Petrol Price Campaign

[cat]

Not sure I really get the point about ''the two biggest oil companies (which are now one)'' and then naming Esso/Exxon and BP.

a) They aren't ''now one'', as if to suggest a merger. BP and Exxon haven't merged in any way, shape or form.

b) Buy your petrol at Shell? Erm, right. Because Shell are a small-timer, aren't they. They are only a teeny tiny bit smaller than BP (in corporate terms), and actually have a much bigger R&D operation than BP. They're still raking in profits in the billions.

[Nick Harvey]

so they are copying the old safeway system now morrisons have butchered it

No, it seems to be just the one rate of discount. Spend over £50 and get 5p a litre off.

Sainsbury's are doing exactly the same deal round here, till 31st August.

I'd already moved from BP to Sainsbury's before this e-mail came along. BP and Sainsbury's are normally the same price round here, but if you go to Sainsbury's, you get two Nectar points for every pound you spend, rather than one point per litre at BP.

[cwathen]

I don't see how this campaign can help.

Shortage of refinery capacity is the current concern. And BP's Thunderhorse platform was damaged in hurricanes recently. Add to that the fact that, ultimately, there is a finite amount of oil out there and you can see it does come down to good old supply and demand. No matter where you buy your petrol. We really do need to invest hugely in research for alternatives.

Oil prices are going up which of course does mean that the end product will go up, but it doesn't alter the fact that we are ridiculously over-taxed in this country - if you put £10 worth of petrol in your car, you're paying £3.20 for the fuel and £6.80 in tax! To call that ridiculous is a candidate for understatement of the century - and there are still 95 years of it left to go.

And to take that a little further, my car (at present prices) requires the purchase of £42 worth of petrol to fill the tank up - petrol which is worth barely over £13 - the rest of it went straight to Gordon Brown, on top of the road tax I pay, the tax on my insurance I pay, and the VAT I paid when purchasing the car. The fuel strikes of 2000 succesfully reduced unleaded petrol by as much as 20p/litre and with it proved that the government do not need to charge as much in tax as they do. I'm fully expecting, and will fully support, another fuel strike this winter.

If it's of any interest, Tesco now appear to be giving out petrol vouchers with shopping receipts. After spending just over £60 in store on Thursday, I got a 5p off per litre voucher, allowing me to buy my petrol for 82.9p per litre...

So your Tesco forecourt sells petrol at 87.9p? Lucky bastard (then pinches self for becoming conditioned to believe that anything below 90p is cheap when only a year ago we considered anything over 80p to be a rip off).

so they are copying the old safeway system now morrisons have butchered it

IIRC, the old Safeway system had a sliding scale which went right up to a 20p / litre reduction - and at the time (all of 2 years ago) average petrol prices near me were 71.9p - so if I spent enough to take full advantage of the promotion, I could buy fuel for barely more than 50p / litre...2003 seems so far away

[Andrew]

If it's of any interest, Tesco now appear to be giving out petrol vouchers with shopping receipts. After spending just over £60 in store on Thursday, I got a 5p off per litre voucher, allowing me to buy my petrol for 82.9p per litre...

So your Tesco forecourt sells petrol at 87.9p? Lucky bastard (then pinches self for becoming conditioned to believe that anything below 90p is cheap when only a year ago we considered anything over 80p to be a rip off).

Its still around that price where I am as well, must be a Yorkshire thing. It hasn't reached 90p yet.

I wonder some older petrol station signs only have enough room for xx.xp prices. A good enough reason never to go above 99.9p if ever I heard one!!

[chinajan]

Oil prices are going up which of course does mean that the end product will go up, but it doesn't alter the fact that we are ridiculously over-taxed in this country - if you put £10 worth of petrol in your car, you're paying £3.20 for the fuel and £6.80 in tax! To call that ridiculous is a candidate for understatement of the century - and there are still 95 years of it left to go.

And to take that a little further, my car (at present prices) requires the purchase of £42 worth of petrol to fill the tank up - petrol which is worth barely over £13 - the rest of it went straight to Gordon Brown, on top of the road tax I pay, the tax on my insurance I pay, and the VAT I paid when purchasing the car. The fuel strikes of 2000 succesfully reduced unleaded petrol by as much as 20p/litre and with it proved that the government do not need to charge as much in tax as they do. I'm fully expecting, and will fully support, another fuel strike this winter.

Indeed tax on fuel is high, but I was questioning the wisdom of this campaign, which is not aimed in that direction.

As a non driver, it suits me that this tax is levied. With what would you replace it? Alistair Darling's proposed pay per mile? It makes sense, but fails to take account of the fact that those people who do clog the roads at rush hour often don't have a choice.

[cwathen]

Indeed tax on fuel is high, but I was questioning the wisdom of this campaign, which is not aimed in that direction.

On that point I agree with you, I think the ultimate campaign will be the same one that worked last time; the hauliers - they are the people who are really hit by the fuel prices we have now. 90p/litre petrol is something I will complain about, but at the end of the day it isn't going to affect my life nor I doubt any other domestic/pleasure user - you simply find the extra pennies. In contrast, the hauliers have to engage in daily journies of several hundred miles in fuel hungry HGVs in order to make a living, but their expenses are not going up in line with the fuel. Just as in 2000, it is them who will truly feel the pinch of such astronomical fuel costs and it almost certainly will be them who will instigate another fuel strike.

As a non driver, it suits me that this tax is levied. With what would you replace it?

Don't replace it with anything, just lower it. It is patently obvious that the tax levied, not just on fuel, but on everything connected with running a car does not go back into the transport system; there are too many problems with our roads to believe that it is. And in the last fuel strike, the vast majority of the sudden overnight drop by 20p/litre was met by the government simply cutting tax at a stroke and the loss was absorbed without the transport system being affected in any way.

[chinajan]

Don't replace it with anything, just lower it

This lost revenue would either have to come from somewhere else or some service or other would have to be cut.

[cwathen]

This lost revenue would either have to come from somewhere else or some service or other would have to be cut.

Not necessarily - because it presumes that the revenue is needed (as opposed to being stored and added to the 'money to help America flatten a country' fund). In 2000 no services were cut, no taxes were increased elsewhere, it was just absorbed.

[chinajan]

This lost revenue would either have to come from somewhere else or some service or other would have to be cut.

Not necessarily - because it presumes that the revenue is needed (as opposed to being stored and added to the 'money to help America flatten a country' fund). In 2000 no services were cut, no taxes were increased elsewhere, it was just absorbed.

In other words, cut the defence budget. I wouldn't disagree.

[russnet]

Just came back from London and prices at the Toddington Services were 94.9p Unleaded and 98.9p diesel at the BP. It's crazy money. The strikes in 2000 were around 85.9p which I thought was bad at the time, oh for queueing up for an hour to get some petrol!

Has anyone noticed how since the beginning of the year when the prices were 76.9p and then sky rocketted and then along comes the General Election and it stablises for a few months before skyrocketting again. Conicendence or not, you decide!

[Nick Harvey]

Reducing the tax per litre would be easy at present, without reducing the overall amount of fuel tax collected beyond, say 2000, levels.

As has been stated in this thread, for every penny we spend on the actual fuel, we pay roughly two pence in tax.

That means that every time the fuel company puts the actual fuel up by a penny, the government gets an extra two pence in tax.

I would estimate that they could knock about five pence a litre, possibly more, off the tax at the moment and still be collecting more in total than they were in 2000.