Your Comments

Well the £5 diesel gallon has arrived in this part of Pembrokeshire Our local garage has it posted at 110.0p/litre. I suppose they have to raise the money for Northern Rock somehow.

I visted France before Christmas and filled up at the Supermarkets and noticed that the price of diesel was a lot less than petrol and much less than we pay here in the UK. If the French can do this than why can they not do it here.A simple answer really we are a placid race and this leaves ourselves wide open to to be plundered by companies who put their investers before the customer. Will we ever have the guts to stand up and be counted.

Thanks for your article. At last someone has told me why the increase in diesel price has far outstripped that of petrol. You have analised the extra cost of running a diesel fuelled car compared with 10 years ago, perhaps if you were to publish the actual figure of increased revenue actually being put into the Chancellor's bag every time there is an increase in fuel price it would wake people up even more.

Drive at or below the speed limit and save yourself 20p per litre. The price of fuel will only be too high when the 4x4 drivers think twice about roaring around urban roads in their 15mpg insecurity blankets.
Don't get me wrong, the higher cost of fuel hits me as much as anyone else but rather than whingeing about something I can't control (global oil prices) I'm changing my driving habits instead.

I currently travel over 500 mile a week to and from work, the petrol prices are starting to hit hard, I now think twice about going out of a weekend wasting fuel that could be used for work. If we all stop going out to visit places of intrest, the economy will slow and the country will start to go into melt down no one spending any of are well earned money.
Can't this goverment and the oil companies see what they are doing in forcing the price of fuel both in the car and in the home, they need to address this issue quickly.
Bring back the blockades and voice are opinions.

With road fuel at about £5 per gallon, regardless if its diesel or petrol, and other driver costs like insurance, tyres and servicing soaring as well, isn't it about time that the Chancellor increased the 40p per mile "tax free" mileage rates? They have been fixed at 40p for first 10,000 business miles for years now. No way does that cover the true cost of motoring. A lot of companies fix their milage rates at the Inland Revenue tax free limit to cut down on the admin, so drivers end up subsidising their employers, or if employers pay more than that it becomes a taxable "benefit". So this is just another one of Gordon Browns stealth taxes.

As someone thats self employed and travels a minimum 500 miles/week to and from my primary source of work I resent the continual drip from MY pockets to the Treasury in fuel taxation. I say MY pockets because my regular employers are not interested in me making frequent demands for increases in my charges to cover the cost of fuel, the costs therfore come directly from my resources and result in a lower standard of living!
I suspect that many are in the same situation.

If this Government was spending the extra revenue in research in alternatives to reduce our dependance on what is a finite resource then I would not mind so much, instead they leave us vunerable to hugh profits by the Oil Companies and reap the benefit of extra Tax as a consequence!

With 21 million motorists, I should think they might dread the next election, but meantime we need to be more vocal to our MP's etc about this. ALL of us should be writing and bothering our representitives - We don't want to continue to polute the atmosphere, we want REAL alternatives and goverment to provide PROPER incentives for research and use of them when they are made available. There is too much vested interest in the status quo with the oil companies/taxation, we also have an opportunity to do something positive about perceived Global Warming and provide THE WORLD with a solution if research/development is acted on!

Meantime we need to protest vigorously that the percentage taxation is too much and WE will punish the Political Parties that are not committed to fairness in taxation that we the motorist have no choice but to pay.
I am sorry if this seems a rant, but some things need to be said - AND ACTED ON!!!

This Govn't is on a bit of a win win where company car drivers are concerned. The revenue set the reimbursment rates for fuel at a rate that used to just about keep pace with pump prices. Now they have decided that from Jan 1 a price review will only take place on Jan1 and July 1. So as prices rise faster than the reimbursment rate..guess who foots the bill and essentially contributes to their own business mileage costs. My company moved to this form of 'robbery' sorry reimbursment last year and for the last 6 months most if not all drivers in cars under 2 ltrs lost money. If you have a car over 2 ltrs then you are laughing all the way to the bank as the reimbursment rate increases by around 30% but of course there is not a 30% difference in fuel economy in engines on either side of the 2 litre barrier.

