General Chat

According to BBC website for every 90p worth of petrol, the actual product costs 23.2p, retailer & delivery costs are 6.3p, VAT is 13.4p and duty is 47.1p. nell

Not good news!! I don't actually have a car so wouldn't normally be affected by this, but our bus drivers are going on strike on Thursday for a week, the first of four planned strikes. As we live a fair way out i was hoping i would be able to get Adam a lift to school or back with one of the parents, but if there is a petrol problem it is highly unlikely they will come out of their way to do it. I guess we will be facing an extra weeks holiday...or sleeping in school overnight, lol.

A £1 a Litre in lowestoft for diesel what a ripoff. Highest taxes and poor quality roads, someone is raking it in, and it's not me. Micheal.

I first heard about it on Wednesday morning on GMTV, the refineries will be blockaded this coming Wednesday if the government do not reduce the tax on petrol and diesel. It was also on Sky news on Thursday I think, its gone a bit quite now but I dare say they will see through their threat and take us all by surprise like they did last time. I read in the paper yesterday that Gordon Brown will not increase the tax in October as he originally planned, so hopefully that will be enough to stop the blockades. Sue.

Keep this near the top. Think I will bite the bullet and put some more in today when I go to the supermarket. Ex has just got back from 3 weeks in Bahrain and is astounded by the rise in price during that time. Apparently you can fill the average car in Bahrain from empty to full for around a fiver!!!!! Maz. XX

It is True fill your cars up quick

Heard on the radio last week that the blockade will be for 3 days. Perhaps, if possible, you could leave your cars at home. This will help the environment. Jean (running for cover).

If I can add my penneth worth. I've been chasing this story for work since it first cropped up at the start of the week. I've had calls in to the Fuel Lobby - the people supposedly organising it - who haven't called back at all (which is pretty strange as the reason behing these things is normally to create a brooha in the papers and if they wont answer calls from the press its not gonna work) I've also spoken to the Road Hauliers Association who are distancing themselves from it (or were on Wednesday) and also Farmers For Action (who organised the last one) and they too will not be involved. So, even tho it is likely there will be some form of blockade it is very unlikely to have the same affect as the previous one did - mainly because by announcing their intentions they've eliminated the element of surprise which is what happened before and there is not the strength of backing from the most influential corners as last time. Any roll-on effect to shortages at petrol stations probs wont result in them closing up as the general public have had chance to fill up if they think its necessary so there wont be long queues. Zoe

Clare yep - although I have to confess the reason I'm not panic buying is that last time around certain parts of the media were classified as essential workers so we were able to buy fuel where available That and teh fact I filled my tank up at start of July and theres about a quarter left as I'm not using the car hardly at all since I got back to London Zoe

I'm afraid I can't see how a fuel blockade is going to have any long term effect at all. People will just buy petrol ahead of time and will either make their journeys as planned or not, if they didn't get fuel in time. To my mind, if there is to be any real pressure on the fuel companies - and if taxes are the problem I'm not sure that this will really help anyway - the only thing to do (perhaps) is to boycott the largest petrol company indefinately and bring a price war into play. Given all the price matching that goes on, if no-one buys from the largest supplier but meets their needs by buying from everyone else as normal, the largest supplier will have to bring down their prices to reclaim their share of the market, and so on. Just a thought, but I really don't think a day's boycott, even if repeated on a regular basis, is going to have any real effect, except annoy folk who can't get supplies when they need them.