View Full Version : Fuel prices
Has anyone noticed how much the price of fuel has increased in the last week? About 9 pence a litre by last night.
Just in time for the tourist season again!
Funny how it increased by abaut 3 pence on the day last week, when I read in the paper that the price of oil had eased???
Are we looking at yet another "rip the motorist off, during thr tourist season"
Tourist season?
I think its probably more to do with the "threat" of a tesco's filling station, so they'll be ripping the eyes out of us from now until they HAVE to compete.
~~Tides~~
12-Apr-05, 17:46
Zeal, do you know how much the garages here make on a litre of petrol? Ive said it before and il say it again, theres nothing the garages can do about the price or petrol up here.
Zeal, do you know how much the garages here make on a litre of petrol? Ive said it before and il say it again, theres nothing the garages can do about the price or petrol up here.
If they can't do anything about the price how come up unitl recently petrol in all stations in Wick was a few pence cheaper than Thurso? How can they justify this when the towns are only 20miles apart and especially as two garages have petrol stations in both towns.
tides, do you know? If you do, please spill the beans, show us the calculations that prove it. It sounds like you might be a petrol retailer. Would be nice to get a poll going to see which filling station we think will close first when tescos get here.
can i point out the glaring link between 'so called fuel prices' and the cost of everyday food items sold in our existing supermarkets.
Example: a tin of heinz baked beans can cost 3 o4 pence more than the equivalent store in inverness. This is usually attributed to the cost of carriage. The road from inverness to caithness is about 115 miles.costing maybe £20 at most for a lorry's fuel consumption.
A delivery of this particular product will in the order of several thousand tins at a time, lets say 5,000 tins to any one store in caithness.
Simple maths would suggest the consignment of beans would more than cover the cost of the haul, and remember these lorries carry more than just baked beans.
My point is that even our estabilished businesses are quite happy to blame the cost of fuel for high prices when they to are ripping us off.
i'm all for a poll or further debate on why people our being ripped off by cartels of garage owners and other so called reputable dealers in caithness.
fair deals for our fair county!!
quite right john278, ripped right off at around 10p per litre higher than the national average.
If you register for this site here: (its free)
www.catalist.com
you can get an updated list of the average fuel prices for different areas of the UK.
I have a feeling that the local filling stations are going to make themselves famous for being the only garages in the country that hit £1 per litre, right before they close due to competition.
champagnebaby
13-Apr-05, 16:31
My cousin and her boyfriened were up at the weekend from Aberdeen and they couldn't believe the rip off prices the garages up here charge :eyes
They did say how much cheaper it was down there but i canna mind.
When Tesco come up are they gonna have a filling station?
Has Tesco said they will definitely build a filling station in Wick?
Would it get through the council planners after the local cartel starts lobbying them about their loss of livelihood?
I don't think the fuel would be as low priced as Inverness and beyond, as I recall, Tesco's usually price theirs a couple of pence below the local average. Or maybe they would use incentive coupons as Safeways used to.
Perhaps we ought to do some lobbying ourselves both to the planning councillors and to Tesco just to show its what we want!
regards. Lochan
lochan is right in what he says, but if tesco do build a filling station offereing cheaper petrol it may well start a small price war. If that happens the local cartel will have to reduce their prices to compete and so on!
The cost of goods then might fall also.
;)
Diesel is 88.9 a litre in Somerset at present what are you paying in Wick
Ashes, Deisel is about 95p a litre here atm.
A couple of pence off a litre would be a great start.
I really dont think that lobbying by filling station owners would stack very high against the lobbying of every business in the county that uses petrol/deisel on a day to day basis.
Tugmistress
13-Apr-05, 18:21
Deisel is 96.9p per litre at thurso :(
~~Tides~~
13-Apr-05, 18:29
Of which about 2 pence goes to the retailer. I quite agree with you zeal, the garages are ripping people off, they have plenty room to compete.
You won't have that problem in Stroma Tides. Going accross in May, where can we meet?
