Surely, now is the time
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The discussions about fuel since last week's dimbdown by Gordon Brown over the fuel duty escalator (see Letters, page 22 and Industry News, page 9) have given us an interesting insight into government thinking.
It happened during a radio phone-in, when Tony Blair told Prestons of Potto boss Anne Preston that an essential user rebate would cost the nation money. This shows a basic lack of understanding—assuming RHA figures on self-financing are correct— that must be put right if the government is to be swayed. And sway it we must even with the escalator gone, we're still left with obscenely inflated fuel prices and VED rates.
CM urges all its readers to keep up the pressure and make this point wherever possible: at the RHA rally in Birmingham on 20 November; in letters or visits to MPs—or in any other lawful way you can think of. Because the war against unfair taxation will not be over until British hauliers are paying fuel and VED costs that are in line with their Continental counterparts.
Meanwhile we call on our industry representatives at the next Industry Forum to give government this message: even if it does cost you money, Mr Blair, you've collected more than enough of it from the haulage sector over the past few years and we all know that Mr Brown now has a few bob to spare. If ever you could afford it, now is surely the time.
• Rumours, rumours, rumours. MAN's rumoured takeover of Western Star—and with it ERFmakes some sort of sense on paper, as do all the best rumours. If it happens, the key question is whether ERF will be sold off or kept on as a specialist manufacturer, as with Iveco and Seddon Atkinson. Yet again, it seems that we'll just have to wait and see...