Fuel tax rip off

Lord Allesley spent a good part of yesterday with experts discussing energy.
What came across loud and clear was the enormous wind fall of taxation the government is getting at the moment. It begs the question, what are they doing with this money. Surely if the government was serious about energy security and cost it would invest this windfall into insulating ALL homes, helping small business become more efficient, sorting out the road infrastructure eg. intelligent traffic light, oh and major public transport projects. No none of these are increasing. The money it appears, is going into the fiscal black hole that Mr Brown has created.

The other message was that we have a private public transport system, that is effectively dictated to on public sector terms, ie bus fares are negotiated by local government and fixed regardless of fuel cost. Many bus operators are on the verge of going bust as their cost model no longer works. Can they do anything about it? No not really, Public sector rules means that the minimum resolution time in these cases is 4 months, they wont survive that long! It also means no bus companies are going to be investing in new fleets, new routes or new services, mind you Gordon still taxes them. So if you thought not using your car was an option, forget it.

Overall Lord Allesley was depressed, he'd throw himself under a bus if he could find one.

Lord Allesley