Petrol is hitting 107p a litre in some areas now; soon we will be faced
> >>> with paying £1.50+ a ltr. How about this good idea: This
makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day'
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves
by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it
was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up
with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join in!Now that
the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that
the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take an aggressive action to
teach them that BUYERS, not sellers, control the market place. With the
price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take
action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down
is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And
we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:
For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce
their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have
to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally
millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now,
don't wimp out on me at this point... Keep reading and I'll explain how
simple it is to reach millions of people!! I am sending this note to a
lot of people. If each of you send I t to at least ten more (30 x 10 =
300)... And those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)
... And so on, by the time the Message reaches the sixth generation of
people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those
three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30
million people will have Been contacted! If it goes one level further,
you guessed it... .. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!Again, all You have
to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (and not buy at ESSO/BP)
How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten
more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting together we
can make a difference If this makes sense to you, please pass this
message on.PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGEIt's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and
buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Jet etc. I.e. Boycott BP and Esso.

ITS GOT TO BE WORTH A TRY!!

petrol and desil are far too expensive, the government ignore this road blocks do little other than disrupt us. why not have a go use trucks to stop in the centre of london around downing street, the house of commons and bbc tv studios. then the polititians can't go any where, and the tv will have to report on it they can't go any where either. fuel should have only 17.5% vat and no other tax.

Some confusions here, or perhaps it's me. Contrary to one of the comments posted, the Government does extort more tax on diesel on company cars - a couple of percent I believe. This dates back to when Brown was Chancellor and the so-called 'dirty' nature of diesel was the excuse to tax it higher. I recently contacted Shell to ask why diesel was more expensive than petrol - since I understood diesel to require less processing. Got a very whitewash 'PR-style' answer that effectively side-stepped the question. One excuse I have read is that there is insufficient capacity in the world to process diesel. In which case, the oil companies are a bit slow on the uptake, since - I think I am correct - diesel vehicles as whole - passed the 50% mark YEARS ago. I believe this is just another incarnation of the British consumer being considered a soft touch. Which sadly we are. Do you think the French would put up with this for one moment? Mais non! They'd riot in the streets. It's more than time for British motorists to start deploying their combined voting power to get what we want, rather than being treated as a cash cow to be controlled, penalised, punished and squeezed out on a continuous basis. And perhaps if police and local authorities were less obsessed with the Motorist and little more concerned about crime, a better balance might be achieved.

Yes I think the prices should be reduced for both petrol and diesel because the ongoing charges affect to many aspects such as more expensive food
and charges past on by transport companies. This can also affect employment as many companies may have to lay of employees due to
rising costs.

The heavy burden imposed on motorists spirals endlessly upwards, with each increase in fuel swelling the treasury so that Gordon and his cronies can throw it away elswhere, whilst our roads remain decrepid and the worst in Europe. Why do Brits put up with such shabby treatment?
Without question it is about time that fuel duty was drastically cut and Gordon found some other means of raising revenue, i,e by cutting wasteful spending.

Now that petrol companies & the government have got us use to paying above the £1 per litre barrier, even if production costs of petrol/desil came down, we would be still paying the same retail price.

Britian seems to hate the french for taking direct action when protecting their rights as farmers and citizens etc whilst we let our governments walk over us.

I strongly support many comments as the road haulage industry is vital to the operation of UK and in Europe fuel prices are significantly lower than UK particularly for diesel - even as far away as Ireland. It is regrettable that the current administration has never learned to listen and never will - so look forward to the next two stealth rises put in place by Brown before he replaced Blair . Unfortunately apathy reigns but even this government must realise that they can not jail protesters as the jails are full. In France you would have action direct to close the system down until grievances were remedied - not UK. We will keep on paying and the green lobby can campaign for the return of the horse.

I'm one of the people who said diesel isn't too expensive, and no, I don't think I'm mad. I am a car owner, and I probably do about 5-6,000 miles a year, mainly on the motorway visiting friends and family. All of my travel around Bristol I do either by bike or Shanks's pony. If fuel is too much, then look at ways of reducing your car use. Simple as. If high fuel costs mean that people think twice about driving to the shop to get the newspaper, or driving uneconimically (unnecessary accelerating and braking, revving of engines etc) then I'm all for it. Cheap car travel is not a right, and the sooner people realise that the better. Petrol costs barely more than milk, and a lot less than beer!

