Diesel costs and the haulage industry.

[Vexed Foxy]

Blasted hauliers do themselves no favours, if the cost of fuel is what vexes you then why drive you lorry around wasting it just to protest.

One of the drivers protesting in London today said 'if you go shopping with the missus at the weekend and the lady asks why has everything has gone up in price then its the cost of fuel you will have to tell her' er ok so the price goes up so you the haulier have passed the costs on then.

The cost of fuel is only one third of the running cost of running a lorry so if it goes up only one third should be passed on.

We are talking ourselves into a recession in this country, sorry this not about hunting but no one can be arsed to write about that here so I thought I would try this.

Look out for my next attempt to kick start this board, 'Winnie the Pooh goes lap dancing'

[Marc Dradge]

Its getting pretty rough over here in the States,everything is moved by road,hauliers are hurting and prices of everything are going up,but they aint protesting yet,most are owner operators so get hit the hardest. Lived here over eight years and this is the first time fuel costs are the main topic of conversation everywhere drive a Diesel F250 for moving horses,it gets 15 mpg............ $200 to fill the bugger up so no cheaper to drive here now.Bloody Jeep only gets 11mpg,wish I still had my mini. Will Winnie be watching or performing??

[Vexed Foxy]

Well I assumed that Winnie would be the er guest and provider of the lap and other creatures would provide the other parts of the entertainement, we could do, Piglet goes quantity surveying, lionel ardvark goes liquid engineering, no bears where hurt in this post, bears can go up as well as down -especially if you slip a fiver in to their thongs.................god this is soooo boring this site now.

Its like wrestling with a dead man.

[H.P.Sauce]

VF, if most people here cannot or will not engage in serious discussion about the survival of hunting - this site's raison d'etre - I doubt if you'll fire them up to talk about the cost of fuel, even though it impacts more seriously upon country people, who don't have anything like an efficient public transport system as some some sort of alternative to motor vehicles.
The amount of fuel burned by hauliers protesting in London is minimal, compared with what they use throughout the year on business: I don't think you should criticise them so readily. I admire them for protesting so publicly, and only regret that far more of them didn't turn up (without informing the Met) and bring the area round Parliament Square to a standstill. The "cost of fuel" is very dependent on the machinations of oil-producing countries, but in our case we have some of the most expensive fuel in the world because nearly 60% of the price is tax; our governments pretend, cynically, that their high taxes and proposed even higher road fund licence fees are to do with saving the planet, or some such high-minded tosh, but they're just money-raising exercises like any other taxes. Drivers are an easy target, even though that represents most of the adult population, and the Brits are (these days) too compliant, too apathetic, too cosily wedded to State handouts, to do anything forceful about insisting on genuinely vigorous tax cuts or anything else. If this doesn't apply to anyone reading this (I can hear people huffing & puffing) it probably applies to most of your neighbours...
Yours, thinking of voting UKIP or practically anyone except the Big Three - HPS

[Paul Sands]

Its affecting my business as everybody is so skint from getting to and from shows they don't have any money left to buy photos, or worse still they don't even go to the shows. Tax cuts aren't the answer as the effect they would have would be negligible. As long as the market rules and speculators are "investing" in oil, and as long as India & China and the likes continue to develop and demand more fuel it isn't going to get any better. A glimmer of hope might be the new North Sea fields they are planning to develop but I wouldn't bank on that being retained for domestic use to help us out.

[H.P.Sauce]

Negligible? If one takes an unleaded petrol price of 115p (already outstripped) at the pump, this breaks down as a product cost, from the refinery, of 37.35p, with delivery costs (average) of 10.17p; on top of this the government imposes duty of 50.35p, and on top of the product costs PLUS its own duty, it charges VAT as well, of 17.13p.I would say the many billions of pounds a year this scam raises (to pay for MPs' domestic appliances from John Lewis, e.g.) provides a fair amount of scope for taxing us less.
"As long as the market rules" - ? What alternative do you propose: State controlled fuel prices? With the level of tax as it is, that's pretty much what we have now... The effect of speculation in oil futures has a minimal effect on oil prices: speculators aren't buying the stuff itself, just gambling on where the price is going. There is far more scope for expanded oil production than the doom-mongers would have us believe, in various locations; and I suggest one reason for being so tardy about North Sea stocks is that folk are reluctant to invest there if there's any likelihood of a future independent Scotland taxing it to buggery... Even with the dodgy attitudes of the Middle Eastern oil producers, petrol is still a fairly cheap commodity - it's the tax that makes the price so eye-wateringly high.
Yours, HPS

[Vexed Foxy]

'Dodgy attitudes of the middle east' mmmm!! well thats a funny thing to, we invade them bomb them and generally harass them and then we wonder why they have 'dodgy attitudes' I think the west needs to look in the mirror, Bush and Blair should take the blame but sadly they have done it in our name.

