How to explain the real cause of high petrol prices to the public

Cazzy Jones has a fantastic idea to bring home to the public who is to blame for high petrol prices:

'Just imagine a dual till system on the forecourt, where the driver goes to the first till and pays £28 for the cost of the fuel and the retailer’s profit margin, and is then channelled to the second till, coming face to face with a bureaucrat who tells him: “Because you have spent money filling your car up, you must now give more money to the government.” “How much?” “£52.” “But that’s almost twice as much as what I’ve just paid the garage!” “Tough. Pay up and shut up.”'

Prime minister Gordon Brown said there will be no rise in the basic rate of 20 per cent tax should Labour win the election

I hear that our 'honest as the day is long' Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has said there will be no rise in the basic rate of 20 per cent tax should Labour win the election. So that means one or more of the following:

* Increases in National Insurance which is Income Tax by another name for most people

* Below inflation increases in personal allowances

* The 20% basic rate will stay but a new 30% rate will be introduced at a lower level and in addition to the 40% rate

* Rises in VAT and applied to currently zero rated items

* Rises in fuel duty

* A new annual tax on the capital element of savings (not the interest, the capital)

* A tax on the sale of main properties (currently tax exempt)

* Rises in any other stealth taxes that Gordon Brown can think of


Yes I am so f**king happy that Gordon Brown has said that there will be no increase in the basic rate of Income Tax, that's really convincing and reassuring.

Mind you since this is the same mendacious c**t that promised us a referendum on the EU Constitution & reneged and that promised an end to boom and bust before leading us into the biggest bust for generations; I wouldn't be too reassured.

Hold on a moment isn't he also the same lying t**t that (alongside Tony Blair) in 2005 promised no increase in Income Tax and promptly increased National Insurance. Looks like he's trying the same trick again.

This is definite 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me' time - so get angry and get even by ensuring that Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and the rest of the Labour leadership have the smug grins wiped off of their faces on 7 May.

The last day to buy a car before the hideous rises in Vehicle Tax are implemented

On 1 April 2010 new rates of Vehicle Tax are introduced and some of the rises are spectacular:

Band M cars (those with a CO2 g/km rating above 255) will pay £950, instead of the current £405, for a 12-month tax disc. Don't be fooled into thinking that this applies only to big 4x4s and supercars, it does apply to Range Rovers but also to vehicles such as the Vauxhall Insignia 2.8.

Band L cars (ranging from 226-255g/km) will now pay £750 instead of £425 for the first year; cars affected include the Ford S-Max 2.3.

Band K cars (201-225g/km) cars will pay £550, up from £215; that's for cars including the Ford Mondeo 2.3 or Focus 2.5.

Band J cars (186-200g/km) will pay £425 rather than £235; that's for cars such as the Honda CR-V 2.0 and even the Vauxhall Corsa 1.6.

Band I cars (176-185g/km) will see their first year tax rise from £200 to £290; affecting cars such as the Land Rover Freelander 2.2 diesel and the Vauxhall Astra.

Band H cars (166-175g/km) cars see a tax increase from £180 to £250 for such 'gas guzzling' cars as the 38mpg VW Beetle 1.6.

Band G cars (151-165g/km) see no increase and neither do band F and band E.

The increases go on and on but here's the percentage increase for each band:
M +118%
L +76%
K +124%
J +81%
I +50%
H +39%
G 0%
F 0%
E 0%
D -100%
C -100%
B -100%
A -100%

So if you are thinking of buying an interesting new car, I'd buy it this afternoon....

I should make clear that the new Vehicle Tax rules apply only to motorists buying new cars from 1 April 2010. Owners of existing will pay the old rates, unless another stealth tax is required...

The seventy-sixth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as reported in The Telegraph for concluding that: 'Ten million middle-income households have lost out because of Gordon Brown’s repeated tax rises'.

Gordon Brown's tax changes have hit middle-income households the hardest - "No shit, Sherlock".

Why is the petrol price going up?

The BBC manage to report that

"Petrol prices could hit a record high of £1.20 a litre in the next few weeks, according to the AA."

without mentioning how much of the price of a gallon of petrol at the pump is taken in duty and tax. I was going to refer to ABD's useful table but that only goes up as far as £1.099 a litre, being a year or so old. So I used the ABD Fuel Tax Calculator and that shows that with a pump price of £1.20 per litre, VAT accounts for £0.1787 per litre, fuel tax for £0.5619 per litre; so tax and duty makes up 61.72% of the price paid at the pump or put another way - the tax and duty rate on petrol is 161.22%. Now why would the BBC not be interested in revealing that sort of information?

Yet another Labour stealth tax

I see that this Labour government are introducing yet another stealth tax and this time it's a stealth tax on a transgression tax. This delightful Labour government are to levy a charge of £15 on all motorists fined for minor offences under a government scheme to "compensate victims of crime". This stealth tax is justified by our delightful Labour government on the grounds that the offences that could be targeted "are not victimless crimes".