RE:Alan Smith, 21st January 2008 1:56pm

The problem with boycotting companies like ESSO or BP is that they supply the rest of the market anyway so whether we buy from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or ESSO/BP we are still giving the money to the same people and most of that isn't the fuel companies. At least they supply something for the money we pay them. It's the tax that is the problem and what do you see for all the tax, roads that still need repairing. When they get round to fixing the roads we get hold up's causing more fuel usage and then repairs take twice as long as expected. The costs need to be spead around move evenly rather than the present idea of tax drivers and tax them again! Time for a General Election and we can then see what all the parties offer on this problem, the only problem there is will any actually do as the say when it comes down to it!!!!!!!

This will force motorists off the roads as £5.00 a gallon will act as a social tax pushing hard up families to give up their vehicles. I run a diesel fuelled vehicle and got caught by the car license increase to £300 a year. My vehicle despite an annual milage of 6k a year is now uneconomical to use and I will have to sell it meaning a significant loss for a one year old vehicle that few people will want.

Oil production is slowing down and demand is increasing. It's a seller's market! Petrol and diesel are going to continue to rise in price and Britain is going to be hit worst by the shortages because of our poor relations with the oil producing nations. This is the strat of things to come, everything that depends on oil is going to increase in price and all manufacturing will be affected eventually.
Just start getting used to using less fuel and let's all stop wasting resources.

Where is all the money the government makes from fuel taxation being spent? Pulling the Northern Rock out of a mess?

I really haven't seen the benefits of all this money on our roads or health service.

Absolutely no reason at all why fuel can't be reduced to 60p a litre or less.

Sod the eco friendly bragade.

I'ts un eccomical to invest in a car and then not to use it! We all work hard to have that prevaledge of driving a car, don't let any eco worrier or government take that away from us. I know losts of people that blab on about the impact cars have on the environment. However, I don't see them refusing a lift in bad weather, infact their greatful of a 10 year old, fuel guzzelling, comfortable BMW that I have worked hard for.

Don't let anyone take away your luxurys in life, that is why we work so dam hard!

We have to blockade - Italy can do it why can't we, as for the people saying fuel is cheap fine - but what about the tax I suppose you think that's cheap to! People need to work to live. For once I would love to see this country unite together. Let's start the revolution here!

The goverment can do what they like now, i was one of a few at Fawley in December,we had no support from the public or hauliers so im afraid its just pay up and shut up.

How can you say Diesel is 1p away from £5. per gallon ???, there are 4.546 litres to a gallon, & 4.546 x 109.3 equals ....£04968778. per gallon, which is MORE the 3 pence away from £5.00 per gallon, I rest my case.

Ross.Lillicrap. Emsworth. Hant's.

I think the total price of fuel here is very bad , its the goverments way of raking in money as well as retsricting the peoples movments . with road atx as well its now becoming harder for the man in the street an families to travel , rail prices are up if you can find a train that is running ! Please let the people stand and fight this stupid tax

RE John Rooney

How fortunate for you that you live in a part of the country where the public transport infastructure is such that you only have to drive 5/6,000 miles per year.

Sadly the majority of the population are not able to avail of the idyllic proximity of amenities whereby travelling by bike or walking is a realistic option.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that we should all try to drive as economically as possible for the sake of the environment, I do not believe that the tax on fuel should be such that only the wealthy can afford to drive.

I never thought I would find myself despising a Labour Government for a tax policy which so unfairly discriminates against those on low incomes.

Traveling about a bit I find petrol prices in Europe are nearly has expensive as ours appart from Spain were it is a lot cheaper and the USA is only just over a £1 a gallon its time we did something about it but what I dont know.

Yes the prices for diesel seem to increase day by day, always by at least 1p per litre or 5p per gallon, all great news for this incompetent government which is enjoying not only the recent 2p per litre additional fuel duty but the additional revenue that recent price rises have delivered to the chancellor, this explains how Gordon Brown can wander the far east and asia handing out millions of pounds of tax payers money.

Well Don Gonsalves what's the idea? Call me 01908 275271, cheers,

theo

I think there should be a tax cut on petrol & deisel. I am finding it incredibly hard to find money for fuel. I am on a very low wage. Living in a village with 3 children at 3 different schools I need a car. I am increasingly finding myself having to make the choice between food or fuel. The cost of food has also gone up dramatically over the past few months.

