Fuel Protests

[TwoIfBySea]

For those of us who don't have a choice, for those of us who don't live anywhere near a place with public transport that is reliable and frequent. For those of us who don't have a lorry to drive into London to join the protests against the ridiculous cost that will hit the lowest waged and not the section of society it is aimed at and who have enough to see the current fuel price as inconvenient.

There are petitions of which that is one, so while I doubt government will give a hoot it is at least something. There were 59k signatures when I signed earlier and, like the fuel prices it has shot up!

Sorry, I fueled my car today, and am still feeling like I got mugged. Diesel has gone up far more than unleaded yet is more "efficient" so lets have none of that environment talk.

Though we do currently have a ludicrous situation where farm labourer's cottages have been transformed into luxury second homes their owners commute to, and the farm labourers themselves must commute from sink estates.

Punitive taxes for second home owners would do a great deal to improve rural services and allow people to live and raise families in the areas they themselves work and grew up in.

Absolutely Upwind- I've been saying for some time now to anyone who'd listen that instead of paying 90% council tax, owners of second homes that are empty most of the year should 10x council tax (1000%? maths never a strong point). Mostly 2nd home owners contribute nothing to the local economy since many of them even bring their bloody food from London (ffs, it's not like we don't have shops in Devon...). All they do is clog up the roads with their stupid and clean 4x4 and refuse to reverse in single track roads (mainly b/c they don't know how to), and do not even say hello to people. Bastards. Charge 'em I say.

My whole family and friends who live in the countryside, some of us providing food, some of us providing accommodation for people to come and stay, others keeping the countryside looking 'nice' for people who come and stay. And my family have been living in the same village for nearly 400 years doing the same thing so if we all up sticks and move what is going to happen here? It is not a lifestyle choice for us and everyone I know. It is work.

But we are all interdependent on one another - why should one segment of society receive beneficial treatment?

It's easy to always think someone else should do the paying.

First pay a decent price for your bacon, scienceteacher, then we'll talk about fair. You wouldnt expect to work 100 weeks for nothing/ less than nothing, so why should dairy and pig farmers?

100 hours a week

Get out of that business then!

ScienceTeacher - as things stand a privelaged section of society is recieving preferential treatment. They have benefited from unearned wealth through hyperinflation of house prices. They benefit from very restrictive planning laws preventing plebs local people from building homes to live in. They do not contribute to rural communities. Why should second home owners not be subject to punitive taxes?

I'm not in that business, scienceteacher, but many neighbours are. They have inherited businesses farmed for generations by their family, and they should just bugger out of the countryside and find something else to do entirely just b/c people want to be able to go to stupid films twice a week or buy disposable clothing? What a crass suggestion.

Why not start by paying a fair price for UK food, before we're all entirely dependent on Poland, Romania and the Ukraine (and by extension, dependent on their political climates (see gas crises)?

You can't blame ordinary consumers for paying as little as they can for food. That is human nature. If you have a problem with retail food prices, you don't solve it by giving fuel tax breaks to everyone who happens to live in the countryside.

If the issue is cheap imports, then that government should put their energy into tackling them via import duty and regulations. They should not punish the end-consumer. That is silly.

When you are in the commodty business, you have to accept that prices go up and down. No one should have all their investments in one basket, and be at the mercy of international markets. Diversify.

It's not a question of "punishing" the end-consumer, merely of expecting them to expect to pay a fair price for things that matter, like, oh, food. Instead of just assuming it will always be there, which it won't if UK farmers are paid less and less each year (thank you t3sco). Average yearly income for a dairy farmer now is around £15000 a year for 12 + hour days, 7 days a week. Most of them have given up in the UK. Even Continental dairy farmers are starting to protest at low prices paid to them. Anyway, import duty on Polish and Romanian food is no longer possible since both are part of the EU now.

"But for an awful lot of people, living in the country is a lifestyle choice. If they choose to live in an idyllic place, why should they get tax breaks over people who live in cities and are naturally more environmentally friendly wrt transportation?"