Does anyone know where the cheapest fuel is in Caithness? Maybe we should boycott the higher priced garages.
I always go to Lochshell, was 93p a litre in Wick and only 90.9p there on Sunday! Maybe not in the "cartel"?!
Tugmistress
13-Apr-05, 21:36
I always go to Lochshell, was 93p a litre in Wick and only 90.9p there on Sunday! Maybe not in the "cartel"?!
where is that?
champagnebaby
14-Apr-05, 00:49
Outside Wick on the Castletown road just before you come to the turn off to Ackergill
I always fill my car up when I am off - Noticed that Asda in Perth was charging 88.6p per litre of diesel. It will soon be cost effective to drive to Inverness to fill up with fuel!!!
Lochshell is not part of the cartell although I have heard rumours that he's been approached by them and well, lets just say they were not very nice.
Tides, I've just been pm'd and told you are the son of a petrol retailer, so I hardly think you are going to divulge any secrets, especially about profit margins. Or perhaps you will? How many litres does your fathers business sell in a week?
~~Tides~~
14-Apr-05, 20:13
Zeal, please tell me and everyone else where you get this wonderful information on who is in and out of the shady cartel, I would love to know.
I may be the son of a petrol retailer but I am not a liar. As I said above, the retailer gets aprox. 2 pence on a litre of fuel. There you go, I have divulged the secrets of the profit margins. Are you going you call me a liar again?
Zeal, I hope your sleeping with a gun under your pillow.
Bobinovich
14-Apr-05, 22:52
I sent an e-mail to Tesco's corporate customer services department on Monday asking if they were definately opening a store in Wick, and if so if there was going to be a petrol station included. Their reply was that they currently have no plans for a store in this area.
Don't get your hopes up until they start building!
A Tescos in Caithness will be great. I have lived in different places and Tescos was the store I always ended up shopping in. It had a all round appeal, clean, low prices and nice staff.
slydog, always :)
Tides, did I call you a liar?
~~Tides~~
15-Apr-05, 16:16
You implyed it Zeal.
Did I Tieds?
I thought I said that you would not divulge any secrets? Implying that you would refuse to tell us anything. I never said anythig about lying.
You say that petrol retaillers only make around 2p per litre profit. So surely you can tell us if that is 2p in the pocket profit or 2p before expenses have been paid. Also, you have omitted to tell us how many litres your father's filling station sells in a week, a rough amount would do.
~~Tides~~
15-Apr-05, 17:26
Yip, thats 2 pence gross Zeal and my dad probably wouldnt tell me how much they sell.
. . meanwhile . . back in the real world . . . .
I see that our cousins in the USA are protesting at paying $4.50 per gallon of fuel..... thats about £2.40 / gallon here...... thats about 60p/litre perhaps...... ?
[ OK my calcs may be WELL OUT, but you get my drift don't you ?]
We're complaning about a global problem, which is exacerbated by our local UK governmental TAXATIONof 80% rate.
The MAIN ISSUE of this coming election should be the escalating cost of fuel, be it road fuel or domestic fuel, which has a negative effect on the WHOLE ECONOMY.
...Zeal...
That's 3 times, Tides. Make you feel like the big man does it? I really don't understand what point you think you're making by misrepresenting Zael's name. The two of you could quite easily have a debate without stooping to this.
. . meanwhile . . back in the real world . . . .
I see that our cousins in the USA are protesting at paying $4.50 per gallon of fuel..... thats about £2.40 / gallon here...... thats about 60p/litre perhaps...... ?
[ OK my calcs may be WELL OUT, but you get my drift don't you ?]
They are well out indeed. I paid about $2.30 a gallon on Saturday, and $2.13 the week before. I read in a newspaper the other week (the New York Times, I think) that the average price for regular unleaded in the US is $2.13 -- exactly what I paid half an hour later! It was not much more than half that price 5 years ago. It is much more expensive in California where they have more stringent emission controls -- roughly $2.50 if I remember correctly -- but a only a little over $2 in some others. The article was pointing out that the average price was now over $2 in each and every state for the first time.
The UK gallon is 20% bigger than the US one, and £1 = $1.89 at present, so I paid £1.46 per UK gallon on Saturday.
There are 4.54 litres in a UK gallon, so this is 32p per litre. Is that cheaper than in Caithness? ;)
We're complaning about a global problem, which is exacerbated by our local UK governmental TAXATIONof 80% rate.
The MAIN ISSUE of this coming election should be the escalating cost of fuel, be it road fuel or domestic fuel, which has a negative effect on the WHOLE ECONOMY.
Hmm, I wouldn't say that the price of road fuel in the UK has escalated over the past few years. Petrol is about the same price today as it was at the height of the "petrol crisis" four and a half years ago, and maybe 10% or 15% higher than it was some months before the fuel crisis. That's pretty much in line with inflation. It has gone up a good bit in the last few weeks, but it will likely go down a bit over the next few weeks or months.
The US price rise over the last few years is due mostly to the increase in the price of crude oil. I am not quite sure why the price hasn't changed much in the UK. Perhaps it's because tax on road fuel has been kept fairly steady -- due to public pressure and political expediency to some extent. However, I would be the first to agree that 80% is a very high tax rate!
Now, domestic fuel has increased a lot in the last year or so. I am not sure by what percentage, and I am too lazy to go check. Perhaps 10%(ish)?
If that tax wasn't raised on road fuel, then it would have to be raised elsewhere if government spending were to remain the same. It's not obvious to me that we would be either better-off or worse-off if that tax were a direct income tax or across-the-board VAT for example. You think one thing (as will anyone whose livelihood prefers low road-fuel prices), but the anti-car brigade will think the other.
I don't feel that you have much of a case for fuel prices being the main issue of the coming election. Well, if you have one, you haven't stated it very clearly...
Go on, convince us! You never know, even I might agree with you. :D
BTW I have often wondered whether you drive a French car whose name begins with P, but I have never been nosy enough to ask before!
Let us put things into perspective about fuel prices being an emotive issue. How much should fuel be? Lets be generous to ourselves and say 80p/litre. The average car does 10000 miles/annum and my focus does 51mpg. So how much would i save a year if the petrol dropped to a reasonable level?
Lets calculate it
((10000/51)*4.54)*(0.969-0.8)= £150
This hardly amounts to an election issue. I can think of other issues to have a go at eg. income tax, vat.
The tories put up VAT from 15% to 17.5% just to pay for a £150 reduction on the poll tax in 1991, we are still funding it...
2.5% to the average wage earner is about £575.
Priorities need to be addressed somehow...
When it comes to taxation, I'd prefer to just pay it all in income tax, say at a rate of about 50% rather than pay nat insurance, road tax, vat, council tax, etc, etc.
I think the general populus has realised that all these taxes are an attempt to make each party look like they are not taxing us to heavily, but lets face it they are. By changing the tax system to a simple income tax, it would be cheaper to collect and easier to control.
If I remember correctly, one reason given by a government for an increase in fuel tax, was to help pay for education and national health.
Would it not be fairer, if say 2 or 3 pence was put on income tax.
Then ALL working tax payers would be helping to pay for them, not just the transport industry.
If oil companys had one price to retailers, then it wouldn't matter what the turnover of fuel in litres was, and then the fuel price over the british isles would be within a couple of pence, depending how greedy the retailer was.
Price per litre of Diesel road fuel at Lochshell is [ today ] 94.8p/litre.
I think it is still 89p/ltr for unleaded petrol but the sign wasnt too clear.
As I was just on half full tank it took £20 to fill it, making a full tank in 307s' 307 cost £40, whereas at the beginning of December it cost me £35 to fill it in Inverness.
Ah, thanks DrSzin for fixing me calcs there, your obviously in a far better position than I am to comment on prices across the pond.
