1p off petrol is a ?0.5b loss to The Treasury...

[max_tranmere]

I saw this in a newspaper today, it was saying how the ?6b bailout to Portugal is the equivilant to a 12p increase on petrol. I have no idea what petrol costs or how far a gallon will take you as I've not owned a car in years - I found it almost impossible to drive in London (where I live), you can not park anywhere and there is the Congestion Charge aswell, so I gave up and have never looked back. But, I digress. However much it costs now and however far it will take you, would a few extra pence on petrol really negatively efffect the motorist - considering the huge cost of running a car, very expensive insurance, the ton of money you lose every time you sell a car, servicing, and everything else? Just think, a few extra pence and the Treasury will have literally billions of pounds extra to spend on all the things they are currently cutting. People's views please.

[Nob3y]

All the above reasons are why I use my motorbikes as much as possable.
Even more so when I need to get into central london from greater london where i live.Hardly any parking problems,except westminster.No congestion charge and uses less fuel than a car.

[David Johnson]

" saw this in a newspaper today, it was saying how the ?6b bailout to Portugal is the equivilant to a 12p increase on petrol."

Has there been a bailout of Portugal? Was it ?6 billion? As far as I know the answer is no in both cases.

Cheers
D

[max_tranmere]

Not yet, and it may or may not happen, but the point is that 1p on petrol is a ?0.5b gain to the Treasury. Would it be a good thing to fractionally increase petrol duty? Just think 2 pence on petrol is a ?4b gain to the Government and there is a lot of things they could do with 4 billion quid.

[David Johnson]

They have already done that. They put 3p on petrol with the recent VAT rise to 20%. And there are other increases in petrol prices planned further down the line which for obvious reasons, Osborne didnt go out of his way to advertise.

Cheers
D

[rhino]

I reckon so. Somehow I don't know who or what to believe.
Here we are, the working class are feeling the squeeze from the Coalition Government. George Osbourne is a knobhead because he's given us a fraction of money to fill up at the pumps. It's not enough!
I have friends whose sons and daughters in some schools in London. The Government won't give them the funding to repair the schools.
What's worse the spending cuts, job cuts, funding cuts, whatever way you see it, it's not enough!
Now they're going on about us paying our tax money to bail out Portugal.
This country is well totally corrupt because that's where the Government put us today.
Now they've got a problem! Not one knobhead can't solve it!

[max_tranmere]

The problem with all this is that the figures are huge. The Government spends nearly ?2b a day, about ?700b a year, so the odd ?50m saving here or ?100m there is chicken feed. I do think though that really important areas, like childrens centres, centres for the disabled or vulernable, homeless shelters, and the like, should NOT be cut and I am certain that just a few billion (like 3p on pertrol) would cover that. It's funny how some areas will never be cut, regardless of how broke the country is - like scrapping an entire government department or two, because that is rightly seen as essential, yet other things like what I've just listed here can be.

[David Johnson]

What I find particularly dishonest about the government's actions is that they have let councils take the flak for the cuts.

So for example some councils have had over 20% cuts in their funding from central grants which they have been forced to implement this year - presumably so the worst is got out of the way before 4 years down the line when the government starts giving money away immediately prior to the next election.

Time and time again we have heard from Grant Shapps and other government ministers that frontline cuts are the fault of Labour councils and that there is no need for councils to make frontline service cuts because they should instead concentrate on sharing back office services with other councils and cut senior executive pay.

But when you start looking around you see that in Blackpool for instance, where there is a Tory led council they have closed a couple of Surestart centres for kids and services for young unemployed etc. and the Tory council leader has been slagging off Eric Pickles. Meanwhile in Birmingham which is run by a Tory/Lib Dem council there have been huge cuts both in employment and in front line services.

I suspect the government are lining up the GPs to take the flak in the same way in the NHS by giving them the budget for commissioning services.

Cheers
D