nothing changes (UK Petrol Prices)

Member Name: lamorna

Product:	UK Petrol Prices
Date:	02/07/00 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: economical and enviromental

They don’t like the French. The Continentals. Europe. They were in the Armed Forces in World War 2. They knew men lost in action. The French gave in to the dreaded Hun didn’t they? The Euro? Over my dead body, they say! My elderly next-door neighbours, good people.

‘We’ve had a lovely day’ they told me in, the sweet September afternoon sun, across the rambling roses. ‘We drove to the French Market’ a sixty mile round trip along the coast ‘Not to see the French People you understand, but we love their food!’

I was astounded. They are on a low income and the car is a pleasure for them, but they spent money on fuel to buy food that had used fuel to cross the channel and be transported by road either side. Food they could have bought locally.

Out Town has a cheese shop that stocks over three hundred different cheeses. A fish shop that sells everything from oak smoked venison, to fat king scallops wriggling in their shells. A Butcher that will do Continental cuts of meat. A Family Baker that bakes and sells their own Brioche, Croissants, Pastries. Local fruit and vegetables are in abundance.

Traders in my Town recorded higher than average takings on the Saturday of the fuel shortage. Not because of panic buying, but the public staying in their own Town to shop locally, and not driving the eighty mile round trip to buy the same goods available on their doorstep. Surely this makes economic and environmental sense?

Has nothing been learnt from all this?
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This is a rural, agricultural area. The fact that heavily subsidised farmers were involved in the protest surprises me. The fuel they use on their farms is called Red Diesel. The duty on that is about a third of that paid by other business users, about 3p a litre in fact!

Road Haulage Contractors are demanding they pay the same duty on their fuel as their French counte
rparts. I have yet to hear any of them declare they would also be prepared to pay the same Autoroute tolls, National Insurance contributions and income tax as in Continental Europe, which are all much higher than in the UK.

My own personal experience in the ‘70s enduring disruptive action, was in running a business with Miner’s strikes, Power Workers go slows, resulting in the three day week and random power cuts, while struggling to pay wages for ten staff and keep my business open. It went on for weeks. I bought a petrol generator and limped my way through, keeping my customers, my income and my girls fully paid. I survived….just!

I am in doubt as to the real motives behind this protest. Destabilising the elected Government and the Country as a whole?

Summary: