Express.
ASDA yesterday prompted a price war on supermarket petrol forecourts by slashing up to 2p a litre from both unleaded and diesel.Ok, 2p is welcome, however in the grand scheme of things where fuel was costing in the £1.40+ a litre range it's actually pretty small beer. Though fair do's to Asda, they tend to have cheaper fuel than most places I pass anyway. What really rankles though is that the government could half its take on the price of fuel and drop the price in total by a third! That would get the economy moving, reduce the price of food and goods and put cash back into peoples pockets, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. Last I checked, the government got £25 billion from fuel, the overseas development budget is going to come in at £12 billion, so there's your savings straight away.
The cut, which comes just in time for the big Bank Holiday weekend getaway, was immediately matched by Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
Other major retailers are expected to follow suit.
The news provides a boost to Britain’s hard-pressed motorists who have seen fuel prices soar.
Just last month the AA said increases this year had added £21.72 to a two-car family’s monthly petrol bill. A typical 50-litre family car was costing £71.24 to fill, a rise of £5.12 since January.
Yesterday Asda claimed its price-cutting move was possible because of a drop in global oil prices coupled with the supermarket’s “ongoing commitment to help lower the cost of living”.
But yes, who am I kidding, the government takes, it does not give, it's even committed to ever more ruinous borrowing to keep things going rather than reduce its costs.
Still, you never know, one day perhaps we'll get a cost cutting government, but I doubt it will be from the 3 main parties, they're far too committed to spending our cash on things no government should be involved in. Though judging by the local election results, that's a long way off yet...
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