Stupid Government in Britain.

Petrol Pump Chaos in Britain Yesterday.

I have experienced lots of things in Britain; lots of crazy things that you wouldn't think a government capable of; it's great that it's not a banana republic or has a dictator in charge but that is no excuse for stupidity.

I lived through the Thatcher years when they abolished rates on property and introduced the Community Charge, the so called Poll Tax, the dismantling of the railway system in to a group of separate businesses that own various part of the rail network, like Virgin (try and get a train easily in the UK now), and saw the privatisation of many nationalised companies, but nothing can be prepared to what is going on here at the moment.

For people who do not live here there is a tax called Valued Added Tax – VAT or just vat – which is a kind of sales tax which is common in America. From now on I'm going to call it tax for the purposes of what I am talking about here.

Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his budget to the House of Commons; this is the government's plan of fiscal action for the next 12 months.

This is where the government raises and decreases taxes and traditionally it's where they raise the price of booze, cigarettes, petrol and road tax. Road tax is the same as the tags you have to put on your car in America.

The budget was a bad budget for seniors and a good one for top earners; they have increased the tax for some pensioners who work and reduced the tax for the so called top earners. Top earners pay 50% of their income on the slice of their income over 150 or 250 grand; the Chancellor lowered that to 45% and paid for it with the pensioners tax increase.

That's by the by.

The VAT – the sales tax – is also applied to hot food and if you buy fish and chips you have to pay tax on the food – because it's hot.

The Chancellor has extended the tax to pasties, and other hot food sold over the counter, when they're hot so when you go to a deli and buy a hot pastie you have to pay the tax. If the pastie goes cold, whilst it's behind the counter waiting to be sold, no tax is applicable – I don't have to comment on that it's stupid; you can see that.

Then last week a cabinet minister went on TV and suggested that people stock up with petrol in case the tanker drivers go on strike. He said as well as filling your fuel tanks you should fill a spare can too.

This has resulted in all the filling stations in the country running out of fuel; lines of cars are queuing in the streets and causing traffic jams; police have had to close some of them because of the disruption to traffic.

It was on the news that the army is being trained to deliver the tankers to the petrol stations in case of an emergency because they don't want to see essential services such as hospitals being affected.

And guess what!!

There is no strike planned; the union for the tanker drivers are talking to the managements about the health and safety of actually delivering petrol – they are in talks; nothing more.

I hope we don't go to war with this lot running the country if those are the tactics they would use – they didn't think that a statement such as 'fill you cars just in case' would panic the country.

I rest my case.