Petrol Boycott

[EricL]

Recieved this email this morning.

Some places in Glasgow are selling it at £1.14.

It is getting ridiculous. Especially when you factor in the enormous profits the oil companies are making at our expense.

"See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting £106.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with
paying £1.10 a litre. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This new idea makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day'
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by
refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a
problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan
that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think
that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to
teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price
of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only
way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone
in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT
hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil
companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their
prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow
suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and
BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how
simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more
(300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth
generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If
those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then
30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further,
you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy
at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out
to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting together we can
make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol
at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc., i.e., boycott BP and
Esso"

We have LPG, duchesse. No mains gas out here.

We had the tank filled when it dropped to a little under 20% last month.

It was nearly £400.

Lasts about 2.5 months.

OTOH, we were paying Scottish Power £120/month on their direct debit plan on our 2-bed, 2nd floor flat in Edinburgh before we came here. The flat wsa entirely electric - storage heaters, cooker, the lot. But we were renting so couldn't change that round much.

We tried to change suppliers, but then Scottish Power came back and said we owed them £600 we didn't have. Come to find out, they've done that to other people on this board, too.

Many people I know bought their homes when their work was in the next town but in the last decade that work has slowly disappeared leaving people with the option of looking further afield for work or trying to buy a house in another area always supposing they are able to sell theirs.

Daddster did you write the governments policies for them as you seem to be working off the same assumptions.

I'd agree with you there, riven. But to say that NO ONE needs a cars but 'farmers in the middle of nowhere' is really unrealistic of many who live in rural areas nowadays.

Actually, plenty of people use automobiles for work, even in very urban areas, work which most people don't realise is vital to trade - deliveries, trades and repair people, community healthcare workers, drug deliveries, hotel/linen industries, etc.

Also people seem to forget that their public transport, particulary a bus, uses fuel. Everytime the cost of fuel rises and rises, so does your bill.

I do live in a rural area, and lots of people here don't have cars, either because they can't drive or because they can't afford one. if fewer of us had cars, bus services would be better and we'd all be better off.

anyway. as for the op - who do you think sells petrol to the supermarkets? and why is shell any better than BP and Esso? as it goes the huge profits in petrol are in wholesaling, not retail. by boycotting BP, you'll just be putting lots of small companies who run garages out of business, and probably driving a lot of unneccesary miles in the process.

there's no BP around here.

it's pretty easy to boycott .

'if fewer of us had cars, bus services would be better and we'd all be better off.'

that's assuming the council would actually increase the bus schedule.

this council can't even sort out a hostel for secondary students who have to board at the grammar school due to the distance.

are you back in the UK, SP ?

But there are only 3 petrol suppliers in the UK, including Esso and BP.....I've had this e-mail and it's just bullshit spam. Who do you think supplies the petrol for the supermarkets?

Or do people really believe that Tesco and Morrisons and the like have set up their own petrol companies?

yes, I am expat, and I love it! I'm on a village commitee already.

bus services here aren't up to the council (so the council say anyway), they're up to the bus company. more passengers=more services.

I wouldn't bother arguing with Daddster - he is clearly living on another planet

grammar school borders eh? perhaps you're more rural than I am. or perhaps that's a good argument for comprehensive education all over the uk...

Ah, that would be nice!

Not the case here.

There is one private ferry service here, but the other one is not .

Well, see, there is one grammar/secondary school - it's called a grammar school, but it's not like you think of it in England because it is the only school to serve quite a large area.

Soooo, some children board and council provides them with accommodation during the week.

BUT, they didn't maintain the building where they were housing the children.

And it got dangerous.

They didn't sort out alternative accommodation in time before the Fire Department said they could no longer use that one.

So now, they're busing in the children. From as far away as about 60 miles - all A or B roads - each way.

The kids have to leave home as early as 5.30AM and don't get home till late.

They can no longer participate in after-school activities like pipe band - ours is very good here - or sports.

And when the weather gets too bad, they can't come to school at all, which sucks if you are sitting your standards or Highers this Spring.

I think there is a case for petrol vouchers for househiold in certain areas. in very rural areas, bus services are less green than cars because of the low numbers of people using them. I think they should do that, and rack up the price of pertol for everyone else. in fact they should abolish road tax and put it all on petrol instead - make those who drive more pay more. the vouchers would be for, say, enough pertol to get to the nearest town with a doctors and supermarket twice a week (i.e. not all the petrol you need, just some), and only for certain villages.

where i live, there is bus stop over the road from my home. no buses run down this part of the road. which is a PITA as this strecth of the street is full of disabled + elderly people. the buses run from the bottom of the hill.

i am lol@ peter riding pillion expat lol.

i always said if i lived i na big city then i very much doubt i would ever have learnt to drive, as find public transport so much easier in big cities to get around on, than here.

We do cadge lifts from neighbours, and they do on us.

But they all have different schedules, particularly for work.

Thankfully, because the nearest primary school is over 3 miles away, DD1 will be eligible for school bus when she starts primary in August.

It would take me around 1 1/2-2 hours to get to work on bus and cost me more than it does to run car.

Added to that taking ds to my parents and you're looking at 3+hours just to get there and the same returning. Without a car I'd really have to pay for childcare instead as that really isn't feasible. Which would eat up most of my pay.

And people wonder why I own a car
I live in a big city.

And I couldn't get a closer job and can't afford to move.

It didn't work last time and it won't work this time. As most people do not live anywhere near where they work, i think i read somewhere it is an average of 30miles/30mins from home to work.

You have no choice but to buy petrol/diesel at whatever cost it is being sold at as the majority of the cost of fuel is taxes so goes to the goverment and not to the garage owner thats why many small/independent garages are closing or being taken over by the big companies.

FWIW we live an 1 hour from DH work because we can not afford to buy a house like ours in a nice area nearer and public transport would cost more and take longer as DH would have to go into London and then out again on another line.

So no in the real world a petrol boycott we will not be doing it.

I'd hate to see the closest garage go out of business here - it's an off-license (and no, I don't drink, but plenty around here do) .

, NJM!

and before anyone jumps in and says, 'well you should sell your home and buy a smaller one closer to work', I DON'T OWN A HOME!

so, as a tenant, there are rules governing how small a dwelling a landlord can legally let a family of five and our income governs what we can afford to rent.

if someone wants to help us out financially so we can live according to their ideals we'll be happy to give up our car and accept their offer.

Armadillo

When i was working the only way i could get to work other then driving myself (20mins) would be by bus as follows

1. Bus to town centre
2. Bus from luton to st albans
3. bus from st albans to hemel train station.
4. bus from train station to industrial estate (last one left at 8.35am no other buses until 3.30pm) or taxi.

So instead of 2 20min journey's a day it would be 2 hours plus and a lot more diesel being used.

I now beleive that i live in a different world to most other people. Now we have 2 dc i cannot afford to work so i have given up my car and walk everywhere including 1/2 mile each way to dd1 preschool.

Expat our local radio station was talking to garage owner a few weeks ago and he was saying he only makes 4p per litre to cover all his cost after he has paid the taxes, franchise fees and it is just a viable business anymore.

"Oil giant BP has reported a 26% rise in annual profit to $16.2bn (£8.7bn) after benefiting from high oil prices.
Last week, rival Shell reported an annual profit of $17.5bn - a record profit for a UK-listed company."