However for me personally & many other regular drivers ( i use the term loosely to protect the innocent ) :D the cost of road fuel is a vital issue to the UK economy in general.
Your calcs show the situation to be even more of a gap between the US and UK !!
It's always the same though, taxing fuel, fags and booze is an easy revenue raiser because most of us cant do without them.
No doubt that there are more important issues (NHS shambles, Immigration farce, etc etc) but the cost of fuel affects each & every one of us.
BTW DrSzin it is a Peugeot 307 which I drive, which albeit more thirsty than the 3 previous 206s which I had, is appreciable more comfortable for an old geezer like me to zip around in :D
~~Tides~~
16-Apr-05, 18:35
Taxation?
You've seem to have changed your tune away from sneeky cartel dealers a bit Zael.
Its strange how Pittenrail filling station in Rogart is so much cheaper than Caithness are they not getting any profit.
I'll be glad when they can get the fuel cell bugs worked out. With a little more thought, the engineers could recycle some of the water released as waste out the tail pipe to split more hydrogen from (using solar power, of course). Such a machine would put the oil cartels out of business.
Taxation?
You've seem to have changed your tune away from sneeky cartel dealers a bit Zael.
What makes you think that, I was mearly commenting on the slight change of topic to taxation. My view of the local petrol prices remains unchanged.
Just worked out the cost of a litre here at the moment - nearer to 13p than 12p :cool: Now will I drive the Suburban or the Pathfinder :lol:
Its very strange how Pittenrail Filling station in the backwaters of Rogart are so much cheaper than Wick or Thurso are they not making a profit???
I repeated that last post for Zaels benefit who seemed to blank the Rogart question
Well lets see, a question has a question mark at the end (?) and your first posting did not have that, so not really a question, more of a statement. So second time lucky you get it right and now I find this "question" is aimed at me.
What do you want me to say? Brilliant, cheap petrol in Rogart, I'd imagine that by the time they are still open that yes they must be making a profit. So your point is? Please tell me why you think it is very strange. Perhaps they dont have a petrol cartel in Sutherland.
~~Tides~~
18-Apr-05, 17:08
Zael, I dont think you have ever given us any evidence that there is an illegal petrol cartel because it is quite a serious allegation.
SandTiger
18-Apr-05, 18:10
Zael, I dont think you have ever given us any evidence that there is an illegal petrol cartel because it is quite a serious allegation.
Horses heads and pillows are springing to mind :eek: :eek:
Whitewater
18-Apr-05, 22:39
I think that if as Tides claims they are only making 2p per litre profit [lol] the cartel should change their supplier. I think I would find it very hard to survive on such a narrow profit margin particularly with all the overheads. :(
Zael, I dont think you have ever given us any evidence that there is an illegal petrol cartel because it is quite a serious allegation.
I have spoken to a caithness petrol vendor who admitted to there being a cartel in operation up here. The oil companies are responsible for the general increase in price all year round but it is the local traders that are responsible for the annual tourist season price increase.
The bulk of the price you pay for pertol is tax, nothing to do with the extraction and supply of the oil at all.
The bulk of the price you pay for pertol is tax, nothing to do with the extraction and supply of the oil at all.
Exactly !! 80% tax - so if this swingeing tax were reduced by 10/15/20/25% fuel prices would be much more acceptable.
As good a political issue (aka bribe) as I've heard in many a long day, and guaranteed to pull a few votes...... :D
And when we're on the subject, why the additional cost for diesel over petrol ??
Once again it's taxation, a bigger revenue source.
( i declare some bias here - 307HDi :D )
........ they are only making 2p per litre profit the cartel should change their supplier. I think I would find it very hard to survive on such a narrow profit margin particularly with all the overheads.
Yeah ?? A bank manager I spoke to recently told me they would be looking at profit margins of 20-35% to make ANY business financially viable.
So 2% profit margin is just pure fiction.
~~Tides~~
19-Apr-05, 14:27
well 30% of 89p is 26.7p, which you would be laughing if you were makin that. Im not lying, im telling you, its 2-3pence per litre.
