Your Comments

I thought the 2p on fuel was to be delayed until October! How come then that all petrol stations seem to have already added 2p to the price?? Is this so that even more can be added come October? When is the demonstration, give us plenty of notice and Im sure people will turn up in force!!!

There seems to be a simple lack of appreciation with regards to the influences behind the endless increase in oil prices. Demand is rising faster than supply (and potential supply). It's as simple as that.

Even 'cheaper' European counterparts are vastly exceeding the 1 Euro/litre mark for petrol and Diesel.

Yes, Britain is expensive. Lets cut tax on fuel...Where does that leave the economy? Tax would have to be added to other consumerables. In short, the depth and expense of our public sector has to come from somewhere.

Some comments on this forum are totally unfounded. Anyone would think the Government were a money making organisation. The fact is they are not, money is simply put back into our welfare state. We cannot live without taxation.

Has anyone thought that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would likely increase tax much greater than the current Labour Government. In fact, there isn't a single political party that would reduce taxation of oil.

Prices are simply down to demand, the oil supply chain and complicated supply networks...The Government are, for once, not to blame.

Oil is a global issue, we don't have some divine right to cheap oil prices. Get used to it.

With the National averages for Petrol at 107.00p/litre, and Diesel at 115.00p/litre. The most worrying fact is the now record difference of 8.00p/litre between the two fuels. The gap in the USA is around 75cts/gal or around 9.77p/litre, which puts American motorists in the same boat.

Global demand, and Sulpher Content down to 10ppm, makes Diesel an expensive Fuel compared to Petrol. It's economy is being seriously question, especialy if you drive less than 12,000 miles a year, even the AA has stated this fact.

There was no planned increase for Oct 2008, the next one was 1st April 2009 at 1.84p/litre.
So the motorist can look forward to 2.35p/litre in Oct, followed six months later by the April rise. Happy Motoring.

From the majority of comments on this blog and others it becomes apparent the the state of this country is on the minds of the masses.
I am only 22 and drive to work on the basis that I was having to pay £135+ a month to travel the 14 miles to work, the trains were always late, and rundown and you weren't always gaureented a seat and driving costs me around £75-80 a month and I have to sit in traffic for 40mins a day!
I'd luv to be able to catch the buses or trains but they just don't run frequently enough or cost too much money!
No body gets any help with the cost of living when they work hard and pay all their taxes! I do 42 hours a week and get no help from the government for anything! and the likely hood of ever saving up enough money for a morgage looks less and less likely! its sad but true! and it makes me feel that I'd be better off abroad! bring on a new government please!! or help us hard workers!!!

2p its allready done it went on the night of the budget

We have at least 2 more years of heavy taxes by this Government - you think its expensive now...you have seen nothing yet!

Remember many years ago fuel went up by so many pence per gallon. Then over night this changed to per litre. Now I have read some of the blogs and there is talk of not buying from certain suppliers.
This won't work you need to boycott every supplier in your area for as long as it takes.
I understand for many people in rural areas this could be difficult but if you can use the bus the average cost is a lot less than what you pay for your fuel per mile. Take a look at the average rush hour run to work and school, a long line of cars engines running burning fuel not moving beside a bus lane then the bus goes by. Take a look at where I live the price for a monthly ticket for unlimited travel ranges from £33.00 to £62.00 depending the distance you need to travel. Just work out what it costs for you to do the same distance every month by car the compare it by bus. For example for my wife to go to work by car for 4 weeks cost an average of £100.00 in fuel the same journey by bus for 4 weeks costs £37.00. I think you can work it out.
Basically use public transport if you can and if everyone follows the fuel suppliers will be hit in the pocket.

I think the UK should follow the example of Chavez in Venezuela, and nationalise the oil and petrol companies.

Yes, a lot of what we pay is tax. But, even with the tax increase delayed until October, diesel prices are still rising here by 1 or 2p per litre per week. I think the fat cats who run the petrol companies must be raking in the money, as we suffer :-(

For the answer to all of your questions about increasing fuel prices:


GOOGLE 'PEAK OIL'

GOOGLE 'POWERSWITCH'

GOOGLE 'WOLFATTHEDOOR'

GOOGLE 'OILDRUM'

GOOGLE 'ASPO'


Start preparing for a life of austerity now.