Let's be honest, what we have here is a 25% levy on already exorbitant transgression taxes. This is a levy being charged because the fools that make up this Labour government have blown all of our money on pish and piffle. Of course this being a Labour government the money is not even really going to the "victims of crime" but to victim support agencies; presumably these 'agencies' are happily staffed by Labour supporting and voting types. Hey Labour gotta shore up the vote in time for the election.

Air Passenger Duty - the truth

This Labour government and its cheerleaders in the BBC and the environmental movement have claimed that Air Passenger Duty (APT) was an environmental necessary to fight climate change. It seems that Alistair Darling, possibly the least impressive Chancellor of the Exchequer for a generation, has admitted that

"the higher air passenger duty being introduced tomorrow was needed to plug gaps in the national finances.

He made no attempt to justify the move - which will add £340 to the ticket for a family of four flying long haul - on environmental grounds, the official reason for the tax.

...

Addressing journalists in Newcastle, home of the failed bank Northern Rock, Mr Darling said: 'I am quite blunt about it, we need to raise money to pay for some of the things we have done.

'If unemployment goes up there is a cost obviously to the family, there is cost in increased benefits, Northern Rock has cost a lot of money.

What we are doing is putting a pound on to your average ticket, which about three quarters of people travel on.

'And you consider the cost of an air ticket, I don't think a pound is that unreasonable.

'In the North East, we have spent billions on a bank for very good reasons."

If it was just a pound then maybe I and others would not be so pissed off with this imposition of yet another Labour Stealth Tax. However the truth is that whilst ticket prices for short-haul economy flights to Europe rise from £10 to £11, on longer journeys the economy ticket levy rises by as much as £30 and of course by far more for Premium Economy, Business Class or First Class travel. Next November the Stealth Tax will rise even higher as the short-haul economy-class tax will rise to £12 per ticket. However for premium-class passengers on the longest flights the Stealth Tax will rise from the newly increased figure to as much as £170 per ticket.

Will air-travellers now be told the real reason for the rise in Air Passenger Duty, as admitted by Alistair Darling, or will they still be officially told that it is an environmental charge? If the latter, as I suspect, will stay the case then they are being lied to; would that make the charge invalid and could people refuse to pay it?

Typical "mission creep"

This Labour government's mania for control and raising money by any means possible will soon have another wing to it. Ths Times reports that:

"Draconian police powers designed to deprive crime barons of luxury lifestyles are being extended to councils, quangos and agencies to use against the public, The Times has learnt.

The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London.

The measure, being pushed through by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, comes into force next week and will deploy some of the most powerful tools available to detectives against fare dodgers, families in arrears with council tax and other minor offenders.

The radical extension of the Proceeds of Crime Act, through a Statutory Instrument which is not debated by parliament, has been condemned by the chairman of the Police Federation. Paul McKeever said that he was shocked to learn that the decision to hand over “intrusive powers” to people who were not police was made without consultation or debate.

“The Proceeds of Crime Act is a very powerful tool in the hands of police and police-related agencies and it shouldn’t be treated lightly,” Mr McKeever said. “There is a behind the scenes creep of powers occurring here and I think the public will be very surprised. They would want such very intrusive powers to be kept in the hands of warranted officers and other law enforcement bodies which are vetted to a very high standard rather than given to local councils.”

His concerns are shared by leading legal figures, who believe that there is a risk of local authorities abusing the powers to search people’s homes, seize their money, freeze their accounts and confiscate their property. They also see parallels with the spread of counter-terrorist surveillance powers to monitor refuse collections and school catchment areas. "

This Labour government may actually be a danger to the general population; a general election should be forced on the dithering fool Gordon Brown, the ever plotting Peter Mandelson, the naive David Miliband and the apparently 'trying to be as authoritarian as David Blunkett' Alan Johnson.

So are we to live in a state where as Sir Ivan Lawrence, QC, a former senior Conservative MP, said

"Far worse is the encouragement being given to non-police bodies to search for what they think are proceeds of crime but may not be and subject the victim to the draconian and manifestly unjust processes of the Proceeds of Crime Act. Does anyone in Government understand that if you give prosecutors, who are supposed to be unbiased ministers of justice, the bribe of a proportion of the money they can find, you are actually poisoning the roots of justice in our society?"

The Times lists the POCA powers as (I emphasis the most worrying items):

"• Freezing a suspect’s assets at the beginning of a criminal investigation

• Presumption that all an individual’s assets are acquired through a criminal lifestyle

• Search for and confiscate cash of £1,000 or more

• Demand that banks and other institutions disclose financial information

• Seek confiscation order for assets after a conviction

• Collect a share of confiscated assets "

Innocent? It will cost you a lot to prove it now.

