[Boiler]

Apparently the Netherlands, Italy and Greece are the most expensive (for petrol).

This gives a breakdown across the EU in 2024:

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/g ... rope-2024/

Their chart shows the UK at eighth for petrol, but first for diesel.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Raising petrol duty is likely political death, even with some other tax cut or increased public transport spending, let alone just as a regular tax rise.

I don’t know if there are any more loophole/anomalies they can get more money out of. I suspect not.

[Boiler]

Raising petrol duty is likely political death, even with some other tax cut or increased public transport spending, let alone just as a regular tax rise.

I don’t know if there are any more loophole/anomalies they can get more money out of. I suspect not.

Yet we've seen high pump prices before: the lowest around here is about 129p/litre which is the lowest I've seen it in quite a while. I'd happily use public transport more and have worked out several routes to do what I normally do (both domestic and social) but the big problem - for me, anyway - is that Sunday services aren't great, whilst the last bus out of town is at 20:15 in the week.

How much, for example, would additional alcohol duty raise?

[Tubby Isaacs]

There are different rates for different drinks, and within that for different strengths.

The total raised per the OBR is only £12.4bn, so sounds like the raises would have to be pretty substantial to raise serious money, aside from health arguments.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Actually I see that the duties rose with inflation in the last budget. Assume that'll happen every or nearly every year, and has probably been plugged into the figures.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Mansion tax" is one that could happen in the Autumn, I think. Dan Neidle says up to £5bn, but I'd be fairly conservative and only apply it to homes over a fairly high value so you don't get flattened by stories of cash poor pensioners in Central London. Better still revalue the whole darned thing, but that's been ruled out.

[The Weeping Angel]

Actually I see that the duties rose with inflation in the last budget. Assume that'll happen every or nearly every year, and has probably been plugged into the figures.

Unfortunetly the 5p cut hasn't been reversed and it's still stuck in 2011 prices.

[The Weeping Angel]

The following is from a guy called Edward Kimberly, who administers a group on Facebook about Keir Starmer. It's long, but it's worth reading.

I'm afraid this post is going to be a long one. Because of the nature of the topic at hand, it has to be. Even with the amount I'm going to write, I won't be able to do full justice to it. All I can ask from each of you is your patience - first in reading, and then in taking your time to respond.

That said - I think it's important to try and insert a bit of calm and a bit of context into a topic that is causing a lot of anxiety and unhappiness at the moment; that of Rachel Reeves' Spring Statement, and what it means for people with disabilities, many of whom are currently depending on PIP to survive.

A lot of people are worried that they're imminently going to lose their benefits and be left destitute. It's understandable why they'd be frightened.

So let me address that head on: that will not be happening, and certainly not in the near future. How can I be so sure?

Firstly, the changes have to go through Parliament. There will be ample opportunity for MPs to make amendments and adjustments to those plans, and to highlight any problems. And there will be ample opportunity for you to write to your MP if you are personally going to be impacted by the changes. They will then feed your comments into that debate, as appropriate.

Secondly, the changes will not take effect right away, even when the votes go through. This is a plan that's set to take effect over years and decades. This is not a Conservative government, which has no qualms about inflicting massive amounts of pain and distress by making sudden changes. The change to disability welfare will be phased in to give people plenty of time to adjust their lives around them.

But isn't this symptomatic of a government cracking down on the most vulnerable people in our society?

Our welfare system is not sustainable into the future, as it's currently constituted. The population of the UK is ageing, rapidly. And more people are in receipt of benefits than at any previous point in history. That number is forecast to go up and up, while at the same time, there will be fewer people of working age and ability to pay to support them.

There are solutions to this, but none are going to be easy:

- We could import more labour through immigration. But this would feed the reactionary right, and suppress wages for our existing population. It also depends on other countries maintaining a higher birth rate than ours, which does not seem likely.
- We could automate more jobs, abolishing entire categories of work like delivery, warehouse operations and manufacture. But this would leave many existing workers out of a job, and will take decades to accomplish.
- We could do nothing, and hope the problem naturally resolves itself. Much like the Conservatives did for 14 years. Meanwhile, the benefits bill will continue to mount up, and the government's finances will deteriorate some more.

OR

- We can take a new approach to the benefits system. We can support more people into work, to reduce demand for benefits, and improve productivity at the same time, boosting the size of our economy and enabling us to pay for the services we want.

And it's clear that Rachel Reeves and the government want to take that latter option. Make no mistake - it's not going to be an easy way out, because in the short term, it means announcing cuts to existing welfare, and redirecting that money into skills training and support for people making job applications.

That's why it's important to see these changes in the larger context. The larger context of improving workers' rights, investing in economic growth, and building thousands of new homes.

What do all of these different policies have in common? They are designed to make the world of work more accessible and more attractive, to help more people access work. If this program succeeds, it will achieve growth, reduce dependency on benefits and help Britain achieve a higher standard of living than we have seen in nearly 20 years. That, I think, is something to celebrate.

But I recognise that some of this will ring hollow for many of you reading this. There are genuine reasons to be nervous or worried - and if that's how you feel, I would urge you to write an email to your MP, outlining your circumstances. The more cases they have to go on, the easier it will be for the government to adjust its course to ensure the least possible harm.