PMSL at cities or people in them being environmentally friendly!! Lets get one thing straight here - a rural lifestyle is how things always were. It is the towns and cities and the people in them that are going against the grain.

And Scienceteacher - it's not a case of giving fuel tax breaks to people in the countryside. It's exempting them, retrospectively, from the punitive tax rises that are aimed at getting lazy people in towns and cities out of their unnecessary cars.

And I am absolutely all for punitive taxes on second homes. One hundred percent.

Science Teacher - well said
'It's easy to always think someone else should do the paying.'
you are absolutely right! this whole thread seems to be people expecting others to do the paying.
Those second homeowners received no services for their tax, and counil tax is supposed to be about local services. So those who live there all the time are already being subsidised by the scond home owners. (And also if the locals are low wage earners being subsidised by the higher income tax paid by the second home owners, if the latter are all filthy rich ).The second homes were sold by local people originally - perhaps they should nobly have sold them only to other local people at local prices? Thye had that choice.
Wherever you choose to live has associated costs - if you choose to live in a plcae with no piblic transport then you have to swallow high fuels costs, because fuel is running out, and those that use it should be the ones that pay for it.

Very amusing to think that farmers are effectively subsidising your cheap milk and food, but under the cloak of market forces, whilst any small amount of perceived injustice in leaped on.

Conversely, we in the countryside pay vast amounts of council tax for services that we never see or access, thereby subsidising town dwellers' access to these things. Should we start paying council tax on a pay per service basis?

Dear sweet and innocent Mrs Guy of gusborne- if your fancy 4x4 gets into a prang near your country hice, ware you going to wait til lyou get back to London to ring the ambulance, emergency and police services? I think not.

If that is the only service you can think a second home owner would need - very rare occurence - then you have proved my point - hte 905 should cover that amply.

Okay Mrs GoG, so if these empty houses get broken into, I take it you won't expect local police to investigate?

plus roads and all that goes with them, swimming pools, leisure centres, beach patrols, lifeboats, rubbish removal, libraries, recycling facilities, extra policing for the extra people, etc etc...

Pretty much the only things you don't get are education and services for old people.

I'm sure you could have thought those through of your own accord.

I think farmers do get cheap fuel already, aka red diesel.

Yup they do.

And fwiw I don't think that people should be getting subsidised fuel for living in the countryside. There's nothing I'd like more than to see a Dolmus style minibus running along our lane hourly. I just think that more people need to be alert to the fact that more country people than town people will be adversely affected by fuel poverty, because we have very little choice about how we heat or get about. A farm hand around these parts earns about £8-9000 a year. That's poor enough without adding the stress of not being able to afford to get to work or heat your house.

well look on the bright side - if the evil second homers decide all to sell up because of the high cost of their 4x4s (which they obviously all have ) and the hiking of the council tax, then hopefully the price of rural houses will drop dramatically and allow the locals to snap them up.

And for those with an interest in life outside their own village - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ this is how the rest of the world id affected

st - farmers are probably more badly affected by the price rises than anyone esle, because they've never had to pay full tax. the price of diesel before tax has more than doubled recently.

and duchesse - services in the countryside cost more, because they're more spread out. social services, for example, cost much more in rural areas, plus a higher proportion of rural bus services are subsidised. You personally might not use those services, but that's not the point is it?

and MRsG - people who own second homes in rural areas may not use services, but they do contribute to the decline of private services (like shops, buses and post offices) by not being there, thereby increasing the need for subsidised services. and they may not all be "filthy rich" but you can see how they might be resented just a little bit. whether they should have bought (or whether the previous owners should have sold) is nothing to do with it, but the should be taxed more.

MrsG - I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make with that link. it's all part of the same problem.

I was shocked at the spanish fishermen though: appaerntly wholesale fish prices in spain have been static for 20 years. so when the price of oil goes up, they organise a "total" strike and go and demand subsidy from the government. eh? if they will all obey the union, why do they not just all agree to sell at slightly higher prices?