cash-cow for the Treasury, and no way are they going to give that up! Firms going bust and rocketing prices mean nothing to them whatsoever. Labour are so out on their arses in the next election. Any party willing to reduce fuel prices will get in by a landslide victory even if they are a complete bunch of chimps. Gordon Brown when asked what he is doing about it said "well, we are not going to put another 2p on in September"....and that helps how? REDUCE THE PRICE OF FUEL NOW!!!!!
@ Pi*sed-off-car-owner it is worse than that.
Unfortunately, he even seems to have reneged on that vague promise - Alistair Darling is still dithering and "considering" what to do about the 2p per litre extra tax. Nobody believes that Darling will make any decision without Brown's micro-managing and meddling, so they are both equally to blame.
Frustration with and contempt for this incompetent, bureaucratic, authoritarian Government turning to anger, and the anger is turning to hatred.
Mad Max may become a reality if fuel prices hit £2.00 per litre as some people are predicting. Finances are extremely stretched and some of the banks are being axemen against customers.It is only a matter of time before it will get out of control. Cut fuel duty by at least 20p a litre whilst the oil price is so high and if fuel prices continue up after it is the oil companies that will be viewed the greedy ones. Me myself I am looking to buy a horse so I can pull the car as with all this rain the grass keeps growing and I cannot afford the petrol for the mower.
Fuel crisis ? what fuel crisis. Coming back down the M6 on the very day of the latest fuel protests (luckily they were going the other way), and being a little low on fuel I decided to stick to 70 ish (as I always do officer ! ). I was amazed at the amount and age range of the people who obviously have unlimited supplies of fuel, passing me as if I was standing still. From the grey haired grannies to the backward baseball cap brigade they were all there, burning their precious commodity at an alarming rate. It almost made me want to join in, did they know something I didn't ? Heading to a secret fuel supply around Birmingham maybe ? In the end I didn't bother but got home, filled up at the local Esso garage instead ( which had an empty forecourt and plenty of fuel ) !