Budget 2012

W

WeLuvIbiza

Active Member
Heavy smokers about to buy a £2,000,000 house seem to be the biggest losers.

Seemed a pretty uneventful budget, oaps are seeming like lambs to the slaughter in recent budgets though, a few billion saved by freezing various pensioner tax allowances.

The duty rise on fuel is a b*gger, some hoped it would be postponed, diesel is now only a few pence short of £1.50 per litre with public transport a total shambles (in our area at least).

Tax breaks for animation and video games etc are surely a positive, the makers of Wallace and Gromit have halted plans to move overseas, slimeball Obsborne slipped in a decent jibe about that!
 
WeLuvIbiza said:
Heavy smokers about to buy a £2,000,000 house seem to be the biggest losers.

Seemed a pretty uneventful budget, oaps are seeming like lambs to the slaughter in recent budgets though, a few billion saved by freezing various pensioner tax allowances.

The duty rise on fuel is a b*gger, some hoped it would be postponed, diesel is now only a few pence short of £1.50 per litre with public transport a total shambles (in our area at least).

Tax breaks for animation and video games etc are surely a positive, the makers of Wallace and Gromit have halted plans to move overseas, slimeball Obsborne slipped in a decent jibe about that!
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I was just talking about this the other day - how to milk as much money as possible, raise the cost of fuel but keep the public transport crap. It will never encourage people to ditch their cars........and that's just the point :evil:
 
I wish public transport was better, I'd actually use it to get to work then.
Still a long way to go until it at a decent level. But by then, it'll be out of date again!

The reckon the new tube stations (e.g. Tottenham court road) won't be that far off their new cap when finished.
 
did a 40 min train journey equivilent from travelling from a main london station to the outer reaches of zone six. cost? 8.90HK$ = 74p. ;) and all in an territory roughly the same size of greater london with the same population, and 500 square km less in overall land...

basically yr getting fleeced.
 
Heard on r4 today some figures about public investment in transport.

London £2,000+ per person

South East £200+ per person

North East £5 per person ..... WTF!
 
WeLuvIbiza said:
Heard on r4 today some figures about public investment in transport.

London £2,000+ per person

South East £200+ per person

North East £5 per person ..... WTF!
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imo still a rip off. too many stations, too many lines. too few trains designed to cope with rush hour (too many seats and not enough standing room).

but thats what you get with short patching up of an victorian system. which why i think hs2 is a great thing thinking long term. shoulda started these types on infrastrucure projects instead of blowing all the cash subsiding/bribing the core vote.

the. biggest problem is the 9-5 culture. there are 24hrs in a day, why not make full use of the majority of them? the world doesnt stop working when the brits clock off at 5.;)
 
Disagree with the two many stations, I'd of said we need better metro services (e.g. places like Bristol), not less.

London needs at least two new relief lines (Chelney is one, if they build it, and 'cross rail 3', larger stations, longer trains. Stations like Victoria need to be rebuilt, as they are stupidly overcrowded in rush hour.
Heard someone say this. 'Imagine trying to rebuild your house, with people still in it, and more people continuing to move in.' Effectively the state of the tube network.

But that money has to come from somewhere...
Maybe they should just renationalise the entire rail network again? Get rid of all the TOCs, and pump any profit made directly back in to the rail network rather than lining the pockets of the TOC board members.
 
The problem with the UK is it's just too damn expensive...compare prices of just about anything with any other developed country..

...that's why I'm living abroad earning US dollar tax free!

Bye for now.
 
might be daft Q but why is fuel so expensive? Why does it never go down? I hear about oil prices etc but surely they flucuate? Will this mean in 20 years we will be paying £150 to fill our medium sized cars up.....WHY WHY WHY lol

ahh i remeber when i was 17 and could fill my little fiesta up for £20.
 
Phil_Soulman said:
might be daft Q but why is fuel so expensive? Why does it never go down? I hear about oil prices etc but surely they flucuate? Will this mean in 20 years we will be paying £150 to fill our medium sized cars up.....WHY WHY WHY lol

ahh i remeber when i was 17 and could fill my little fiesta up for £20.
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easy to get to oil is running out
 
fatphilb said:
easy to get to oil is running out
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So they have us all believe. I'm sure it is a limited resource but not nearly as limited as is made out. There are still vast untapped reserves but the whole thing is a carve-up.

If we are made to believe it is running low then prices are driven up, and the monumental associated tax revenues are preserved. If a few people use their cars less, then this can be cited as a victory for 'green initiatives'.

In the meantime, people in rural areas have fewer and fewer public transport options. UK's buses and coaches are massively overpriced (comes to something when your 2hour sh!tty coach ticket to the airport for 1 costs more than your flights - or the fuel to drive a car there and back) and the rail network is a very expensive standing joke.

Britain is a dysfunctional mess of a country with an increasingly unsustainable cost of living for a great many people (especially those trying to 'go it alone' without claiming State handouts). Quality of life is under severe pressure on many fronts. As good a time as any to think about options elsewhere - imho !!
 
Phil_Soulman said:
might be daft Q but why is fuel so expensive? Why does it never go down? I hear about oil prices etc but surely they flucuate? Will this mean in 20 years we will be paying £150 to fill our medium sized cars up.....WHY WHY WHY lol

ahh i remeber when i was 17 and could fill my little fiesta up for £20.
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It is going to run out eventually, but just like the financial industry is a total stitch up, so is the oil industry.

Osborne played a blinder last year with his announcement of massive tax hikes for north sea oil companies, wtf!! You don't have to be an economic genius to realise that was a pretty stupid idea:idea:
 
Phil_Soulman said:
might be daft Q but why is fuel so expensive? Why does it never go down? I hear about oil prices etc but surely they flucuate? Will this mean in 20 years we will be paying £150 to fill our medium sized cars up.....WHY WHY WHY lol

ahh i remeber when i was 17 and could fill my little fiesta up for £20.
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Easy. It's tax.
Let's take a £1.33 litre of fuel.
57.95p of this is Duty.
47.8p of this is the actual petrol
22.15p of this is VAT.
5p is for the rest of the chain (retailer, distributor, etc) (taken from http://www.petrolprices.com/the-price-of-fuel.html)

I remember when fuel went over £1, and there were blockades at all the fuel refineries in the country. Seems we've kind of just accepted that fuel is going up and up.

The Tube is a fascinating programme. Personally, I don't believe TfL and LUL deserve half the crap they get. They are doing the best they can with the resources they have available. (Tube drivers on the other hand, are fairly greedy, so do.)
 
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