Petrol protesters: Pests or patriots?

Former_MSE_Archna

Poll Title: Petrol protesters: Pests or patriots? There's a blockade of petrol possibly coming to argue against the increasing high price of fuel. Much of the rise is due to the Hurricane, but 70% of the price of petrol goes in tax. Which of these is nearest your opinion?

A. Pests. It's inconvenient and the general public who suffer.
B. Environmental Pests. Driving hurts the environment, high prices are good.
C. Patriots. Someone needs to tell the government to cut tax.
D. Another way. Prices are too high, but blockades aren't the solution.
E. No-ones fault. High prices are hurricane driven, no one is to blame.
F. I've no idea.

Vote here or click reply to discuss.

nemo183

I think that previously transport companies had a good point when the "fuel tax extra" was being applied, because it made it more and more difficult to compete with competition from Europe.

However, world oil prices have doubled, so every country is suffering to the same extent.

I resent a small minority of protestors who think they should control fuel prices, and not the Government we elected.

With police resources currently having to cope with the threat of further bomb attacks on the country, anyone who blockades a fuel depot should think twice before time has to be wasted on monitoring them.

Careful thought should be given to the best way of allowing the road haulage industry to compete fairly with Europe, but the rest of us have no natural born right to expect petrol to be a product that is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. For years we've all known that the Government use it as a great source of revenue - so, we have the opportunity to shake 2 fairly small fingers at them, if we wish, by purchasing small and economical cars.

Instead, sales of fuel guzzling SUVs continue to increase................

Trow

Nemo - this protest isn't intended to be a blockade -that has been continually reported since the start. People are panicing because they are only listening to the words 'fuel protest' and not hearing what form it is planned to take.

Of course, some groups might bock refineries, but that is certainly not the plan.

helen21_2

Petrol prices are too high and yet every garage has sold out
So wheres the protesters, filling up on this expensive fuel
It costs those without cars alot more in bus fares, yet you dont see them protesting and clambering onto buses to make that point

helen21

P.s Remember peeps, only my thoughts, not everyones

brucewall

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it. We are hitting 95p
a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1 a ltr.

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 aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market
place not sellers. 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 whimp 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 it 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 8days!!! I'll bet
you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! 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 RANGE. It'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.

UltraViolet68

The above 'boycott' has been passed around on various forums for several years. I do wonder if it originates from someone employed by or with shares in Shell!

There is no way the oil companies would react that way and go down to 69p as they do not have that sort of margin. Duty and VAT remember.

Also for the companies to operate on miniscule margins, they would have to close the outlets where they make little - so say good bye to all the tiny stations in out of the way places. Get rid of too many, and where do you go when you realise you are low on your touring holiday in scenic areas?

I don't see the point in targetting Esso and BP, the fact is oil is a scarce resource. I am a bit of a petrol-head and enjoy driving a nice car, but I am also a realist and understand that the fact is petrol will not last forever and as such we should expect prices to continue to rise. If duty had just been hiked, I could understand it, but the fact is duty has been static now for 3 years. If any reduction happened then potentially any lost revenue would need to be made up from taxes elsewhere - this would sort of give the oil companies a 'get out of jail free' card and I suspect we would not see them reducing their prices - so we would pay less for the petrol but our tax liability would be moved on elsewhere and the petrol companies would not drop the price when market forces would have usually pushed them to that. So I can only see us losing there.

The only sensible reduction would be one that balanced the books by reducing the duty in line with the increase that has been received due to VAT (not going up itself, but the product price increasing so higher VAT revenue)

I would love petrol to be cheaper, but I think we are kidding ourselves. Problem of course being all the other good this impacts - all distribution costs increase and so everything is impacted. Hello inflation.

jonny

My bug bear in this whole situation is that the government receives VAT on all fuel sales and so they are currently enjoying a great windfall due to the increase in the world price of oil. The current price of oil is a representation of the general outlook on the commodity, but the government need not profit unneccesarily. But when has a governmeny ever acted fairly?
Jonny

dazchief

The fundamental flaw with petrol, is our reliance on it.