~~Tides~~
19-Apr-05, 20:22
Lochshell is not part of the cartell although I have heard rumours that he's been approached by them and well, lets just say they were not very nice.
What is fiction 307, is Zael's little stories.
Petrol prices are controlled by the price of a barrel of oil (35gallons) at the start of the year the price was $35 the price at close of today was $50.37.
Every one down the line from the purchase of a barrel then take a % these % apart from government tax remain constant.
What i would like to know is why the cost of a barrel of oil has risen so quickly,who has been forcing up the price.
As i understand it that can happen if opec reduce the production of oil. (not happened)
Stock piling by someone ( U.S.A do this )
Threat of war in the middle east leading to panic buying
I was in the garage today in Thurso to get my liquid gold, and i had to ask what was happening with the prices, and i was told that there was a shortage of oil and this was driving up the prices and they were expected to hit $60 a barrel so that means a lot more increases in the pipe line.
What some people in the area forget is that we have a lot of garages for a small population,so their individual turnover of fuel may not be that great, so they keep the price high to compensate.(hence a cartel to prevent some going to the wall)
If you had less garages, the turnover would leave more scope for a reduction in price.
The more bulk fuel you buy the cheaper it is thats how tesco do it.(thats how large super markets work in all their purchases.)
Yes we are being ripped off but by who???
Tides, if I had any hard evidence regarding a petrol cartel in Caithness then some people in this county would already have been charged and the cartel shut down.
I'm mearly reacting to the rumours I've heard, some from sources very close to the horses mouth. Lets face it, for a number of years (well as many as I can remember) all the petrol prices in Wick have been the same whichever garage you go to. I cannot believe that all the different fuel companies charge exactly the same for their fuel to the retailers and change their price at exactly the same time. Also when you hear about the petrol retailers up here having clandestine meetings in the hotel in Castletown it kinda supports the rumours. Oh and btw having your price 0.1 pence different does not constitute competition in my book.
We've already been through transport costs here on the forum and I dont think anyone is ready to believe that to be the reason for the price hike between here and say, Inverness. I also dont believe that retailers up here have to pay so much more for their fuel than retailers futher south, Rogart being a good example.
Also, lets have a quick look at this 2p per litre profit (before deductions lol).
Say you sell 5,000 litres, then that a profit (before deductions lol) of £100, that would not even cover the wages of the staff. So ok, say 10,000 litres giving you £200 profit. Nope it just does not add up. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the petrol retailers in this county are bleeding us dry, they are making it virtually impossible for local businesses to compete due to high transportation costs and they are helping to destroy what little tourism we have left up here.
Petrol prices are controlled by the price of a barrel of oil (35gallons) at the start of the year the price was $35 the price at close of today was $50.37.
Seabird a wee calculation mate:
One Barrel = ~159 litres
So if we say the price of a barrel is $50, then that is about 31 cents for a litre. At todays exchange rate that works out at 16 pence.........now tell me the price of pertrol in the UK is controlled by the price of a barrel of oil.
Zael, I fully agree with you on the fuel prices up here. It is the local fuel traders (Rip off merchants) who are responsible for the exorbitant fuel prices. As i already said before, a local fuel vendor admitted to me to there being a cartel in operation up here. I live in Reay where diesel is now 98.9p per litre.
~~Tides~~
20-Apr-05, 20:23
Well, i could tell u that the garage im associated is not part of any cartel but is there really a point?
The cost for an articulated lorry in fuel alone for the 230 mile roundtrip from Inverness to Thurso/Wick will be at least £115.
Tyres. Insurance, Wages, FWT will male it at least £300 - but yes - they do carry a payload of 25+ tonnes
The cost for an articulated lorry in fuel alone for the 230 mile roundtrip from Inverness to Thurso/Wick will be at least £115.
