Why the soaring price of fuel?

Fuel prices are soaring and look set to reach an all time high and it looks like motorists will again be walloped when the budget comes around next week. Prices have reached £1.15 a litre at supermarket pumps across Dundee that’s up from 90.7p only a year ago.

Things look set to get worse with petrol costs soaring above the all time record of £119.7 a litre that was set in July 2008. The price hike back then was caused by the soaring price of a barrel of oil which back then stood at £97 a barrel. It is currently £53 a barrel.

So why this latest price hike? Well it is mainly to do with the excellent and prudent management of our economy by Messers Brown and Darling, which has caused the pound to slump against the dollar (and God knows the dollar is not doing all that well). And as we all know the price of oil is set in dollars.

If you remember back in 2008 Gordon decided that to help struggling motorists he would cancel the fuel escalator that always comes around at budget time and ensures that the cost of petrol and diesel in this oil rich nation is the highest in the world. As yet there is no sign that a similar bribe might be forthcoming in light of the looming Westminster election.

But don’t put it past the powers that be in No 10 to trot something of that kind out (and by the powers that be I don’t mean Brown and Darling, but Mandelson and Campbell).

A WEE COUP FOLLOWED BY A BIG COUP

So suddenly, after months of 'Tory Cuts' v 'Labour Investment' propaganda from the figure of fun that is currently resident in Downing Street, it appears to be that it is ‘Tory Cuts’ v ‘Labour Cuts’, as Darling and Mandleson seem to have triumphed over Balls as the guiding hands on Brown's rudder.

The Chancellor, indicating a dramatic shift in his party’s election strategy, tells The Times in an exclusive (kindly shared with Munguin’s Republic) that severe spending restraints are “non-negotiable” if he is to bring down the £178 billion budget deficit.

So all that twaddle we were told about having to spend our way out of recession was just erm.... twaddle? When Ken Livingstone was on the Politics Show the other day saying that the cuts would mean a descent back into recession, and when he said that Brown was right to keep public spending levels high, he was misspeaking?

Darling told The Times: “The next spending review will be the toughest we have had for 20 years. Cutting the borrowing was never negotiable. Gordon accepts that, he knows that.”

Mandelson said: “We have got to win people back to our side. We are a national party, a party that represents people in every part of the United Kingdom, and we are going to offer policies that will benefit people in every part of the United Kingdom.”

Their remarks reinforce the impression that ministers used Brown’s temporary weakness on Wednesday afternoon to warn him that he had to be more collegiate to retain their support and to ensure that the party again fights the election as “New Labour”. The Chancellor’s language about cuts in his interview would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago.

So the real coup was not the seriously hapless joke launched by the two wannbe has beens, Hoon and Hewitt, but a much more serious and deadly one run by Mandleson and Darling.

How humiliating for Brown and his little poodle Balls. All the class warfare will go out the window. Appealing to the core vote is decidedly passé. In short, Brown has been reminded that, unless he can persuade the middle class voter with 2 cars, 2 holidays, and a daughter with a pony, living in a nice detached villa somewhere in the South East of England that they will be better off under Labour, then they are sunk.

Tough luck on all the people in the North of England, in Wales and in Scotland who thought that just maybe it might be their turn. Yeah! Like that was ever going to happen.

The new question has to be, now that he is totally humiliated and powerless, just how long can Brown last?