[H.P.Sauce]

When did we invade the Middle East? I must have missed something. I can recall an invasion of Iraq from some years ago... Has had some beneficial results such as getting Libya into line, other places too, showing potential supporters of fundamentalist terrorism the consequences of messing about, etc - oh, and it got rid of a particularly vicious despot and freed the Iraqis to govern themselves more democratically - if they can get their heads around that idea, which since they're Arabs is problematic...
Actually, I was thinking on a rather longer timeline. Not sure how old you are but I clearly recall 1973 and OPEC's buggering us about - I was just about to buy a VW van and convert it to go touring around Europe & beyond, but the petrol price-hike caused by the (M.Eastern) producers made me change my mind, since the VW managed only about 22mpg... The ME oil producers are duplicitous, grasping, hypocritical sods who require the firm hand of the West to keep them in line. Ultimately I care far more about our interests, than about theirs, though if they'd used their vast oil incomes more wisely and fairly they wouldn't need to be threatening us now with yet more oil pressure.
Yours, HPS

[Vexed Foxy]

Er yes Invading Iraq twice removing a dictator, no worse than Magabe who oddly we don't remove?

And if removal of dictators was the aim why not say that rather than make WMD the issue? Are we going to remove Castro then?

We don't torture and beat people in the West do we? Oh yes we do.

Libya??? Hells bells they are no threat to us at all nor was Iraq, all we have done is release a nation of people who have feel put on by the west. And if you think that the people of Iraq are free I suggest you grab you passport you are going to need it for the planet you are on.

[Vexed Foxy]

Sorry just need to type this to confirm its what you wrote.

'The firm hand of the West to keep them in line'?? You are joking right?

So when they try to impose their views on us they are mad arabs, when we invade Iraq, its a long trouser, grown up nanny knows best approach........how silly of me I had know idea thats how it works, I must be thicker than I thought I was.........the firm hand of the west to keep them inline....Wonder Blair never said that in the house just before the latest invasion.....the firm hand of the etc etc

[H.P.Sauce]

I do hope you don’t become so defensive every time someone questions your assertions – I mean, we don’t want this to descend into a slanging match - ?
Comments:

Er yes Invading Iraq twice removing a dictator, no worse than Magabe who oddly we don't remove?
And if removal of dictators was the aim why not say that rather than make WMD the issue? Are we going to remove Castro then?
I didn’t mention the ostensible reasons for invading Iraq, simply the consequences. And why does the removal of one dictator mean that all dictators must be removed similarly? It doesn’t follow.

We don't torture and beat people in the West do we? Oh yes we do.
Yes. So what? Do you honestly think there is no difference, qualitatively or quantitatively, between the attitudes to these things in the West and in the Middle East? There is only one country in the latter part of the world that is a parliamentary democracy as we would recognise such a thing, and that’s Israel. The brutality practised on occasion by US personnel at Abu Ghraib prison is outrageous and those responsible have been rightly condemned by public opinion, and punished; by Middle Eastern standards AFAICS such brutality is the norm, indeed very mild, and the howls of anger from ME sources are gross hypocrisy.

Libya??? Hells bells they are no threat to us at all (What about their training camps, weapons supply, and money, given to the IRA? What about their support for other Islamist terror outfits? They have lots of money for such things…) nor was Iraq, all we have done is release a nation of people who have feel put on by the west. And if you think that the people of Iraq are free I suggest you grab you passport you are going to need it for the planet you are on.
If you re-read my post more carefully you’ll see I’m suggesting they’re potentially free, if they choose to take that option, which being Arabs, and Muslims to boot, they might well not. If they feel “put upon” by the West for having had an appalling dictator removed, well, that rather proves my point.
Run out of things to say about fox hunting, VF? I do hope not! Back to work…
Yours, HPS

[Vexed Foxy]

To be honest I got bored drying to get blood out of the foxhunting stone, no one else wants to talk about.

Oh the IRA funded by LIbya.....mmmmm Ok and 90% of IRA terrorists where not to UK services but consistant British PM choose not to act. Lest we forget the the USA funded the IRA too, no, not the state officially oh except when in earlier years they had Gerry Adams in the white house for St Patricks day do's, I think we tread on think ice in hot slippers when we talk about state funded terrorism.

Please do start and thread on hunting and I will wade in up to my testicles, I am not going to start another one, no one wants to talk about it.............

I am not being defensive just putting the other view.

[H.P.Sauce]

So when they try to impose their views on us they are mad arabs...etc
It’s simple enough, I’d have thought. They (the Islamic world, the Middle East, Arabs in general, whatever) could live peacably and comfortably, given the vast riches their rulers have accumulated from oil revenues. But their rulers are corrupt, incompetent, and/or tyrannical, many of them suffer from medieval religious views, arabs in general aren’t very keen on Western interpretations of political liberty, and they have vexatious notions of honour/revenge etc for what they see as Western culpability in imposing Israel upon their region. So they’re mad as a barrel of frogs and are at any time prone to doing things like boosting the price of oil unreasonably, murdering Western tourists at random, giving guns to fascistic terrorists like the IRA, flying aeroplanes into our tall buildings and, who knows, maybe dropping a missile onto us because it takes their fancy or they just can’t help themselves. So, do you want them to impose their views on us? No? In that case, we have to impose our views/will upon them. Our interests are more important than their interests. It’s not a game of cricket, you know.… Re your remarks on the IRA, sure, but it doesn't alter Libya's culpability.
Yours, HPS
(Please Sir, can we get back to slagging off our politicians about Hunting?)