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It’s the budget. Lots to say about it, but today, I’ll just stick with the Chancellor’s statement on fuel duty. Darling is putting 1% on a litre in April, and again in October and again next January.
Petrol is heading towards £1.20 a litre, echoing the high prices we had to endure in 2008. Yet the price of crude oil is little over half what it was back then. I decided to get the stats together, to see if they would make sense of the prices.
Petrol price data: AA. Oil price data: IMF
As you can see, the price of oil (yellow line) has risen a bit since this time last year. But the price of unleaded 95 petrol at a garage (blue line) has risen more sharply than it did leading up to the ridiculous summer ’08 prices. Leaving aside what might be behind the other reasons for this, what really struck me was just how much tax is contained in the price. Last month, we paid £1.12 for every litre of petrol, 73p of which went to the tax man. The cost of the petrol you put into your tank at a petrol station was just 39p. Tax is about 200% of the actual cost.
I love motoring. And I think that it is an intrinsically good thing. For example, I believe that there would be a great deal fewer problems in this country if young men were encouraged to develop an interest in the workings of cars as they once were – and as they are naturally inclined to – rather than brainwashed with politically-correct poison in today’s ineffectual schools. The result is uninterested youth, some of whom are more likely to attempt to steal, rather than build, a car.
I digress, but the point is to show just how toxic the anti-car Green ideology is. It’s not just about cars, it’s about people’s freedom, and freedom is not just about where you can go, but how you think.
However, I appreciate that for many people, cars are just about necessity. Getting from A to B. Picking the kids up. Doing the shopping. Let’s keep it practical. What is the effect of this tax?
According to this website a Ford Focus 1.6 Ghia does about 52 miles per gallon, out of town. I think that’s possibly over-stating the cars performance, but it doesn’t matter to what I’m about to say.
So to drive from York to London – 209 miles, according to Google Maps – would use 4 gallons, or 18.2 litres. At February prices, that would cost £20. But if it wasn’t for tax, it would cost you just £7.14.
But 7.14 would only buy you 1.4 gallons of petrol, enough to travel 72miles, leaving you stranded on the motorway just west of Mansfield. To put it another way, when you drive to London from York, every mile that you drive past Mansfield is tax. A round trip to London would cost you £40, thanks to the treasury. It could cost just £15.
Now, of course, if I were to speak about abolishing tax altogether, I suspect people wouldn’t take me seriously. So let’s imagine instead that petrol and diesel are only subject to VAT.
The petrol needed to drive from York to London would cost you £8.39. At February prices, that would get you as far as Junction 25 of the M1 – between Derby and Nottingham. 87.6 miles from York, and 121 miles from London.
The government could have done a great deal to ease the pressure on people as fuel prices rose. It cannot be argued, for instance, that they needed the money - they were getting much more out of the increases in fuel prices than the suppliers were.
So why is fuel so heavily taxed? Is it less essential than other things that are only taxed at VAT rates, or, like food, books, newspapers, children’s clothes and shoes? Is petrol in your car the same kind of stuff as tobacco, and alcohol?
There are several answers.
The first is that the Government tax fuel so much because they can and they know that you will pay for it. They know that you will keep paying – as much as £1.40, as it was in some places in summer 2008. There was a brief period of protest about fuel prices over a decade ago. But since then, in spite of ever-increasing prices, there has been very little noise made about this rip off.
The second answer is that the government has been able to use the climate scare story to burden the average tax payer with more and more and more penalties for driving their cars and heating their homes - absolute necessities for most people. By squeezing more and more out of the average working person, the government has been able to conceal the mistakes it has made and liberties it has taken with our economy. The climate change scam is a big giant excuse card for a shoddy, shoddy government.
Lastly, with shoddy government comes a natural desire to restrict freedom. Imagine, if you will, that it costs just a tenner to fill a car with sufficient petrol to drive 400 or so miles. It would be chaos, in the government’s view. Not only would decades of under-investment in our transport infrastructure start to show, but people would be actually roaming the country meeting their families, friends, and enjoying their lives... all things which are, in our government’s view, a bit of a nuisance, and must be stopped.
