Darling demands cheaper petrol
Peter Hoskin 10:47am
The government's demands that oil companies cut petrol prices are now getting beyond parody. Alistair Darling repeated them on GMTV this morning - blithely ingnoring the fact that fuel taxes account for well over half the cost of petrol at the pumps. Fern Britton, for one, wouldn't have let him get away with it.
The question hovering over all this is whether the Treasury will go ahead with a planned 2p rise in fuel duty. There's always the chance that Brown 'n' Darling could try and gain some political capital - and attept to steal Nick Clegg's "reduce the burden on low-income earners" thunder - by scrapping it in the forthcoming pre-Budget report. But if the 10p tax debacle is anything to go by, the public aren't likely to forget who planned the increases in the first place; particularly if the opposition parties do their job in reminding them. Watch this space.
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Short the UK
October 30th, 2008 11:29am Report this commentWhy has Gordon Brown's 1997 budget speech disappeared from the Treasury website?
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/bud_bud08_index.htm
John Page
October 30th, 2008 11:40am Report this commentBrown keeps being able to talk about a tax rebate without the opposition mentioning the reason for it, or that the 10p tax issue was only partly dealt with and only for this year. Why is genius George relying on Frank Field to make the running?
Paul
October 30th, 2008 12:07pm Report this commentBrown's 1997 Budget Speech
http://archive.treasury.gov.uk/pub/html/budget97/speech.html
Chris,Baildon
October 30th, 2008 12:16pm Report this commenthttp://archive.treasury.gov.uk/pub/html/budget97/speech.html
For the budge speech.
Short the UK
October 30th, 2008 12:46pm Report this commentCheers guys - it is very odd that is missing from the main Treasury page!!
Found what I was looking for:
Gordon Brown's budget 1997:
'Housing market measures
For most people the acquisition of a house is the biggest single investment they will make. Homeowners rightly expect their investment to be protected by sensible policies pursued by Government.
I am determined that as a country we never return to the instability, speculation, and negative equity that characterised the housing market in the 1980s and 1990s.
Volatility is damaging both to the housing market and to the economy as a whole.
So stability will be central to our policy to help homeowners. And we must be prepared to take the action necessary to secure it.
I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery.'
This is what the Tories should be hammering away at today and why the Treasury website is missing the link.
El Sid
October 30th, 2008 12:49pm Report this commentOil price in sterling over the last two weeks :
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/daily_charts/chart_producer.php?type_symbol=specials_wi-gbp&style=line&scheme=beige&width=600&volbars=n&dura=15
(adjust that final 15 for the number of days covered by the chart)
It's not fallen at all.
And of course Darling knows damn well that the oil companies are banned from subsidising their retail operations with profits from upstream, whereas supermarkets can subsidise petrol from profits made selling baked beans.
Nicholas
October 30th, 2008 12:53pm Report this commentHilarious dissembling. Keep the scrutiny on the oil companies, tax wastrels of Labour, nicely followed up from yesterday's planted windfall question in PMQs. Divert attention. Create a distraction. Blame everyone else including the opposition. Spin. Lie. Cheat. Do anything to stop your chickens coming home to roost, you nasty collection of nation destroyers. No doubt the majority of the media and certainly the BBC will follow your false trail, giving you more time for more conniving, more manipulation, more lies.
Labour is the cancer at the heart of Britain and until that is realised our country will continue to decline, degenerate and die.
Tiberius
October 30th, 2008 2:19pm Report this commentShort: Cameron did hammer away at Brown's 1997 budget speech at PMQs yesterday by quoting from it. That may be why it's been culled.
Marian C
October 30th, 2008 5:25pm Report this commentNicholas: Well said sir;
If Bodger and Badger want petrol to be cheaper, then why don't they just cut the fuel duty or is that too difficult for them!
Short the UK
October 30th, 2008 6:16pm Report this commentTiberius - I asked Bloomberg to look into the missing report - here is the reply:
"The Treasury changed some sort of packaging presentaton on the web site on the very day the big bank bailout came thru, forcing lots of stuff off the web. They're slowly putting it back on. If you call the publications unit they'll
ship stuff out to you if you please. I ran into this problem too." Conspiracy theory dies.....
It was started by the author Fred Harrison.
C'est la vie.
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