why dont I understand?

[mrspask]

that the government try to keep down inflation yet take a huge rake off everytime the comodity that effects inflation the most, increases? I am talking of course about petrol!!!!!!!!!! each time it goes UP the government benefit big time,Whilst I'm in the ''groove'' if the UK economy is doing as well as Brown etc. says,why are UK pensions the lowest in Europe? We did win the war didn't we?

[anotheoldgit]

Politicians are the biggest hypocrites around.

They are forever trying to get people to give up smoking, and yet still refuse to make it illegal, why do you think this is?

If there was a dangerous ingredient in a food item it would be withdraw off the shelves and banned immediately

[Kromovaracun]

They are forever trying to get people to give up smoking, and yet still refuse to make it illegal, why do you think this is?

Because they're trying to encourage people, not force them, as you suggest. Plus take into account the expense that would go into that when on the ground it would be very difficult to enforce and most likely police would simply ignore it (as many did and do over the hunting ban.

On the original topic post:

They take tax off petrol in order to make it less expensive. If they slapped on a tax every time it went up, the cost would burn a great big hole in the pocket of the average consumer (and voter) who rely on it. That might be slightly offset by a slight decrease in price in the long run, but it most certainly wouldn't balance out and is a rather unstable risk to take.

[Kromovaracun]

why are UK pensions the lowest in Europe?

An excellent question.

We did win the war didn't we?

What on Earth does this have to do with anything?

[kwicky]

The government cop out is that everyones personal inflation figure is different. They talk about a negative inflation rate for electrical goods but on gas and fuel the inflation rate is higher. See this report:

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/ar ticle2125469.ece

[Gromit]

The Consumer Price Index is made up of 56 components. Only two of those are directly oil related. The huge increases in oil and gas (and so indirectly electricity) occurred last year. Gas went up 40%. The Bank of England expects energy prices to fall by 20% this year and this will push headline inflation below 2% by early 2008.

UK pensions are not the lowest in Europe. Of the 25 EU countries, we are sixth. Not good enough, but not the worst.

We did not win the war, the Americans did.

[jno]

the Americans and the Russians. Britain held out bravely and ended up on the winning side, which is a Good Thing but with bad results. Germany and Japan were the losers, and defeat forced them to restructure their economies a lot. The earliest Nissan was a copy of an Austin 7, and I believe they asked British car makers and workers how best to build a motor industry. The British said 'For God's sake don't do it our way!' They were aware that endless management-labour conflict hampered British manufacturing - in the case of cars, of course, it basically killed the UK industry. And the Japanese are gradually outdoing Detroit too.

Britain, on the other hand, having 'won the war', went right on doing things in the old ways.