We aren't planning on coming over there anytime soon, unless I get transferred. I was just curious what petrol is going for now. It was around a pound a litre when we were there. Here, at the end of the line, it's about $4 a gallon or around 50p a litre.

Hi Mark
Diesel is £1.20 a ltr and petrol £1.10 a ltr and thats at one of the supermarkets,out in the country it can be several pence a litre more,you must remember Mark that our robbing government takes about 70p a ltr in tax.

Mark. White deisel is indeed around 1.25 about 5.63sterling a gallon and rising almost daily .If you were driving a farm tractor on the other hand you would pay 55pence a litre for red deisel ,same stuff with dye in it, forbidden to be used in cars and lorries. The duty on deisel is indeed heavy and Mr Brown and his cronies choose to be ignoring the fact in times that some peoplecould loose their morgage and home if prices keep spiralling. The one thing that could be done to eliviate the problem would be to do away with the duty on deisel and create a higher road tax on gas gussling cars. Common sense you would have thought by a 'green conscious' government Here endeth the economic lesson.

I was talking to my daughter in Louisiana last night. She lives in a city of around 100,000. Wal-Mart is selling flex fuel, which she said is 40% ethanol. It's about 30 cents or 15 pence cheaper a gallon. She also said a few select dealers are now selling vehicles to run using 100% ethanol. This is about a dollar or 50 pence cheaper a gallon. When they started offering vehicles that ran using 100% ethanol, she said people scoffed at the idea. They are not laughing now.

Back in the late 70s when I lived in Illinois (big corn producing state), we had the option of using some kind of ethanol in our vehicles. Performance was not affected, but I don't remember it being substantially cheaper.

The 59 Chevy is still in the shop....going on two months now. The 93 Jeep I have been using only gets about 14 miles a gallon and the truck is only slightly better. However, I only put about 15 miles a day on it.

When there's a worldwide food shortage, where is the sense in growing food, and then using it to power vehicles?

True!

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/05/16/t...as-prices-rise/

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1316992,00.html

75 Euro cents per litre = about 60p !

I don't understand this. Spending by 'our robbing government' is probably the most rigorously audited and scrutinised spending that happens in this country.

Moreover, despite the popular view to the contrary, most of it does not go towards paying to train Somali lesbians in wheelchairs to be Health and Safety inspectors, but in paying for essential public services.

If you want less petrol duty, which public services would you like cut? Personally, I'd like to ditch the Royal Family straight away, but I can't see anyone else on this forum agreeing.

I can see your point TW . I think personally that more thought needs now to be given surely on duty we have to pay on fuel, particularly now fuel prices are rocketing. I dont think that many people would begrudge any green thinking chancellor to slap a heavy duty on all gas guzzling cars, this would obviously include IMO the uneccesary 4X4 town owner, seen at any school run in any town during school terms. Not a great fan of the 'royal' family but they do bring in quite a lot of revenue in the form of tourism, why ditch a financial asset? I think motorists have always been and will always be an easy form of income to any government. just whilst we were on the subject Tesco have just lost a legal challenge to the government in an attempt to sell cheaper deisel. Tesco argued they should not pay duty on their bio-deisel stating it was processed by them and they could lower the price to the customer, they lost their appeal

A good point Town Walls.

It's been claimed that the Government could cut fuel duty by as much as 12p but as you say what public services would suffer as a result? If the Government were to reduce the duty and the price fell by 12p how long would it be before the retail price rose by 12p? Not long going by how much it's increased lately. What happens then? Another call to reduce duty with more cuts as a result?

The real problem is with the traders who are forcing up the price of oil.

As the price of petrol at the pump goes up, so does the amount going to government through tax. So although they haven't made a tax increase lately, the oil price rise has swelled their coffers no end. At the moment every day is Christmas for the treasury.

So they could easily afford to cut the tax on fuel (so we'd pay less) and still take the money they were taking before the prices started rising so fast. No need to cut spending anywhere else.

However, if we are talking about sensible savings. Why don't we start with the billions we are spending every year on shooting at people in Afghanistan and Iraq! I'm not against spending on defence. But lets be honest, how is street fighting in Afghanistan achieving the defence of the UK? Maybe it is helping, but I'm unconvinced.

I understand that the duty on petrol and diesel was reduced from 1st April in the Budget but with all the price rises we didn't notice. Either that or the oil companies pulled a fast one.

Unleaded petrol used to be taxed at around 54p and conventional diesel at almost 57p whilst low sulphur and sulphur free fuels came in at 50.35p. From 1st April fuel duty for diesel and unleaded petrol was standardised at the 50.35p rate with a planned 2p hike from 1st October. Link=

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalW...CE_PROD1_027232