The Magistrate's Blog reports on a recent Statutory Instrument that had somehow passed me by:

"Legal Costs - Another Click of the Ratchet

Thanks to CrimeLine for pointing me to this statutory instrument giving the Lord Chancellor power to cap central funds costs. CrimeLine expects that costs awarded out of central funds will be capped at Legal Aid rates, which are way below solicitors' private client fees.
If I read this aright, someone who is tried and acquitted, having instructed solicitors and possibly Counsel privately, is likely to be left with a large bill for their fees, that he has no hope of recovering, despite his being innocent of the offence. The CPS, on the other hand cannot lose, and may see this as an opportunity to bully guilty pleas out of people who might have a defence but who cannot afford to run it."

That's this Labour government for you, they expect to be able to charge you and if you dare to fight it and prove yourself "not guilty" then you will still be out of pocket. Does the phrase "total bastards" cover them?

A levy on properties worth over £1 million

Some questions and comments spring to mind about this Lib Dem policy:
How will property values be assessed? At the last rating valuation, at the top of the market, at last purchase, at estate agents valuation (if so which agent), at average for the road, at highest value in the area, at lowest value in the area? Not as easy as it sounds is it oh economic genius Vince Cable?

This policy will unduly penalise Londoners over the rest of the Country. Whilst a nice house almost anywhere in the Country can be purchased for less than £1 million, in London it is not quite that clear-cut; but then a bit of class war rhetoric by the Lib Dems may help shore up their vote against a Labour party also trying to shore up its core vote.

Vince Cable appears to be assuming that everyone that owns an expensive house has high income, what about retired people in large old family homes, say around Richmond Green? Will they be forced to sell their houses as they may not be able to afford the 0.5% "levy"?

The levy is set to start at 0.5%, £5,000 on a £1 million house, will there be a set upper limit on the rate of the levy or will it like stamp duty be hiked ever upwards as an extra "wealth" tax?

My this Labour governmnt love their stealth taxes, especially on those who can't avoid them

Just when you thought Gordon Brown couldn't fall any lower in my estimation, and he is already down there with the scum of history, I note that it is now less than a month before HMRC increase the interest charged on IHT due. Yes Gordon Brown's government is so short of money that they consider it worthwhile chiselling money out of the bereaved.

Inheritance Tax is iniquitous anyway, why should the estate of a dead person have to pay tax on what was the proceeds of taxed income? Currently any estate worth more than £325,000 (including the main family house) will have tax levied on it at the rate of 40%. Why? But if that tax is not paid within six months then an interest charge is levied., That interest rate has recently been calculated at around bank base rate but because Gordon Brown has so comprehensively screwed up the UK economy, interest rates are currently so low that the interest rate on IHT is zero. So the rate is being raised to 2.5% above base rate, initially that makes a rate of 3%. Of course when interest rates rise, and they will have to, this will be a nice little earner for the Treasury. Meanwhile the rate of interest paid on taxpayer overpayments of IHT will be made at 1 per cent below the bank base rate (although this will not go below a minimum of 0.5%), how generous.

It is good to know that from cradle to grave and indeed beyond the grave, this Labour government will screw you for every penny they can. I hope all you people who fell for Tony Blair's easy charm and Gordon Brown's "reputation" for prudence and competence, feel suitably ashamed. Labour governments wreck the economy, it's what they do, and this one has wrecked it more than any predecessor.

Everyone is guilty unless they pay to be proved innocent (update)

I blogged recently about this Labour government's regular school visitor vetting scheme and noted that

"Isn't great to live in a country where every adult is under suspicion of being a paedophile if they visit a school, take photos in a park, smile at a child walking past...

In a totalitarian state all are guilty of something, it is just up to the state to decide who to arrest and when."

So when I learnt that the scheme is predicted to raise £578 million for the UK coffers. As is so often with this government, it's about money and control.

The war on the motorist - the motorists fight back and win

This Is London report that

"A driver has successfully challenged a notorious traffic camera that is estimated to issue £1 million a year in fines. "

Driving in London is a nightmare, there are new regulations to try and follow, signage everywhere to try and process and cameras ready to record any indiscretion and fine you accordingly. The motorist is treated as a cash cow by government, both local and national, and it is time this situation changed.

Digital Britain - more taxation and extra costs

So every telephone line will bear a charge of £6 a year. That's £12 a year for me, why? Why am I being taxed to provide broadband to others? Why should my pensioner neighbours who don't have a computer, and don't want one, have to pay £6 a year to help the government out? The government promise a world class broadband system; 2MB
world class my arse.

Now to the Labour plans for radio in this country. The BBC report it thus:

"Mr Bradshaw told the Commons that the government intended to upgrade all national radio stations from analogue to digital by 2015."

