Legal fuel protests to commence.........

zolablue25

Fuel Duty is an interesting point, particularly from a labour government point of view. Most taxes are supposedly based on one's ability to pay, and this is certainly at the heart of the 'redistribution of wealth' ethos, but fuel duty is indescriminate, rich or poor you need fuel, either directly for your car or indirectly for public transport.

anewman

Apparently a growing threat, a threat as yet with no firm plans, is to ban older cars (older than 10/15 years old) from city centres. It's happened in one city in Germany and apparently Edinburgh was going to consider it.

If this happened it certainly wouldn't be for the environment. It would be a cheap way of reducing congestion for all those people who can afford new cars and who use the city centre for business. Making a new car is worse for the environment than scrapping an old one, and just think of all the Co2 the new cars release into the atmosphere (how often does an air con in a new car need to be re-gassed?!)

Poppycat wrote: »

Do you think its governments intention to cut green gases by making it expensive to travel? What with fuel and also rail fairs going up above inflation, perhaps there motives are too keep us peasants from going about our daily business.

I can't imagine the tax increases will cut usage in such the linear manner the Government would like us to believe. All it does is increase tax revenue, and people buy as much petrol as they need to use to get where they need/want to go - unless they cannot afford to fill up.

What the government *should* have done if they cared for the environment, once it was found petrol was bad for the environment, is to encourage manufacturers of new cars to look for a new cleaner fuel, and maybe penalise the production of petrol cars. I am not denying car manufacturers have done quite a bit in reducing emissions and for many their selling point is about being green. If the Government made a *real* effort to help the environment, they would have made an effort more half-arsed than increasing tax. At the end of the day the Government relies on oil to rake in money, much the same way Esso do.

Poppycat

Yes it indiscriminate but if it effects the poorest the most as they generally tend to drive less efficient vehicles, tend to have less opportunity to drive where there's public transport nor can afford to pay the spiralling fuel costs, and it doesn't just end with vehicles, also energy costs are now have a huge impact on peoples pockets. The wealthy can absorb the costs to a certain degree, in fact I bet some relish the fact the perhaps one day the road will be quiet because they are the only ones who are able to afford to pay.

Thank you to the current government the wealthy have done very well under new labour

zolablue25 wrote: »

Fuel Duty is an interesting point, particularly from a labour government point of view. Most taxes are supposedly based on one's ability to pay, and this is certainly at the heart of the 'redistribution of wealth' ethos, but fuel duty is indescriminate, rich or poor you need fuel, either directly for your car or indirectly for public transport.

wolvoman

zolablue25 wrote: »

Fuel Duty is an interesting point, particularly from a labour government point of view. Most taxes are supposedly based on one's ability to pay, and this is certainly at the heart of the 'redistribution of wealth' ethos, but fuel duty is indescriminate, rich or poor you need fuel, either directly for your car or indirectly for public transport.

Surely fuel duty is quite the opposite of what you are saying. If you buy fuel then you have already declared that you can afford the tax. If you can't afford the tax then you don't buy the fuel.

Furthermore, poorer people usually drive smaller cars that use less fuel and hence pay less tax.

Garnet_Gem

It's too easy to say "If you can't afford the tax then don't buy the fuel." Some of us have to use a car to get to work and back. We don't all use cars for pleasure trips. If I don't buy the fuel then I can't get to work. If I can't get to work I'll be unemployed and will have to apply for benefits. If I have to live off benefits I won't be buying much so if this scenario applies to a lot of people....not buying much leads to recession and job losses.

anewman

Crabman wrote: »

however, I thought the government said after the last strike that they wouldn't tolerate anything of the sort again after the chaos it caused.

Why, what are they going to do about it? Go out and arrest all protesters? They'll have nowhere to keep them and with the jails as full as they are :rotfl:

nej

wolvoman wrote: »

Surely fuel duty is quite the opposite of what you are saying. If you buy fuel then you have already declared that you can afford the tax. If you can't afford the tax then you don't buy the fuel.

Furthermore, poorer people usually drive smaller cars that use less fuel and hence pay less tax.

I think you've got it totally wrong. Somebody earning £300,000 per year might need to fill up their brand new Mercedes twice a week to get to work. Somebody earning £15,000 per year might need to fill up their 15-yr old Mondeo twice per week to get to work.

Both cost the same to fill, and probably both do a similar MPG. How is this not discriminate? The difference is that when fuel goes up another 5p/litre, Mercedes man won't really notice, whereas Mondeo man will take that out of his food budget.

rusty-london

wolvoman wrote:

Furthermore, poorer people usually drive smaller cars that use less fuel and hence pay less tax.

I'd disagree with that, IMO poorer people would be driving older cars, which 9 times out of 10 are not as economical as newer cars.

anewman

rusty-london wrote: »

I'd disagree with that, IMO poorer people would be driving older cars, which 9 times out of 10 are not as economical as newer cars.

I get what you're saying, but if you're rich you go for a car with crap MPG just for the speed, and for the sake of having a "better" car than everyone else.

Conor_3

Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association have no plans for any action at all - mainly because Joe Public bought the lies that were bandied about by the Govt during the 2000 protests which is why the ones planned a few years ago didn't happen either.

All that's happening now is that hauliers are putting a specific "Fuel Surcharge" entry on their invoices.