Mr Brown insists that he’s been planning today’s postponement of October’s fuel duty increase for some time. Perhaps he’s a fan of this very blog, and has been planning it since May:

Every indication appears to suggest that Brown is going to give in to the current demonstrations on fuel pricing and - at the very least - further delay October’s increase in fuel duty. This will be unfortunate but necessary damage limitation, and will spin well for, ahem, ‘hard-working families’.

Indeed, as predicted, he even spun that it was a measure ‘to help families’. If only he’d listened to my earlier advice and announced it at the time of the local elections:

In his single exclusive interview, Mr Brown should have been armed with an arresting announcement - something along the lines of freezing fuel duty increases to help the poor … Pretty much anything would have moved the news cycle forward, and taken the focus away from Mr Brown and the disastrous election.

Instead, he’s decided to keep the announcement back to today, thereby achieving nothing but a pasting by those who say its another sign of the economy going down the plughole, and a good ol’ bashing by those who say it’s electioneering.

Good one, team Brown - Yet another remarkable own goal.

Interact with this post

Your Comments and Responses

And on this side of the pond our congress wants to add ten cents per U.S. gallon in additional gas tax.

» This comment was received at 00:32 on 21 July 08

But your petrol is, on average, $4.06 per gallon - equivalent to £0.54 per litre. Our price is currently £1.19 per litre, or $8.97 per gallon.

Therefore, even after your tax increase, you’ll still be paying less than half what I’m paying!

» This comment was received at 08:32 on 21 July 08

But you live in a small island country, so you don’t have so far to go to get anyplace. Also you have decent public transit in the UK and Europe.No public transit for me to get to my doctors in Mount Pleasent (about 50 mile round trip) or Midland (about 100 miles) so I have no other way to go then by car. There is local bus service to hospital and doctors here in Alma, but this is small city and most of the docs are in other places.
But close to $9.00 per gallon is too much for petrol.
Now I know why the British cars never run right. If they are down they save on fuel.
My 1965 Rover was in the shop more then on the road. My 1961 Hillman got great gas mileage when it ran, which was only on certain days it felt like it.
But gas in France must be even higher, because their cars (Like my old Renault) NEVER run.
I did replace the gas motor on my boat with an electric one. it is slower, but fine for trolling for fish.

» This comment was received at 12:32 on 21 July 08

Write a new comment or response