Pies, Pasties and Petrol

Quite close to where we live is a College and at lunch times the students crowd into the local bakers for their hot snacks. This little shop is always busy; as well as quite delicious bread and doughnuts, it also sells sandwiches, hot pies, pasties, sausage rolls etc. In the future, thanks to the Chancellor, students who have been able to buy a pasty or large sausage roll for, say, £1 will now have to pay £1.20.  I know the argument that this increase is to bring bakers into line with fish & chip shops but it is another example of a stealth tax which will penalise students on a very limited budget. Of course, if you never buy a hot pie or pasty it will not affect you! This is another example of a nasty unnecessary tax which will not be of any consequence to the wealthy in society but will hit students and others hard.

All around this area, petrol stations have notices up saying they have no petrol due to the crazy way people have been filling up their tanks following the advice of politicians. It is thanks to those stupid politicians a non-existent problem is now a major crisis. Queues were forming yesterday on a busy dual carriageway in this area to get into garages and this was causing chaos, danger and mayhem as one lane became blocked. I noticed that some wily proprietors increased their prices – what a surprise! If the government were in any doubt that the motorist would rebel and not pay the forthcoming petrol increase later this year, this will have calmed their fears. Some. it seems, will pay any price to keep their cars on the road and be prepared to queue for ages to do so. Why don’t people use public transport? Because it is frequently expensive and unreliable. So the motorist will continue to be the Governments milch cow.