Find local employment. Reduce your debts. Reduce your fuel consumption. Grow your own vegetables or buy from local suppliers. Exercise regularly. Insulate your home. Help your family, friends and colleagues to understand the implications of Peak Oil.

I agree it is rip off Britain, but is there also price fixing? My last two e-mails revealed that all 5 garages/supermarkets are charging exactly the same price, to 0.9p!!!!! accuracy. Of course, if they were fixing prices that would breach EU law.

see the price of diesel has gone up and up again, when will it come down ,might have to buy a petrol car as that does not seam to go up as much as diesel.

<quote>
"Rip off britain is right!! it annoys me when some people say the delay in a 2p increase "was kind to the motorist" the fact is, it effects us all!!( Posted by Nick, 1st April)"

-they say similar things every time the raise the price. -when will they raise the cost of salaries in league with this 'kindness'???

I think we all should stop buying from one major petrol company like BP, they would then be forced to lower there prices. Once they lower there prices everyone should stop buying from esso for example forcing them to lower there prices etc etc

Think of it; every driver in the country refusing to buy fuel from a petrol station charging over £1.03 per litre...reckon that'd make any difference?

Peak Oil, Carbon Footprints, Green Technology, Bio Fuels, although based on reality are currently being abused as a scam to pay for an overspending incompetant government.

You voted then in, you got to pay for it!

What can you do about it :(

When you need to drive, you need to drive !! UK transport don't go eveywhere.

All the MP will do is rising the prices every 6-12 months, until they get fatter on their own john lewis list. Besite they have company car to ride on, do you think they can feel the plain we get !!

Checked petrol prices for my area, went to cheapest one (Esso) and when I got there found out the price was totally different to the one on the site - and a lot more expensive than most of the others. Bit pants, how can this be improved?

Sorry for posting here, didn't know where else to put it!

Oh dear, everyone's a bit hot and bothered on this blog. It's not rocket science really. The price of petrol keeps rising because the cost of a barrel of oil keeps rising - over $110 per barrel again at last check. Why does oil keep rising? Because we've just passed peak oil and the stuff's beginning to run out. With China, India and the like increasing their insatiable demand for energy and supplies of the black stuff now dwindling, the price of oil will smash past $200 per barrel within two years. It's not just developing countries - demand for oil continues to rise in the likes of the US and here in Europe.

This is just the beginning. Expect prices for petrol to start rising even more steeply. And when everyone cottons onto the fact that crude oil's days are numbered, speculators will drive the price of oil up to unprecedented levels. It wouldn't surprise me if petrol cost well over £2 a litre in as little as three years, although I suspect the Government would embark on a series of heavy tax cutting exercises to prevent all-out panic before this point. But in countries where tax is low - the US being a prime example - there's little they can do to shield themselves against relentless rises, short of the Government there stepping in and actually subsidising fuel, which would be a ridiculous burden on the tax payer.

We just need to drive less - find work closer to home, make trips under five miles by bike/foot, work from home one or two days a week if possible, buy more local food etc. Hopefully, this will boost green technologies and drive us onto a post-oil age. Let's just hope it's a smooth transition.

re 178 & 179

Yes, common sense really, but you may find yourselves in a minority here, the herd mindset has not moved with the times.
It seems on the one hand the Government/politicians/oil companies etc are blamed for everything, and yet on the other hand, the sheeple expect these very same people to help them out somehow! They have to be kidding or just not thinking very hard, there is a new economic landscape being formed dominated by physical limits, and that does not mean just oil, it's food, uranium, fish stocks, the list is endless.
Until people start to realise the world is starting to shrink, and they are going to have to take way more responsibility on board personally that 'they' are currently providing, expect the cries of protest to continue.
Welfare state - not forever that's for sure, then wait for the howls of those who decided not to make personal and local community preparations because technology/the wizard of Oz were going to take care of things.

