Fuel Tax Crisis

[TheCritique]

Gentlemen, two questions for this discussion:

Should Brown proceed with his proposal to further increase fuel duty considering the current fuel prices?

If the Iraq war is responsible for the increase in fuel prices (see Iraq war on the debating board for that topic), is Michael Howard hypocritical if he supported the war yet supports any peaceful fuel protests?

[HStorm]

No, Brown shouldn't increase fuel tax any further. I've generally been in favour of rises in duties as we desperately need to reduce traffic congestion in larger cities, and pushing people to avoid making unnecessary journeys by taxing them seems as likely a method as any. However, I think that the policy's been carried as far as it can reasonably be expected to.

Yes, Howard is a hypocrite, but not for the reasons stated. It's typical Tory obnoxiousness that shows that their principles only apply according to what social class people are. Practically every Tory MP of the last twenty years opposed the Miners' strikes of the 1980's, and Thatcher even resorted to violence to suppress them. At the time the prevailing attitude was that causing such hindrance to the economy was unacceptable Stalinist corruption of the working class.

However, when the fuel tax protesters, many of whom are MIDDLE class voters, start kicking up a stink, Howard and other Tory leaders before him immediately fly the flag in their favour stating that they are upstanding people and are simply exercising their common democratic rights, and if they start picketing the fuel depots and preventing even the emergency services from getting petrol for ambulances and fire engines, hey, that's the Government's fault. And yet the Miners' strikes were the fault of the corrupt left wing activists in the working class...?

[Thanatos]

1. Yes, but by a lot more.


2. Yes, for the reasons you both stated.

I think this fresh fuel row will come to nothing, like the planned follow-up protest in the winter of 2000-1.

[TheCritique]

What are your reasons for wanting fuel tax increasing Thanatos? Here are mine against the increases:

Firstly, public transport is a shambles. Full stop. Many who support fuel tax increases say that it will persuade people to use alternative methods of transport. WAKE UP: THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE THAT CAN BE RELIED UPON. If the government wants to get more people off the roads they should improve public transport, not over-tax motorists. Another good solution would be improving the road system to have a greater capacity.

Even with countries with state of the art (by comparison) public transport, many still depend upon their cars.

For an example I will use my father. He is a businessman/salesman, who travells round this country marketing a type of engineering production management software. He cannot afford to rely on any public transport, as he cannot miss meetings without angering the potential customer, which is damaging to his chances of making a sale. So he has to resort to his car and pay the extortionate fuel prices, which is the fault of successive governments for failing to provide adequate public transport.

The Conservatives have been traditionally representative of the middle class. It is therefore hardly suprising that Howard would support whatever attitudes middle England has.

[HStorm]

If the government wants to get more people off the roads they should improve public transport.

Agreed, but the example of your father is exactly the sort of thing we're NOT talking about. You're talking about necessary journeys, I'm talking about unnecessary journeys. How many times do people take a car for a journey of under five hundred yards? Practically every car owner does it. How many people take a car journey on their own when other members of their family or their neighbours are heading in the same direction and take a different car? It's these sorts of unthinking habits or petty laziness that people need to stamp out.

The Conservatives have been traditionally representative of the middle class. It is therefore hardly suprising that Howard would support whatever attitudes middle England has.

That's exactly my point, Will. He condemns people according to what class they are, not according to what they do. He's a hypocrite to judge similar behaviour differently in different people.

[Thanatos]

I am aware that public transport is not presently a viable alternative to cars, which is why I want fuel taxes raised: to pay for it. More road-building is the last thing the country needs - it has been shown time and again, in many countries, that the supply generates its own demand, the problem remains and the only things achieved are more pollution and more countryside spoilt by car parks like the M25.

[TheCritique]

Public services do not need more funding, they need reform. The money is there, and if they cut down on waste the money could be used for re-investment in improvement. Further taxing to plough more money into public services will simply not work: It hasn't so far for proof.

[Thanatos]

TheCritique said:

Public services do not need more funding, they need reform.

Always easy to say but meaningless until elaborated upon. How exactly would you reform them were you in power?

I've even seen it argued (not entirely unconvincingly) that what damages public services is incessant reform, reorganisation, re-structuring etc. by successive governments and that what they need is a good long period of sustained investment without reform.

[TheCritique]

Excessive reform could probably damage the efficiency of public services and I have no argument there.

If that argument is true, reforms don't work either because they simply don't succeed in their objective, OR there are so many of them that all adjust little things that there is always a new system.

What is needed is better reform which will last long term, if that is possible.

[Thanatos]

I wasn't dismissing the idea of reform, merely giving an alternative perspective. I ask again, what reforms would you implement?

[TheCritique]

I honestly don't know. I do not know nearly enough about the public services to suggest solid ideas for reform. Indeed, the only people that do are the ones that work for them, those who study them, and those that are closely involved with them. That includes politicians, but mainly cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers. However they don't seem to have the brains to figure out something good from the facts.

All I can suggest are the usual types of reforms: the types that improve public services' quality of service to the public the most, the reforms that will be the most effective, the most cost efficient, and the least disruptant.

And this must be one reform that is planned out and executed efficiently, which will eliminate the need for future reforms in the long-ish term.

[HStorm]

One of the knock-on effects of Hurricane Katrina is a loss of production by US oil rigs in the Gulf Of Mexico. As a partial result of this (though more particularly of characteristic gitters in the market), oil prices have started to rise pretty sharply over the last two to three weeks.

In Manchester, the average price of a litre of petrol was roughly 89p in mid-August. It's now around 97p and signs are that it won't dip for some while yet, probably not until after the US rigs are fully operational again.

Gordon Brown has encouraged OPEC countries to increase output in an attempt to increase surpluses on the market to drive the price down again, but such an approach is usually unreliable, slow to take effect, and may even be unachievable in some Arab countries for practical reasons.

Fresh protests demanding a reduction in fuel tax in response to the price hikes have begun across the country. These have again show little sign of having the desired effect, and have so far received little support from the wider public. Instead, the only serious effect they appear to have had is to encourage the all-too-familiar bad habit of hoarding and panic-buying by motorists desperate to make sure there's no danger of running out of fuel; and by absorbing far more than they need they of course merely make sure that other motorists are left short.

Worse, by causing this panic, and in turn causing a sudden surge in demand and resultant cut in supply, the fuel protesters are indirectly making petrol harder to come by... causing the prices they want to bring down to go up even further! (On the plus side for motorists, this part of the quandary looks to be temporary; the UK Petroleum Industry Association, representing Shell, BP, Esso and Total, have announced that prices could fall back by as much as 4p a litre next week, as extra oil stocks enter the system. But as mentioned above, this price dip is not something we can take as a given.)

Any thoughts on all this, gents?