It’s the petrol producers and wholesalers versus the Chancellor – in a game where the public has to pay-up no matter who wins. With the UK Budget just weeks away the politicians are getting nervous about the planned rise in fuel taxes. So next week a Commons motion calling for the cancellation of the next 3p per litre rise in fuel duty is expected. Not proposed for the effects of a high fuel price on the national economy or on the general public – but to try to save their own seats at the next election.
This has come to the top of the MPs agenda after the average cost of petrol increased to 138.32p a litre – some 6.24p more than at the start of January. So this now puts the average gas price at 628.82p per imperial gallon – for those who are dead against metric measurements or who remember the 1960s. Back then petrol was around 28p per gallon – and that’s when many of today’s Grandads started driving.
But there is no way to go back in time – even if just to fill-up the car. Or is there?
According to various online sources the cost of petrol in some Gulf states is around those 1960s prices even today. So the extra 600p per UK gallon looks to have been added – by the efforts of suppliers and various Governments – gradually over the years. Both are still involved in a price escalation process – with each trying to increase their take while passing the responsibility to the other. Recent price hikes by the suppliers mean that the Chancellor now has a stark choice between upping taxes and loosing votes or scrapping the tax and loosing money. Now this poker game between the suppliers and the Government has been going on for years but we do now seem to be reaching the point where the average citizen just cannot be squeezed any further.
Is there any chance that either side will make a big cut in their take and send petrol prices down to the level of our Asian competitors? Now that really would boost the UK economy – but the odds of it happening are millions or even billions to one …
The more you look the more you find – FM is the national emergency band, excessive DAB compression gives poor quality sound, other countries are scrapping DAB schemes, sales of dedicated radios are continuing to fall, other digital transmission methods are cheaper to set-up and receive, Internet radio is a free service for existing broadband users, etc, etc.
Few will now remember Patricia Bredin, the first UK entrant, – or Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson the next. That was back in the 1950’s – days of low-res, black-and-white images and vinyl records. But these were the beginnings of this annual celebration of European popular culture.
Brewers 
These, and other, plans have, no doubt, some serious historic intent but all are in danger of being changed into something else. Nationalists in Scotland want stories of Bannockburn to boost their voting support while in England the victories over Scotland and France are more a boost for the national ego. But the first World War remembrance may take the edge off the popular appeal of mass face-painting and battle re-enactments. And refurbishing the statue of The Brus may not have a result that appeals to everyone …