Using capitals, like a proper word. We know it isn't a proper word of course, just something dreamed up by a bunch of nutters who don't chech things out very thoroughly, like, you know, Hydrogen is the answer! Right.

Re 183

Sounds like you are advocating that we carry on doing the same thing and yet expect a different result. Doh.

Feel free to vote in a system in which the best you can expect is more of the same - more or less - or perhaps stop relying on those who operate a fast becoming obsolete system and take some personal responsibility. The most useful to do right now would be to start a transition town, in your town. This is an apolitical move, and it's probably too late, but if you seriously think that any Government you vote in is going to advocate doing what really needs doing, and actually do it, then I'm sure the Mothership will be along shortly to pick you up.

re 185

I have suggested you start a Transition Town - if you know or can be bothered to find out what that is. I have.
Don't whine, it's not attractive.

I'm rather intrigued as to who, Mr Browns brother... you will opt to vote for?

I don't personally think that politics has the answers, just a floundering hope that oil will remain while ever any particular party is in power. Of course, our reliance on fossil fuel transcends politics, no one has the answer, other than market forces.

We are already seeing the 'credit crunch', speculation and geo-politics continues to send fuel prices to unprecedented heights. Fuel vs. food is now a real issue, two conflicting necessities each undermining both the availability and price.

'Transition town' is not just an eco-ideal, rather the only way to live in a new age of austerity. There is no political answer, market forces will dictate, the world is waking up to the fact there are simply too many people bleeding the earth of its black gold.

Evening.

Apologies up front. I've just scanned through what I've typed, and I've ranted on, but I think its all valid and I feel strongly about this hence the length!

The 'green' argument is wearing thin now. Yes, as we all know, alternatives need to be developed for the future, but the government is not encouraging the development of alternatives like using vegetable oil, otherwise there wouldn't be any fuel duty to be paid on it. Paying the duty on it brings it up to the rip off petrol price. We do need to recycle - it makes sense, but the taxation and the green argument don't stand up together.

Whilst not wanting to spark a climate change debate, I'm still not convinced that there is correlation between the use of cars/planes etc and the temperature changing (a few years ago it was all labelled as 'global warming' but then as temperatures started coming down again, the government changed the scare mongering to be called 'climate change'. Hmmm, spin? The scientists go along with it as those that want to work on the climate get funded by one place - which is funded by the government so they have to go along with their policy). Indeed there seems to be stronger research showing that the planet goes through these changes over the years. In 1200 AD, red wine was being produced in Northumberland, which was possible due to the warm temperature in those times. Now, my history is a bit sketchy, but I don't think the skies were full of planes and the ground full of oh so ghastly gas guzzling cars some time before it which led to those warm temperatures.

Surely if the planet was going to explode/implode/fizzle out as the government tries to con us into believing will happen, they would be desperately trying to get us on to alternative energies. Why not ban petrol altogether if burning it is that dangerous. If we all stopped driving cars and flying on planes tomorrow, we'd still not make hardly any difference due to the other major players producing pollution (we only produce 2%). The way to encourage us to use either other technologies or other methods of travel, is to make them cheap as in no tax on renewable fuels (veg oil?) and effective and actually viable (public transport).

The government use the 'climate change' bandwagon to try and scare us so that when they hit us with more stealth taxes they can give us a very 'concerned about the melting ice caps' type excuse about why they do it. But how is paying more tax going to save the ice caps. It also uses it to keep us quiet as if we stand up about it, we are labelled as 'planet killers' (they use the same will illegal immigrants or too much immigration - if we complain about it we are spat on and labelled as racists - cheap trick eh?). How much of those taxes go into saving our doomed planet - sweet FA. It pays for all the other government muck-ups that I wont go into now, as there are way too many.

Of course we need taxes, but it is utterly disgusting that the motorist is the easy target for collecting more and more cash. Motorists are easy targets because the car is now an essential part of day-to-day living and not a luxury. Our society is now that we need to drive to places much more than say, 30 years ago. Back then; you'd have a school nearby to walk to, and plenty of small local shops to buy your daily goods from. It is not like that any more - we have to drive a lot as part of our normal way of life.

