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LABOUR'S OIL WINDFALL HAS ALREADY BEEN SQUANDERED

Friday May 16,2008

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HIGH oil prices are sucking the prosperity out of Britain.

Not only are motorists paying much more at the pumps but higher transport costs are causing a rise in the price of most goods in the shops.

Yet the Government has been slow to react to the financial pain of the British people. Now we know why.

Gordon Brown and his cohorts are doing extremely well out of sky-high oil prices, with Treasury coffers on course to be swollen by £7billion from extra tax revenues this year.

That sum dwarfs the £2.7billion income tax rebate announced under duress by ministers in the Commons this week.

A logical response to such a windfall would be to reduce the rate of fuel duty to bring down the price of petrol, thereby cutting inflation and putting money back in taxpayers’ pockets.

But Mr Brown’s administration will not countenance such a move. Indeed, it is still publicly committed to slapping 2p a litre extra on fuel duty this autumn.

Such behaviour makes a nonsense of Labour’s claim to be “on the side of the British people”.

The disgraceful truth is that this Government is wasting so much taxpayers’ money that the extra revenue from oil has already been spent.

Every day brings new examples of public sector profligacy. Today we learn that the so-called NHS “supercomputer” is almost £11billion over budget and will come on stream at least four years late. Overspending on such a scale almost makes the Olympics seem like decent value for money.

Britain cannot afford to go on like this. Waste on this scale was bad enough when economic times were good. Now times are tough, it is simply unforgivable.

LABOUR'S OIL WINDFALL HAS ALREADY BEEN SQUANDERED

16.05.08, 8:48pm

Why are we not surprised. Labour has always been a high tax high spend party. Wilson and Callaghan left the country almost bankrupt and it took years of hard work to hand over to this Government a country with a sound economic base. History now repeats itself.

• Posted by: Peterson • Report Comment