Tank warfare
MOTORISTS are facing a rough ride at the pumps as the Iran war sends fuel prices spiralling by the day.
Petrol has hit £1.50 a litre — the highest in two years — and Asda warns of temporary shortages at some filling stations.
With hard-working Britons already facing a squeeze on living standards, the cost of filling up will put an even bigger strain on household budgets.
Struggling families and businesses have forked out an extra £402million in rising fuel prices since the conflict began, but the Government has failed to lift a finger.
It’s hardly surprising, as rocketing fuel costs are providing a windfall for the debt-plagued Treasury.
More than half of what we spend at the pumps is gobbled up in taxes.
And every time the price of petrol and diesel rises, the VAT take goes up, too.
The crisis is now seriously harming Britain’s future.
Yet while other major countries announce emergency measures to shield consumers and businesses, Britain’s motorists are braced for a 5p RISE in fuel duty this autumn.
Norway, Portugal, and even socialist Spain have slashed VAT on fuel to ease pain at the pumps.
It’s time for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to follow suit by scrapping the rise and returning some of the extra £67million raked in at the pumps over the past four weeks.
No doubt she will first have to win the approval of the Prime Minister’s eco-zealot Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.
He could ease the crisis at a stroke by lifting the ban on drilling for vast oil and gas reserves off Britain’s shoreline.
The Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea could be producing millions of barrels of oil by the autumn.
And the Jackdaw gas field, 150 miles east of Aberdeen, has enough to heat 1.6million homes.
Instead, blinkered Mr Miliband dictates that we should continue to import 40 per cent of our gas from Norway, which has just approved 57 new licences for offshore oil and gas exploration.
As long as he is calling the shots, the madness will continue.
Until someone tells him to stop taking us for fuels.
Green red flag
YOU can call Sir Keir Starmer lots of things, but “war criminal” is not one of them.
Yet 180 members of Zack Polanski’s Green Party want the PM to be investigated after he allowed UK air bases to be used by American fighter planes.
This is the same party that wants Britain to leave Nato, repeal anti-terror laws and cosy up to Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin.
It may be a joke of a party but it’s deadly serious about its dangerous policies.