Another thing that highlights the money grabbing approach as opposed to the concerned for the planet approach from the government is with the higher cost of diesel compared to petrol. As far as I understand, diesel is cheaper to produce than petrol, so why is it more expensive for the punter to buy. Opportunism is why. The government realise that diesel cars are popular as give better fuel economy, so latches on to that by keeping the cost high as know that people will still pay it because they getter good mpg with it.

When and what are we going to do something about this as a nation? The American governments would never dream of even thinking about putting fuel duty right up - they'd be too scared of the backlash from the people, but over here we're weak as a nation and just accept it and at best, moan about it. I think the labour government are now a lost cause and probably going to lose the next general election, so not likely to get anything out of them. Brown will only stay in his job as labour have nobody else that is any good (they've admitted that!)

We really do need to get our nation's collective voice heard and acted on. Democracy is gone. Brown thinks he knows best and is not prepared to listen to anyone else, especially not the public. The government never fixes problems anyway - it just finds more ways of fining us to get more money, or making more insignificant misdemeanours a criminal offence to make it look like crime is being reduced by prosecuting more people.

I don't have the solutions to solve this, but I do know that this country is not a nice to be any more (unless you are a sponger - national or foreign) for many reasons, but I hate it just from the way motorists are ruthlessly mugged every possible way. Perhaps the more people that read these sorts of articles the more suggestions are made and perhaps a viable solution can be found

We pay for our fuel. It has VAT on it. It has fuel duty on it. We then have road tax. We are taxed three times already on it, and people with family sized cars (due to having a family) are now having to pay even more road tax with the latest 'bleed them dry' approach to road tax. And that approach is using a similar 'escalator' set-up as the current fuel duty escalator, and look where we are with that.

We are all mugs if we don't do something about this. Fuel duty and road tax should come down. Renewable fuels need to be developed as well as progressing solar/wind/sea energy - its all provided FOC by the planet - amazing stuff really...

After reading several of these blogs the answer to the petrol price problem has dawned on me.

Firstly, a little background, the suppliers cannot be bullied. Companies that turnover billions of pounds have thumbs in many pies, in other words they have influence and contacts that will protect them from those people trying to boycot the pumps. The biggest problem is that the public and companies etc "need" fuel.

Secondly, Governments need to generate revenue to spend on the health service / policing / defence etc etc. These do not come cheap, the best way to raise the money is through taxation of companies and Mr Joe Public etc. People want these services but do not want to pay for them...nothing comes for free.

Don't get me wrong I don't want to pay tax either, but it is unavoidable.

However, the solution to the problem has been around for hundreds of years...Robin Hood hit the nail on the head. Take from the rich to feed the poor.

Those that earn very large salaries should be taxed to match, even more than the higher rate of tax. Those that earn £10M are would not going miss £1M, £2M, £3M + taken from them in tax a year. Thus helping to subsidise the tax taken from the average earner.

This coupled with an earlier blog about VAT being a percentage of the price therefore a price rise will raise more tax, could potentially help ease the pain of watching those numbers turn whilst standing at the pump.

I use my car for business use, for which my company pays the government tax free rate of 40p per mile. This rate has not changed since 2002. How much has the price of fuel increased since then, plus other associated motoring costs? Another sly way some are being stiched up!

15.04.08

Does anyone have an explanation as to why my local garage has petrol priced at £1.059 per litre for over 4 weeks, but in the same period diesel has increased from £1.119 per litre to todays price of £1.159 per litre. Why has diesel increased so much more than petrol over the past few weeks?

Since the last fuel strike, prices have risen massively, so why hasn't there been another strike.

Have the original organiser's disapered in the night ? Whisked away in black limo's ??

Just turn all the trucks across the m1 for a week !

And I can stay at home too !

I work for a small bus company in the south side of Glasgow. I have just ordered our diesel for the forthcoming week. My god 107p per litre. How are small companies like ours supposed to survive. Ramage went out of business this week, and more will follow.The government have got to get a grip. Fuel has got to come down, before the unemployment rate in Britain soars to an all-time high.

lets boycott all stations, we all refuse to buy fuel. lets cripple this government again and stop them from getting back in power!

