The Prime Minister’s routine half-truths, exaggerations and Brownies may have bored the British public into submission, but every now and again we get foreign governments or organisations setting him straight. After the Germans (and everyone else – list here) now it’s the turn of Abdalla Salem El-Badri, head of Opec, to gently point out that British petrol prices were so high because 72 per cent of the pump price is tax. The “highest in Europe”, el-Badri said. He wasn’t undiplomatic enough to accuse the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading the British public, but he did say this:
“I think Mr Brown is very confused. If he is looking out for the interests of his people he should look at the taxes. I advise that he should really look at these high taxes…”
Petrol is now 89.5p/litre according to the AA . It’s worth noting that under the ‘fuel price stabiliser’ that George Osborne outlines, it would be 9p higher. The Tories protest that they never said what level it would be anchored to, but when announcing the scheme on the Marr sofa, Osborne outlined a scenario whereby his scheme would have been introduced in the April 2008 budget when petrol was 108p a litre. The reason that people advised him not to go ahead with this scheme is that when prices fall, you are exposed to folk like Brown saying you’d jack up petrol prices.
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