It’s outrageous we pay so much to fill up our cars
PETROL and diesel prices are unfair and the motorist is badly treated by the oil companies and the government (Mail).
In 2013, the oil price hit a recent high of $120 a barrel and petrol rose in line to reach around 140p per litre. Today, a barrel of oil is just below $80, but petrol costs at least 130p a litre.
We are being ripped off on the basis that we will pay whatever it takes. It is time to hit back at greedy suppliers. This has already been done with the supermarkets, with shoppers abandoning traditional stores in favour of Lidl and aldi. Could motorists exert similar pressure on fuel suppliers?
ROBERT BISHOP, Billingshurst, W. Sussex. CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond suggests the eight-year freeze on fuel duty could end to fund the shortfall in NHS funding (Mail).
Has he considered making those who do not qualify for free NHS treatment pay upfront? MICHAEL SCHOFIELD,
Rotherham, S. Yorks. INSTEAD of the Chancellor increasing fuel tax, he should hike the duty on alcohol and tobacco.
If such a move reduced tax revenue because consumption dropped, the positive effect would be a reduction in NHS costs. ALAN GLENISTER,
Bushey, Herts.
Save our high streets
I KNOW how we can save our high streets.
We should lobby Parliament to introduce three levels of Vat: 10 per cent for high street retailers, 20 per cent for retail parks and 30 per cent for online sales.
an ‘artisan business start-up rate’ should be introduced to encourage self-employed craftspeople into high street units.
Finally, we must address parking charges in town centres.
SUE ZANI, via email.
Sepsis danger
THANK you for your sepsis campaign – I have learned more from the Mail than doctors. I had sepsis after being bitten by a dog and was not expected to live. I spent eight days in intensive care and three weeks in rehab learning how to walk again.
Last week, I was in a stroke unit. The Mail has written about the high incidence of strokes and heart failure following recovery from sepsis, but I was not warned of this risk by my doctors. JENNIFER GOODCHILD,
Essex.
Daft dream scenario
SO the SNP is to hold a national day of action on September 29 to make the case for Indyref 2 on the doorsteps.
This is presumably in part intended to demonstrate to dyed-in-the-wool separatists that, now we know Nicola Sturgeon won’t be demanding Indyref 2 next month, the SNP is still as obsessed with UK break-up as they are.
This is, however, academic since Theresa May has made clear her ‘now is not the time’ mantra will apply throughout this Holyrood term up to 2021.
While Brexit negotiations are drawing to a close, it will be some years before the full outcome is understood.
How can Scots be in a position to make yet another constitutional decision for many years?
What the SNP national day will demonstrate is that, for the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon’s teenage independence dreams always come before governing Scotland.
MARTIN REDFERN, Edinburgh.
Power play
SMASHING your children’s iPads, as Kirstie allsopp has done (Mail), will achieve nothing positive.
I have a simpler method of restricting screen time while teaching the life skill of how to plan.
Set a weekly charging time and then lock away the chargers. If the iPads shut down before the next charge because your children have spent too much time on screen, they have only themselves to blame. GLORIA FISHER, Cowes, Isle of Wight.
Project Fear nonsense
ON rolls Project Fear, with Jaguar Land Rover threatening to move its operations to eastern Europe.
JLR opened manufacturing plants in China and Brazil well before the Brexit referendum.
The threat that UK citizens would not be able to take their dogs on holiday to Europe is disingenuous. The only requirement for a dog or cat to travel to the EU is that it must have an approved, up-to-date certificate of rabies vaccination.
Project Fear is just the Millennium Bug all over again.
FRED LEES, Great Wyrley, Staffs.
Deal – or no deal?
IT appears that Bank of England governor Mark Carney is again doing his best to help Project Fear, this time by forecasting that house prices will fall by around one-third over three years if Britain dares to leave the European Union without a deal.
given that for decades there has been constant whingeing that young people cannot get on to the housing ladder due to high prices, Mr Carney’s forecast should have them singing in the streets and demanding a no-deal exit. H. LAMONT, Elgin, Moray.