I have a disability and completely rely on driving everywhere, socially and as part of my job. But at this rate i cannot afford to run my car. So the government want all of us employed and not rely on the state, but then continue to raise prices where being employed is not a viable option either. I agree that some very strong protests have to take place, i know people would support it, but who is going to start it?

So why does the price keep going up? Everytime I look its another 1p litre added - very sly. 116.9 now in my area but not noticed any advanced warning of a price rise - it just happens - a licence to print money? Rip off!

This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.

I cannot believe that the british public have not yet become vocal in response to the fact that petrol/diesel prices seem to be rising daily. This is becoming ridiculous for people like myself who are self employed and have to allow for price rises, as my work involves using my car to carry out work privately and to collect goods needed for my work. I now fill up my tank as far as possible as the next time I go, guaranteed it will have jumped by at least a penny or two per litre- I drive a 2.1 diesel peugeot estate, necessary for my work or else I would get something smaller. However no other item of household consumption seems to be rising as fast. I really am thinking of contacting my M.P. It is so annoying. Anyone else have any ideas?

I AM SO FED UP WITH THE DAILY PRICE RISE IN PETROL PRICES THAT I AM NOW CONSIDERING CONTACTING MY M.P. NO OTHER HOUSEHOLD ITEM SEEMS TO RISE AS FAST AND NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. HAS ANYONE OUT THERE ANY IDEAS? It is very difficult for the self employed like myself who rely on their car to get to their work and obtain materials. I think its about time we all banded together to do something. Otherwise petrol will continue to rise, put people out of business or hit everyone in the pocket as all goods transported to us will cost far more. Come on people-We can't just do nothing. Can't we just start a protest to M.P s and officialdom. Who's up for it?

There are no market signs that Petrol/Diesel Pump Prices are about to fall, in fact the opposite. Both fuels continue to gain on the "Products Market", Petrol averaged 36.40p/litre over the last week up from 35.10p/litre the previous week. Average "Pump Price" could reach 110p/litre this coming week.

Diesel is much the same story, averaging 44.87p/litre over the last week up from 43.84p/litre over the previous week. It's average "Pump Price" could reach 120p/litre this coming week.

Both fuels took a big jump with the inclusion of the 2.5% Biofuel legislation. Refiners passing their costs on to the consumer, as expected.

In North America they are in shock, Petrol now averages $3.39cts/gallon across the States, and Diesel now averages $4.06cts/Gallon. Fuel prices worldwide are going through the roof.

The price of Crude Oil is artificialy high, caused by "speculators and hedge funds" looking for a safe haven for their funds from the credit crunch, and weak dollar or laughingly called "market forces". The present government cannot do anything about fuel prices, as most of their money is busy bailing "The Banks" out of trouble. So much for our stable economy.

and by the way, when we emerge from this crisis just in time for a general election amongst boasting of Gordon Browns prowess in all things financial.

Remember that it's your horrendous taxation burden today and in the year or so to come, that has allowed the greatest political slight of hand since we last saw the magician David Nixon on the television.

Get him out of power, he is a mad man.

It would shift the encumbant incompetant government thats what it would acheive and don't then go on to say that the others are no better, we all know that, it's so obvious it actually hurts, because there's no such thing as winning an election, the voter simply elects the lesser of the available evils.

If you're naive enough to become apathetic while waiting for a political party with a clear agenda that is going to make a significant change to the well being of the UK to arrive, you're going to be waiting a very very long time, but if you remind them their careers are in the publics hands you may well force the next government to rethink it's ideas on reform, especially if we vote them straight out at the end of the next term if they're not doing their jobs very well either.

At the moment the UK works for the government, not as it should be, the other way around.

If you choose to do nothing, then the result is your responsibility and you can whine on as much as you like about how the public need to change, because it's never going to happen, we're in this mess for a reason, the only power the public has is to unsettle and shift administrations, thats why we're in this mess after thrity years of pathetic uncontrolled incompetant government.