Fuel hike

[Martyn Henley]

Hi all, we all saw the lorries protesting in london this week, and we are ALL feeling the effects of rising costs, so heres a few questions.

Do you support the transport 2007 actions or not, knowing that it will escalate in the next few weeks...
And how is this present crisis affecting you, and the building and plant hire industry.

Martyn

[Jeremy Rowland]

Whilst tax is a necessary evil the politicians don't know how to apply a simple bit of common sense
And trust me that applies to all the main parties in this country unfortunately I don't think that protests will work unless they are backed up by determined force
Yes I do agree with any fuel tax protest and would even support the use of force against the government after all its OUR country not theirs, after all they are elected to serve us not dictate to us.

Power to the people and all that.................

Jeremy

[martyn williams]

I know of a lot of transport firms that are on the verge of going bust. I think the duty will have to come down very soon,if not we will see a big rise in unemployment and another rise in inflation.
There are a lot of people commute a fair distance to work.going back 25/35 years,in this area we had a lot of coal mines,nearly all the miners lived locally so did not need a car for work.With all the mines gone along with most heavy industry,these same people have to drive to Bristol or Swansea for work.I know of people that live in Bristol work in Cardiff and London,and people that live in the Cardiff area work in Bristol, Swindon and London.
I think previous governments have destroyed this country,in fact the chickens have come home to roost and we are paying the price for it.
What can we do? we need a mass protest and NOT a change of government, we need to tell these wallies in Westminster we have had enough.
Power to the people

[penfold]

Wont go on!!

I hire out mini diggers and equipment, in the last 6 months the phone has rung 40 times max for "enquiries" my regular hires have near on ceased had 5 days driver and machine (only go out and drive when very quiet) and 3 days self drive hire in 6 months,

having to sell most of stock to pay overheads that are rising at an alarming rate,
most of my regular customers are in the same boat, phone broke (dosnt ring often)

I'm even "redoing" (upgrading NV fking Q) my cpcs so's i can go and do a bit for the agency's.
took afew years to build up and sort all red tape out with NO help off the gov
Yet they take take take and down it could go in seconds if i gave up,

I could quite easily sit on my arse and claim 250 aweek and have a new car every 3 years as i'm classed as disabled, but i refuse to I enjoy doing what i do and will do it but 4king refuse to hand over all my cash to the gready know nothings that couldnt wipe there own arse without instructions BAR STAIR DS!!

sad thing is we (british born bred working man) wont / cant stand united, filth is out handing out fines, injunctions, sentences, beatings, harrasment on anyone that tries to stand up and be counted,
Just like the maffia and it's hit mob,

look at the welsh drivers ready to block the refineries, filth handing out warnings, and no doubt going through every vehicle with a fine tooth comb, to make some more revenue while putting the frighners on the working man!

FREE COUNTRY MAYBE IF YOUR NOT FROM HERE AND REFUSE TO WORK

FREEDON OF SPEECH AGIAN NOT FOR US WORKING BRITISH MEN.

just go back to the 80's and the miners, they stood united but the dirty filth got rich off the overtime, while the miners and supporters struggled to survive and fight for what was right

this country needs real people that know what life is taking this country and putting it back on track,
one of our biggest export at the mo is scrap

70% of what we pay at the pump is tax and thats before gready tax is added

its enough so send you over the edge, see y'all at the bottom

My rant is over for the moment,
Thank you
Paul

[Jeremy Rowland]

Nice rant Paul I agree with everything you've said

Sadly I think things need to get worse before people will rebel against the system.

Perhaps the best way would be for everybody to stay at home for one week, don't go to work or use your vehicles or go shopping. I say this because the only way to bring down the rich is to hit em where it hurts and thats in the pocket.

Besides what could the police do about that? drag you out of bed and take you to work? I don't think so.

Thatcher used the police as a weopan against the worker and people just ignored that, hate to say it folks but I hope the price of oil rockets even more because then we may get enough people pissed off to rebel against it.

Jeremy

[Martyn Henley]

I think Jeremy people are getting pissed off and small companies like mine and Paul's are being hit extremely hard, more so for Paul, but the anger of the people are beginning to show.
I have heard that we should have a tax strike, based on what Jeremy has said, but not buying anything that has vat or revenue tax, ie petrol, fags, and booze, is this possible ? but protest has been made harder by police enforcing the laws that were brought in to stop protests of any kind, and if in doubt they will have you under the prevention of terrorists act, so no win there.
Over in the states i have heard of some companies billing their customers with a fuel surcharge, is that happening here ?
EU governments are trying to cap fuel tax's in their own countries for selected industries, but i see the EU has said that its illegal to do so.
But come lads how is the plant an building industry doing through all this, has work fallen ? are rates still being kept low ?

Martyn

[penfold]

Cheers Guys nice to know i'm not alone on my thoughts

Feed back from customers have been, it's slowing down,
most of my customers are selfemployed concerns, only a few larger firms are on my books,

house builders have slowed down, i know of 2 that have gone back to 9-5, A bricky that gets me in to do his footings has gone from fully booked to doin one walling job this year,
Lads in the driveway game have found more and more people have canceled the expencive patern imprinted drives for cheaper gravel drives.

My yard is next to a granite worktop supplier,last they just landed a super contract to supply newbuild flats with there fancy worktops, spanking new van and loads of very expencive stock,
last 3 months there biggest customer has dicided to go with cheaper worktops, there fancy, (very nice to be honest) stock is there and very fragile 7'+10' slabs of granite,
anyway there unit is now full of damaged cars they are trying to sell to make ends meet, from skyrocketing upwards to nosediving in a blink of an eye,

Not so many building projects around as there was this time last year, (last year if a dog turd was there for more that a week they had started building flats on it) and theres plenty of sites that had been cleared late on last year ready for the beginning of this, but nothing sofar,

Dont think the larger hire firms are feeling it as much, they have the cream of contracts with the councils and the big buiding boys,

it seems it's the smaller more individual outfits that are being hit hardest first,

SO so hard containg my rant,
Not so bad as while i have no work i can play out on my beloved Z

[martyn williams]

I work in the rail industry,they have cut staff back to the bare bones.They have also tried to reduce costs by cutting maintenance on rolling stock.Staff are leaving the industry in droves,most are going to Australia and Canada.There are so many railway companies that its become a shambles.
Nick will tell you about the carve up on the Network rail contracts,some firms have NO railway experience at all or are employing contract staff who just do a poor job,take the money and move on.
The railways locomotives/HST's run on Gas oil.even with rebated fuel the costs are high.
Getting fed up of the greenies telling us what to do,when most of them have never done a days graft in their lives,work from home so they don't need a car like the ordinary working man/ woman.
The French seem to take no messing. We seem to be more reserved and just moan and put up with it.

[Martyn Henley]

Seems whole of Europe is up in arms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7426971.stm

[martyn williams]

With all our problems,saw the footage on the earthquake aftermath on the news.That poor man on there found his wife dead in a bus whilst searching the road she was travelling on.Some got it a lot worse than us.
Also saw most of the Welsh fishing fleet laid up because they can't sell their fish produce in Europe.
What a bloody mess