What it actually means is that all existing radios will be useless, my pensioner neighbours will have to buy a new radio; and why? My car, and most people's cars, will need new radios; why should people have to buy new car radios? Apparently the freed-up FM spectrum will be filled by new ultra-local radio stations, comprising small local commercial and community stations. Currently digital radio accounted for 20.1% of radio listening and DAB remains the most popular digital platform, accounting for 12.7% of digital listening. So this most democratic Labour government plan to force the 90% of people who don't listen to their radio via DAB to change their platform. They expect us to replace our home radios, our car radios but hey it's only money; presumably MPs will get their DAB radios FOC.

"Retirees facing reduced pension pot"

Simon Gompertz for the BBC reports that:

"Nearly half a million people are relying on their pensions to allow them to retire in the coming year.

But for many the stock market collapse and declining pension rates are forcing them to carry on working to make ends meet. "

Of course Simon Gompertz doesn't reveal that this problem only applies to those people in the private sector. Their public sector equivalents will retire on a final salary pension paid for by the whole economy.

Simon Gompertz can afford to look concerned for he will, I believe, be on a very generous BBC final salary scheme and not be affected himself.

The return of 3/23?

The rumours that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling may be reducing the VAT rate from 17.5% to 15% set me thinking about how this would or would not affect prices. Since most retail prices are quoted inclusive of VAT and are set at certain price points the decrease will probably make next to no difference for most retailers who will probably just take the extra 2.13% as extra profit, it might help offset the rumoured increases in taxation and the loss in turnover. Wholesale prices will be adjusted as most are quoted net of VAT "plus VAT at the prevailing rate", however as most businesses are Standard Rated for VAT any decrease in VAT will make no difference as it will be accounted for on the VAT return as a reduction in both input VAT and output VAT. There will be a timing difference as businesses mostly still operate on an accruals basis for VAT accounting and so will be reclaiming input VAT at the 17.5% rate whilst paying Output VAT at 15% BUT this still makes no difference to the business's profits.

The one big difference that I can see is that the magic fraction of "7/47" will revert back to "3/23"; accountants will understand what I mean... and will remember the "thrill" when it changed last time. Of course there might even be a system with multiple rates of VAT, with some goods at 15% and some at 17.5% and maybe some at 22%, but that prospect is just too exciting for words and will create much work for accountants and Sage software installers.

Gordon Brown - "non-sequiteurs, exaggerations, half-truths and Brownies"

A must read article by Fraser Nelson in The Spectator's Coffee Shop, entitled "Brown is blasting out his false message", it starts

"Whatever you may think about Gordon Brown, he does deserve to be recognised as a master of his art. I can’t think of a more accomplished confidence trickster ever to enter Westminster. And he’s ready to unveil a whole Potemkin Village tomorrow, the climax of his life’s work. It will be built out of non-sequiteurs, exaggerations, half-truths and Brownies. His interview on the BBC1 Politics Show gave a preview as to how he will conduct himself. He is in full election mode, talking as if he’s in the heat of an election campaign—which, in his head, he is."

and proceeds to list the "non-sequiteurs, exaggerations, half-truths and Brownies" that Gordon Brown is using and will continue to use in order to fool th electorate and win another election.

Supported by a almost completely supportive BBC Gordon Brown might just do it and it looks as though he is looking at a snap winter election, February 2009 looks favourite to me at the moment.

The Labour government and their addiction to road pricing

It doesn't matter how often people say that they don't want road pricing, how many people sign petitions, how much market research is done, this Labour government need to raise taxes and motorists will have to bear a large part of the burden. The Telegraph report that:

"Paul Clark, the Transport Minister, told a conference of road-pricing experts about plans to introduce tolls on specific lanes of motorways or hard shoulders.

On top of the predicted £1.30-a-mile charge he did not rule out an additional toll for cars that emit the highest levels of carbon dioxide.

Mr Clark said trials into road-pricing would start in the new year, with hundreds of drivers taking part in test runs."

Tax and spend

Gordon Brown's puppet Chancellor of the Exchequer is reported in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph to have

"declared that the government will boost its spending in an attempt to help the economy weather the recession about to grip Britain."

How will this increase in public spending be paid for? Silly question, this is a Labour government so Alistair Darling's plan is simple

"He admitted government borrowing would have to rise sharply – turning his back on the possibility of spending cuts or tax rises – claiming that previous debt repayment over the past 10 years has made such a course of action possible. "We can allow borrowing to rise,""

Of course increased borrowing now will lead to increases in taxation later, but this "plan" allows Labour to accuse the Conservative party of planning "cuts" in essential public services and thus trying to frighten the voters.

Back where we started

The FTSE closed on 01 May 1997 at 4,445.00 and currently it is at 4,365.54. 11+ years of the great economic genius that is Gordon Brown running our economy and the FTSE is back where we started but we are now more heavily taxed, more in debt and much angrier...