I think there have been some good ideas posted here, like red deisel available for hauliers etc. That would help with the cost of food too. If I had a deisel I would switch to biodeisel & I think that was a very good idea to make a list of places where it's available.

If we did all unite with one voice then I'm sure the govenment would take us seriously - but it needs a lot of people to stand up & be counted - that means advertising widely any action to be taken & making sure it is something that the majority can be involved in easily. While everyone sits back & waits for everyone else to take action the government will just sit on their hands & do nothing. If they see we are all concerned enough to take action then they are more likely to take notice.

Always choosing the cheapest place to buy petrol & deisel is voting with our pockets too. Maybe a bit of complaining to some of these big places like Tesco etc when their prices are higher than elsewhere might make a difference as well.

I drive a diesel car because, when I first purchased it, diesel was supposed to be better for the earth and because of the fuel economy and longer lasting engine than a petrol car. Unfortunately just after I purchased my car, they decided it wasn't so and the price went up and up.

I need my car for work and, because of where I live, I cannot rely on public transport as it would take me all day just to get to work - nearest train station being 3 miles away, public transport going in totally wrong direction to be feasible and no inter-linking buses/trains.

I have no choice but to pay the price at the pumps. I don't mind paying the price as long as the rest of Europe pay similar prices - unfortunately this doesn't happen and we are really being ripped off by the government and the big named petrol stations, ie Esso and BP.

I've just had an Email from a friend that has been forwarded on to others suggesting that we all boycott Esso and BP garages for the foreseeable future to force them to put the prices down. If thousands of people do this, Esso and BP won't have any choice but to lower their prices.

If you think this is a good idea and might possibly work, please get on to all your friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc to see what we can do to this grossly unfair tax on ordinary people who are trying to go to work to earn a living

I have previously advocated using the power of the consumer and boycotting BP .If every body stops buying from them and uses anothersupplierthey will soon whinge to the Government and the financial institutions will run to their masters who will be forced to act .
Try it do not buy from BP in any form

I live in Northern Ireland, reasonably close to the border with the Republic of Ireland, where the price of diesel is 20p cheaper - happy days!
When I drove a Citroen Xantia I was able to use Biodiesel which was much cheaper that ordinary diesel at the time. However, I changed to a Saab, received some duff advice and ended up spending over a grand to fix the damage, so be VERY sure your vehicle is FULLY compatable with Bio! If you e-mail the technical dept. of your vehicle manufacturer they are usually very good at supplying advice.
Prices, generally, of all comodities work on the basis of supply and demand but fuel suppliers in the UK are limited, and this in turn means a reduction in the ability of the user to influence in any way the price.
We also have a government that is financially on the rack, so any form of additional revenue from oil companies is an absolute godsend.
We also have a government that is very near the limit in terms of taxation in general.

I see from very many other messages that the consumer, particularly the English consumer, is beginning to squeal! This is good, because as the vast majority of consumers are in England, even if they acted on their own, they are the group who will influence the supply companies AND the chauffer-driven hanger-ons in this "stuff you" Labour government. Go to it lads and lasses!!!!
Must go now as I'm off to fill up in Donegal!!

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

Surely the government should be encouraging us to use more environmentally sound fuel such as diesel by reducing the tax on it. When we originally switched to a diesel car, this fuel was cheaper than unleaded - now it's the other way around. Where's the incentive to be good to the environment?

I do a lot of miles (about 1,000 a week) and have the large (85 litre) tank fitted to my Mercedes. On motorway driving I can get as much as 44 MPG, but it still means I have to fill up at £100/week. I have no choice but to pass this cost onto my clients, who pass it on to their customers and so it hits your pocket, having been hit with tax and VAT at every juncture on the way.

If someone is planning some sort of action, let's hear about it. Otherwise we will not be able to register our disquiet until 2010 at the earliest and we don't need a crystal ball to see that there will be a momentary fall in fuel prices just before the election!

Hi

I am old enough to remember when diesel was approx half the price of petrol.

What happened to economy of scale equation. i.e. the more you make of a

similar item the lower the unit cost.

I can only assume someone is getting greedy.

I don't vote for greedy people

Whatever happens with the pricing and tax - at present, diesel cars are so much moreeconomical than petrol vehicles that no one would want to switch from diesel to petrol.