Tyres. Insurance, Wages, FWT will male it at least £300 - but yes - they do carry a payload of 25+ tonnes
Jimh, we all agree with you and like Zael said we have been through these calculations before, the surplus that we should be paying should be no more than 2p per litre extra compared to the rest of the UK.
The local fuel rip off merchants should be brought to book.
we should be paying should be no more than 2p per litre extra compared to the rest of the UK.
The local fuel rip off merchants should be brought to book.
Which is for me a valid political issue in this neck of the woods.
Clearly the cost of fuel is stifling the local economy, and also does little to encourage the dwindling tourists to stay in the locale.
In our enthusiastic discussion here :D two issues are presented:
(1) fuel is overtaxed in the UK;
(2) the far north seems to suffer from a cartel which inflates the price at the pump.
So whats to do ?
(1) fuel is overtaxed in the UK
Yes it is, but then from my standpoint, everything is overtaxed. In an effort to pacify the really rich, governments have reduced income tax and increased other taxes, like fuel, tobacco, vat, etc which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and the people in the middle are closer to the poor than ever. Taxation on a more local level would be beneficial to areas like Caithness where incomes are much lower than the national average.
(2) the far north seems to suffer from a cartel which inflates the price at the pump.
Not much we can do, unless someone manages to get any evidence this will continue until we get something like Tescos (with a filling station) who would be more likely to charge national prices (even with a 2p Highland surcharge) and force the cartel to either compete or go to the wall.
I see from todays news.bbc.co.uk that action is planned by hauliers :
Hauliers threaten poll disruption
Protesters are threatening to take to the streets on 3 May
Fuel tax protesters are threatening to disrupt the general election with a campaign of oil refinery blockades and go-slows starting on 3 May.
Of course what we require is action taken by other fuel users i.e. not only road but industrial & domestic also, to make the politicos aware of the REAL ISSUES affecting the UK.
Yes it is, but then from my standpoint, everything is overtaxed. In an effort to pacify the really rich, governments have reduced income tax and increased other taxes, like fuel, tobacco, vat, etc which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and the people in the middle are closer to the poor than ever.
Unfortunately, I think there is more than a grain of truth in what you say. But the people in the upper-middle have gained enormously too.
Taxation on a more local level would be beneficial to areas like Caithness where incomes are much lower than the national average.
I'm not sure I agree with that.
If local incomes are lower than the national average, then the money raised locally by income tax and national insurance will also be lower; disposable incomes will be lower than the national average, as will the money raised by indirect taxes such as VAT. If public spending is based on locally-raised taxes, then it will also drop, and the area could go into a downward spiral.
With the current model, areas with low income benefit from the taxes raised from taxpayers in areas with higher incomes.
Or do I misunderstand what you are saying? Do you envisage lower local taxes, but local spending based on some sort of national average? Sounds good, but it would require the consent of national politicians, not to mention the national electorate.
Of course what we require is action taken by other fuel users i.e. not only road but industrial & domestic also, to make the politicos aware of the REAL ISSUES affecting the UK.
They may be the "real issues" affecting you, but they sure aren't the real issues affecting me. In fact they have barely raised their heads above the parapet in this election campaign.
Curiously, "Europe" has been almost invisible in this election. I guess the Europhobes are too busy being immigrantophobes and asylum-seekerophobes this time around.
Yes it is, but then from my standpoint, everything is overtaxed. In an effort to pacify the really rich, governments have reduced income tax and increased other taxes, like fuel, tobacco, vat, etc which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and the people in the middle are closer to the poor than ever.
Unfortunately, I think there is more than a grain of truth in what you say. But the people in the upper-middle have gained enormously too.
For once, I am happy to report that I was competely and utterly wrong.
Well, I was completely wrong if you apply my comments to the current Labour Government. An article by Alf Young in today's Herald (http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/37808.html) reports:
As it happens, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has just produced a nine-page election briefing on the winners and losers from all Labour's accumulated tax and benefit changes since 1997. It shows that significant redistribution can still be achieved, at precious little extra net cost to the Exchequer, amid all the chancellor's talk of prudence, stability and fiscal responsibility.
