Petrol Prices, or How Gordon Brown Can Win the Next Election

This post is based on a conversation I had with my uncle a few weeks ago.

Remember, how only a few months ago, petrol was 1 gbp (im using an American keyboard, so no pound sign) a litre?

Remember how we all huffed and puffed, and protested about how outrageous it was that the government was taking lions share in tax.

Now we're paying around 1.20 gbp a litre, and its getting stupid. Alistar Darling has frozen the 2p duty that was due to be slapped on in September, but by the time September comes around I expect we will be paying around 1.35ish a litre.

I heard yesterday that with all these price increases on fuel, the government can expect a 5bn gbp windfall in tax. This is 5bn that they hadn't expected.

How great would it be if Gordon (is a moron) Brown, said:

"Hey I know things are hard at the moment for the man on the street, and haulage businesses, and transport etc, so how about this...When fuel was 1gbp a litre, we were quite happy with the revenue we received, and as it was only a few months ago, the government have decided to cap fuel tax at those levels. We will revisit this policy on a daily basis"

I guarantee he would get my vote. And the votes of millions of others. In fact, I would go as far as saying he would win the snap election he would call a few months later.

I imagine, he is pretty much out of idea's at the moment, so we just have to wait a couple more years before we get to vote him out.

Footnote for Americans: Lets do the maths....

1 Gallon is equal to 3.78 litres, therefore at 120p a litre we are paying around about 4.50 gbp a gallon

So at current exchange rates, that means we are paying $9 a gallon for our fuel. So next time you moan about having to pay about 1.50gbp ($3) a gallon, just think about that! (even if you are paying $4, that still a bit better than 9$!)