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NOW JOIN OUR FUEL TAX CRUSADE

Thursday May 29,2008

By Gabriel Milland

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(76)

TODAY The Daily Express gives you the opportunity to join our crusade to slash Gordon Brown’s crippling tax raid on motorists.

Anger is building as families see the cost of driving spiral ever upwards.

Despite being set to rake in an extra £6billion in taxes from North Sea energy reserves because of soaring worldwide oil prices, Mr Brown is refusing to ease the pain.

Accountants Grant Thornton have calculated that the Prime Minister could use his windfall to reduce prices by 12p a litre. Today we are asking you – our hundreds of thousands of readers – to make him realise the time to act is now.

Gordon Brown: Ripping us off

Mr Brown must cut prices at the pump by 12p and abandon plans to slap an additional 2p on fuel duty this October.

We want you to fill in our coupon and send Mr Brown an unmistakable message that he must show he cares – or face the wrath of the British people. We will collect your protests and take them directly to Downing Street.

Last night, Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, warned Mr Brown that he would find our army of readers an impossible force to resist.

The Government treats motorists as a bottomless pit of money

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance

He said: “The Government treats motorists as a bottomless pit of money when, in reality, they are hitting millions of people who need cars simply to be able to work.

“Ordinary households are feeling the pinch, and the proposed duty increase should be cancelled immediately. Cutting fuel duty further would give some relief to families struggling to make ends meet, and would put a welcome injection of cash back into the economy.

“If the millions suffering from high fuel taxes join this crusade it will be very hard for Gordon Brown to ignore us. Everybody who’s fed up with the unfair level of fuel duty should sign The Daily Express coupon, and get their friends and family to sign up, too.”

The Daily Express recently triumphed with a crusade to see the threshold raised on the hated inheritance tax. Thanks to our two-year campaign, the allowance for couples was doubled, saving thousands of families more than £130,000 each.

More than half a million readers signed an online Downing Street petition or returned cut-out coupons to support our crusade. Ministers and the rest of the establishment claimed that the death tax was “not a problem” and only affected a tiny percentage of families. But we pressed on until public anger became so great that neither Labour nor the Tories could resist our crusade.

There was no sign yesterday, however, that Mr Brown was yet ready to yield over petrol. The Prime Minister warned that there would be no let-up in high prices and told drivers to get used to it.

He wrote that there was “no easy answer” as the world faces its “third great oil shock”.

Chancellor Alistair Darling did promise to reconsider the planned 2p rise in fuel duty – but still insisted the Government would go ahead with rises in vehicle excise duty, which will take the cost of taxing some family cars to as high as £450.

Amid reports of yet another U-turn, Mr Darling insisted the majority of drivers would pay less or the same in real terms, despite fears that up to 18 million people would be affected by the changes.

He said: “If you look at the problems we face, the big effort must be trying to, firstly, get oil prices down and, secondly, I intend to come back to the issue of the fuel tax increase due this October.

“I will do that because I’m very conscious of the fact that people are concerned about the amount of money they are now having to pay out to fill up their car.”

But there was scorn from the Conservatives. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: “It’s difficult to see how Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling could make the Government’s position on road tax and fuel duty more complicated, but today they succeeded.

“Yesterday’s U-turn on the big tax rises on family cars is now apparently off. In difficult times, tax policy should be stable and certain – what we have from this Government is instability, confusion and economic incompetence.”

Mr Brown and Mr Darling met oil industry executives in Scotland yesterday in an attempt to increase North Sea production. But even before the meeting broke up, Mr Brown’s official spokesman had to admit that nothing being discussed would ease motorists’ pain.

Shadow Business Secretary Alan Duncan said: “Gordon Brown boasting about increasing production is laughable, if not pitiful. He has completely lost the plot.

“This is a problem of his own making and his failure to prepare for hard times. People are hurting because of Gordon Brown’s failure to set anything aside for a rainy day.”

Meanwhile, oil rose back over 130 dollars a barrel on fears that fighting in Nigeria will disrupt supplies.

£5BILLION TO £6 BILLION EXTRA TAX REVENUES.

02.06.08, 9:51pm

Alex Salmonds in trying to get a cut of the extra
Tax revenues accused Brown and Darling of lying over the amount of Extra Tax Revenues Raised. Who should we believe?
The NU Labour Numpties or the Popular Scots Nationalist Leader.

• Posted by: Edward • Report Comment

FUEL TAX - WE MUST KEEP THE CAMPAIGN ALIVE - CORRECTED VERSION

02.06.08, 2:51pm

Last night on BBC one there was a football match (soccer to you Americans) played in pleasant conditions, one of these conditions was mentioned by a commentator who said that "the cost of a litre of petrol was only 25 pence in Trinidad and Tobago" They are a poor nation but I will bet that they are happier than us. They don't have to keep the Labour voters in a job for life. This is how Brown plans to keep Labour in power at the next election. If these jobs are created people will not want to lose them will they?

FOOTNOTE
England diplomatically won 3 - 0. iGNORE MY LAST COMMENT

• Posted by: albertthedog • Report Comment

FUEL TAX - WE MUST KEEP TE CAMPAIGN ALIVE

02.06.08, 2:46pm

Last night on BBC one there was a football match (soccer to you Americans) played in pleasant conditions, one of these conditions was mentioned by a commentator who said that "the cost of a litre of petrol was only 25 pence in Trinidad and Tobago. They are a poor nation but I will bet that they are happier than us. They don't have to keep the Labour voters in a job for life. This is how Brown plans to keep Labour in power at the next election. If these jobs are created people will not want to lose them will they?

FOOTNOTE
England diplomatically won 3 - 0.

• Posted by: albertthedog • Report Comment

HIGHER PRICES NOT ALL BAD

02.06.08, 1:19pm

As food and fuel prices go up, perhaps eating will go down and this will help with the obesity problem in the U.K. and other countries. Gotta look on the bright side.

• Posted by: BritinUSA • Report Comment

FUEL TAX CRUSADE

01.06.08, 1:40pm

we live in a country village, and buses are infrequent and do not go from here to the doctors surgery, or to the hospital in Exeter where my husband is currently receiving radiotherapy 5 days a week, so we are reliant on our car and finding the cost of these journeys excessive. Not everyone lives in large towns and cities where public transport is readily available. It is time politicians joined the real world.

• Posted by: RosP • Report Comment

NEW LABOUR = LOADS OF LABOUR...

01.06.08, 12:51am

...to pay for the douBLING and even TreBLING of FUEL prices, FOOD prices, HOUSE prices, COUNCIL TAX prices! The only BLING that is cheap under New Labour, is clothes and gagets prices!

Soon we will be bartering BLING for FOOD! E.g. It is now cheaper to buy a pack of 3 shirts, than a SMALL joint of Beef!!!!!

New Labour AINT WORKIN for the WORKING CLASS any more! Its Roots have grown and flourised into, A GRAB OFF THE POOR TO FEED THE RICH SOCIETY!

NEW LABOUR HAS BECOME A BACKWARD 'ROBIN HOOD'! IT HAS NOW BECOME A 'ROBBING ****'!

• Posted by: agathac • Report Comment