According to the IFS, lone parents, pensioners, unemployed couples with children, single-earner households with children and multi-family households with children have all benefited from Gordon Brown's redistributist instincts since 1997, by as much as £48.91 a week. Individuals, whether working or not, couples with no children and two-earner families, even if they have children, have all lost out, by as much as £22.73 a week. As we already suspected, the redistribution has been carefully targeted across the income scale. In Labour's first term, the impact on the wealthiest in society was minimal, while the gains at the other end of the income scale were greatest not for the poorest, but for those in the second and third lowest deciles of the income distribution. Brown's targeting improved significantly in Labour's second term. Households in the bottom three income bands all gained more, while those in the top four bands all lost more.
Overall, from 1997 till today, the bottom two bands saw their household incomes increase by more than 11% on average, while the richest 10th saw their incomes fall by 3.7% on average. But, perversely, the chancellor's redistribution policy was actually much more generous, on average, before the 2001 election than it proved afterwards
However, there is a caveat:
But all the redistribution did little more than unravel the redistribution that had taken place in the opposite direction, under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, since 1985. They boosted the income of the richest 10% of households by 5.8%. Brown has clawed back 3.7%. Under the Tories, the poorest decile saw their incomes cut by 2.9%. Brown has boosted them by more than 11%
This analysis is based on a recent publication from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (http://www.ifs.org.uk/), an organisation not to be taken lightly. The publication is here (http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/05ebn1.pdf). Just look at the redistribution plots on pages 4, 5 & 7. That is surely impressive by anyone's standards. Gordon Brown remains my political hero; I just wish I could vote for him as PM.
Maybe I should follow Polly and hold my nose, vote Blair and Brown will be the victor (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1453087,00.html) after all. Polly doesn't believe the polls (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1463797,00.html) and I suspect she may be right: in my experience, people are more honest in emails than they are on the phone or in face-to-face conservations; I once saw some evidence for this, but I don't remember where. The thought of a Howard-led Tory government messing up both a strong economy and the recent significant redistribution of wealth is just too much. Maybe I will vote Labour after all. I thought I was in a Labour/LibDem marginal, but due to boundary changes, it may be a 3-way Labour/LibDem/Tory marginal, and the Tory is a creep of the creepiest kind.
Having said that, I would vote Lib Dem in Caithness. Surely John Thurso will win easily: no voter will want to take his or her turn at changing the Labour candidate' s (intellectual) nappy.
Bill Fernie
23-Apr-05, 04:09
No candidate can take anythig for granted.
The last election result showed John Thurso a clear winner but it was a split vote with the majority not voting for him. The result was as follows -
2001 Result In Caithness Sutherland & Easter Ross
John Thurso - Lib Dem - 9041 Majority 2,744
Michael Meighan Labour - 6297
John Macadam - SNP - 5273
Robbie Rowantree - Conservative - 3513
Karn Mabon - Scottish Socialist - 544
Gordon Campbell - Independent - 199
If the Labour and SNP total vote had gone to one candidate things would have been very different. The constituency has a virtual re-run of the last election with six candidates standing - two of them the same John Thurso and Gordon Campbell. Once again the area has outside candidates brought in by the other main parties - not uncommon but giviing them an uphill task against the sitting candidate known to most people in the area. Of the other candidates from last time I see that Robbie Rowantree for the conservatives is having another go in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
I wonder if the first past the post system will last much longer given the changes in the Scotttish Parliament elections and Welsh Assembly and the changes coming for local government with multi member wards.
Is everyone happy to have different electoral sytems for the different tiers of government?
I've just found out that the cost of petrol and diesel, on a Shell fuel card, has not changed in the last month. So again why the sudden increases in such a shot time locally???????????? It does'nt make any sense.
Sandy01, as I said earlier, a local fuel trader admitted to me that the local cartel push up prices in the far north during the tourist season. A price rise that is independent of the oil companies.
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