The British people are being taxed ever increasing amounts for fuel under the pretext that it will help?

Question

towards the effect of global warming, we are also being forced to except 140m high frankly pointless windmills, in almost any part of the country in areas that any citizen living there would be turned down for building an extension on their house on the grounds that it would not be in keeping with the local environment. Have I missed a point some where?

Answer 1

Don't worry. 30 years ago many scientists thought that the UK would be under a glacier by 2007.

Answer 2

The pretext of Global warming is offered up as a moral incentive to the tax payer to lessen the blow of the taxation. The theory being that if people feel the money they are being forced to pay is going towards something that is helpful to the environment then they will be more willing to pay it than if it were going to by their local MP a new car.

Taxation is the only feasable course of action for any government to create a budget to spend on the country. The money the government spends each year on Law and Order, Education and the Health Service all have to come from somewhere, it doesn't grow on trees.

Rather than demand a flat out sum of money from you which would both shock and repulse you, the government tries to lessen the blow. It attempts to make the income tax fairer by making you pay a %age rather than a flat rate, that way those who earn more have to pay more which is ok as they are more likely to be able to afford it.

Duty on consumables is another major source of revenue. Now the government has to find a way to raise an awful lot of money, yet at the same time find products that are none-essential, luxury items, so that the really poor will not be hit as badly. To this end Tobacco is nailed. They have the moral justification that smoking kills, and not just those who smoke, in fact that side of the argument has been pushed so well that smoking has almost become stigmatised so that the public now expect to pay a high cost for cigarettes as they destroy peoples health. Alcohol is the same, though this is not done to the same extent. This is because alcohol consumption is a lot wider across the Uk than smoking, and while they government don't mind upsetting some of their voters, they realise that to alienate all the adult public would be political suicide. That combined with the fact that although liver damage and other medical complaints can arise from drinking, it does not bear the same mortality rates as smoking.

Finally Fuel. Yes pollution is a reality, it happens. Global warming is a reality. So fuel prices go up, the government can justify this by showing the scientific effects of greenhouse gases and also by using some of the money raised to plough back in to greener forms of public transport, which it does (OK the money could well be misspent by the local authorities, but it does get there).

If there were no such thing as taxation then there would be no money to pay for any of the emergency survices, doctors or teachers. I guess we could go the American way, scrap the NHS and all go for private health care but that really isn't an improvement. So we live in a world were our kids get to go to school and if we have an accident we get free hospital treatment, but we have to pay more for that privelege, and make no mistake it is a privelege.

The alternative, well if taxation on fuel upsets everyone that much then stop buying fuel. Use a bike or public transport. If no one bought fuel the government would have to reassess their taxation policies and lower its levies to encourage people to buy more fuel again as poor or none existent fuel sales would result in a huge budget shortfall.

The government will continue to tax heavily on these kind of products so long as people keep on buying them. Stop buying them and the government will be forced to stop taxing them so highly.

Answer 3

This and all other British governments have always used any excuse to tax us to the limit and beyond. If you think about how much tax you actually pay you'd not be happy about it.
Income tax is fairly low at 22% basic rate
National insurance is a rip-off at 15%
Council Tax can be just about anything over £1K a year
Car road tax
Duty on petrol and beer, wine and spirits
Vat
Let's not forget the old favourite duty on tobacco
My guess is we pay more than 50% of our incomes in tax too much of which is wasted by the government even before any gets spent externally

Answer 4

It's simple. The British roll over and accept being ripped off very easily. They don't vote out the over nannying assholes. They don't think critically enough about the smarmy gits spouting environmental hogwash in order to line their own pockets.

We eat bullshit pie, we know we are eating it and for some reason much of Britain feels guilty for not eating enough of it.

Recipe for bullshit pie. 1 part truth. 1 part lie. 1 part in between the two. Ratio dependent on fear/guilt/hope factor. The more fear the more lie you can use for example. You have to bake this at the right speed. Boiled frog syndrome or if you know therapy, principle of progression, re-orientation and suggestion, along with distraction and utilisation (if possible). In other words, serve it carefully, in the right conditions and over the right time period, it WILL be eaten and accepted. Even if they know it's bullshit pie.

If you do it right, you WILL create fanatical sorts of believers, especially if it's a nice emotive topic like immigration, the environment or similar. Make sure the pie includes enough fear of big bad wolves ok? :-).

Sorry to paint all us British with that brush, plainly we can't all be plonkers like this. Sadly enough of us are, or are too distracted by simply trying to live to actually think through and see through all the distortions our media throw at us. Because we believe we are relatively free (compared to some countries in particular), we don't question our information. We should. And we should chop the fuel tax down by 20p and wean the Treasury off robbing us to feed it's fat ***.

Answer 5

It's called Rodgering the Public YET AGAIN in the name of Global Warming! like Speed cameras and all the other robbing tools!

Answer 6

The UK produces around 2% of the world's green house gasses. So even if we all stoped burning everything in entirety it would mean didly squat on the world stage.

May as well tax breathing.

Answer 7

So what ya gona do about it? Just sit there and not try to motivate people to join with you against paying more taxes?

Answer 8

NO YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD,ALL GOVERMENT DOES APART FROM PUTTING THIS COUNTRY TO WAR IS THINK UP NEW TAXES.THEN THEY ARE ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH.

Answer 9

i guess leading by example is one course of action