Until the government invests in research into other forms of renewable energy; gets tough with car companies to make more efficient cars and cars that run on something other than petrol, then, the issue of oil prices will always be a major talking point.

And it will only get worse. I read a couple of years ago, that based on current consumption and project usage, there is only 50 years of oil left. Now it doesnt take a genious from the London School of Economics to tell you that prices will increase significantly, and one day there will be no more oil. Then what?

A government with a strong vision and balls to make tough decisions now, will hopefully benefit the next generation of consumers, and rid our society of the reliance on oil.

nemo183

brucewall wrote:

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it. We are hitting 95p
a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1 a ltr.

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.

How wonderful it would be if we could all enter this fantasy world and make it happen.

Where on earth do you suppose the supermarkets you say we should buy our petrol get their supplies from? When was the last time you heard that Asda had just opened an additional North Sea Platform? Or that Tesco were adding additional capacity to their oil refineries? Or Sainsburys were drilling new wells in Nigeria?

Without wishing to appear rude, all the above supermarkets buy from the very companies you suggest we avoid. I just can't even begin to imagine how on earth you think that your "cunning plan" will result in petrol at 69p per litre.

Don't get me wrong - it sticks in my throat that as oil prices rise, the major producers are able to sit back and extract record profits from their ability to increase prices the moment the oil spot price increases, despite the fact they have already purchased tankers full of the stuff at the old price.

Anyone who doesn't like the price of petrol seems to have 2 choices - either sell the car, or buy a small economical one. If you want to see change, then I suggest you concentrate your efforts in persuading the Government to massively increase excise duty on larger (say over 2 litre cars). I'm all for freedom of choice, but if you really feel the need to drive a 6.0 litre Audi, I can't see any good reason why you shouldn't pay, say, £1000 car tax for doing so. And why not £800 for a 4.6 Range Rover? How about £700 for a BMW M5?

tofer

nemo183 wrote:

Anyone who doesn't like the price of petrol seems to have 2 choices - either sell the car, or buy a small economical one. If you want to see change, then I suggest you concentrate your efforts in persuading the Government to massively increase excise duty on larger (say over 2 litre cars). I'm all for freedom of choice, but if you really feel the need to drive a 6.0 litre Audi, I can't see any good reason why you shouldn't pay, say, £1000 car tax for doing so. And why not £800 for a 4.6 Range Rover? How about £700 for a BMW M5?

An interesting point made here, and one that I certainly agree with, dont get me wrong, of course the majority of us, myself included would like to swan about in the latest executive saloon, but lets get practical. If you want this luxury you should have to pay a premium. I hate to stereotype, but how often is it that you see vehicles such as those mentioned, A:with more than one ocuppant, or B: doing the school run. Please dont tell me 6 litres of prime german engineering is required to transport one company executive from A to B. It all boils down to image and the perception amongst the populus that bigger is better.

In order to change this idea the government have to make tax on vehicles over a resonable capacity relative to the impact they cause on the environment and reseves of fossil fuel. Prehaps then people would think about what is really nessecary. At present the highest band of road tax is £170 for private vehicles. As an example, it costs only £15 a year more to tax a 6 litre Audi A8 (Band D) than it does to tax my humble 1.2 corsa, how is that justified, i'm sure the negative externality of running the audi for a year, rather than my corsa, amounts to more than £15, how is this justified?

On a different note, what good comes out of the fuel blockades, the media build them up in advance, people panic buy, no fuel for a day or two and the oil companies rub their sweaty palms all the way to the bank with glee.

A better approach would be for the transport industries to go on strike and bring the country, and hence the economy, to a standstill. I think it would amaze people how relient on oil the economy is, it would not take long for supermarket shelves to empty for example.

IvanOpinion

Out of interest why does rest of the world think it can bully those countries that have oil into reducing their prices. We hear people shouting about a free market, supply & demand etc. all the time ... if we have a premium product then we expect people to pay a premium price for it therefore why should it not be the same for oil? AT the minute demand is far outstripping supply ... if we, the UK, were selling this we would be looking towards the highest bidder .. probably China or America.

I am asking not because I particularly hold this point of view, just out of discussion

Ivan