Because I can say with hand on heart, nobody who stands to be a Labour candidate ever does so with the intent of being cruel, or allowing harm to come to ordinary people.

I hope some of this may be of use to you, and if you have any questions or thoughts, please don't hesitate to drop them in the comments below. If I have helped at least a couple of people feel a little better and a little reassured, I will consider this a job well done.

That's good to hear this on the other hand isn't good to hear.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... ull-impact

MPs are set to vote on Labour’s disability benefit cuts without any idea of how many of those affected will be able to find work, after it emerged that Britain’s economic watchdog may not publish its forecast of the employment impact of the plans until the end of October.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ own impact assessment last week predicted that the cuts announced in the disability benefits green paper would drive at least 300,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children.

Ministers argue that those hit by the plans – which restrict eligibility for personal independence payment (Pip) and slash the health element of universal credit for new claimants – could avoid poverty by finding work, helped by a £1bn disability employment support package that was announced alongside the benefit cuts.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There are some substantial rises in road tax coming for polluting vehicles tmrw. Substantial in terms of each car owner, but not so much in terms of aggregate tax revenues. By the end of the decade will be £1.7bn a year. Like lots of these taxes, there aren't as many people liable as you might hope. And they're already in the figures. So they need a lot more of this sort of thing to avoid general tax rises.

These are, I think, Sunak era changes, to give credit where it's due. Wouldn't be surprised if Badenoch comes out hard against them from tmrw. That's if her team even know they're coming in.

[The Weeping Angel]

Also wages are due to rise tomorrow.

[Boiler]

There are some substantial rises in road tax coming for polluting vehicles tmrw. Substantial in terms of each car owner, but not so much in terms of aggregate tax revenues. By the end of the decade will be £1.7bn a year. Like lots of these taxes, there aren't as many people liable as you might hope. And they're already in the figures. So they need a lot more of this sort of thing to avoid general tax rises.

Well, should I ever get my 2004 5er back and on the road again, it'll be £735 pa to tax it: it would be cheaper (in terms of VED) to restore my 1994 5er as that would only be £360 pa. I know a lot of EV owners are pretty cross at having to pay VED on their cars now: I know someone who sold his Smart as a result and now just shares a small diesel with his wife.

One thing that does bother me slightly is that we only look at CO2 emissions for diesels but not particulate emissions: okay, later cars with DPFs should minimise that but there are plenty of knobheads out there offering a "DPF delete" for those wanting one.

Maybe the time has come to start saving up for a hybrid...

[Tubby Isaacs]

I know a lot of EV owners are pretty cross at having to pay VED on their cars now: I know someone who sold his Smart as a result and now just shares a small diesel with his wife.

They must be very confident about EV growth. Or maybe this is a cunning plan to produce a stronger second hand EV market (wink).

[Boiler]

I know a lot of EV owners are pretty cross at having to pay VED on their cars now: I know someone who sold his Smart as a result and now just shares a small diesel with his wife.

They must be very confident about EV growth. Or maybe this is a cunning plan to produce a stronger second hand EV market (wink).

Baby steps for me at the mo; until such time as I can finally hang up my soldering iron, the idea is to buy (eventually) a BMW 530e which has enough electric range to go into town and back, probably even the cemetery and back on pure electric but obviously, has a petrol engine for longer runs such as to work. I have also considered an i3S with the little range extender engine as a fall-back. I can certainly put in a 7kW feed here to charge them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I can't drive, so the choice of car in our household isn't really down to me. And we might be moving in a couple of years.

But if we weren't and if it were up to me, we'd seek to do the trifecta of solar, heat pump and electric car. This isn't cheap, but I'm surprised there hasn't at least been some government marketing of this. Probably because a load of idiots (almost all of them with more money than me) would kick off about the covernment being out of touch. I believe there are some decent finance options, but I understand that committing to more debt isn't something most people want to do.

[Dalem Lake]

A bit of a piss poor effort from Reeves in the Guardian to distract from the fact that everyone's bills are going up today substantially and she's done fuck all to help that. I mean, even under the Tories the minimum wage went up every year.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... hel-reeves
The Guardian probably ain't going to allow comments on that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How does the government control household bills?

The Tories did indeed do good work on the minimum wage wage from 2016, but not clear they’d have accepted the 6.7% rise this year (it’s a much larger rate for 18-21, which was a lower rate before).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Non-minimum wages are going up by above inflation too. This happened under late Sunak too, but it’s unfair to focus on bills only.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's no tax raid, you won't be surprised to hear. Unless you've not been paying tax before when you should have been.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha ha. The Tories and Reform wasted all that time on this. One of the few things I've got right recently is that I thought Britain could sell this to Trump as "you'll be able to stick it to China for 99 years".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Can't remember if I noted this before, but there are a lot of these takes about. They amount to "my area of expertise needs a lot of money now", why haven't they stumped it up? Perhaps these people could usefully come together, add up all the money that everything needs now. They could then lobby together for the whole amount. "Why won't the government raise taxes by another £60bn?" might be a bit of a harder gig, even though that seems like a credible estimate to me. Failing that, perhaps they could all agree priorities, though I've a funny feeling that adult social care experts aren't going to say "shucks, fund the courts first before us".