Pump inaction
OUR worst fears about pump prices are confirmed. Drivers ARE being routinely ripped off by greedy and sneaky retailers.
Last year alone they fleeced us of £1.6billion by raising profit margins on every litre ever higher and using the fluctuating oil prices since the invasion of Ukraine as cover.
Not only an assault on family finances. A disastrous drag on the economy.
The problem, as the Competition and Markets Authority has found, is that supermarkets and other fuel retailers have too little incentive to compete.
The CMA’s solution is a version of the Pumpwatch scheme we have long supported — compelling forecourts in law to send live prices to our phones or satnavs so we can drive to the cheapest.
It shames the Tories that Pumpwatch was never launched. We first backed it in 2016. They finally began a “consultation” last January and got booted out of office before they could fully act on it.
The CMA reckons it could save £4.50 every fill-up. And it wants to work with the new Government to finally launch it.
How about it, Sir Keir?
Empty pledges
VOTERS grew heartily sick of Tory Governments talking tough but delivering so little.
If the party continues down that path as it claws its way back from its election calamity then oblivion truly looms.
So if leadership contenders intend to boldly talk about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights they need cast-iron determination and an actual plan to achieve it.
The case for cutting loose from Strasbourg’s meddling, politicised judges has been overwhelming for years. It is likely to become clearer still under Labour, which supports the court wholeheartedly and without question.
But it is not some switch the Tories could flick. It is a radical departure, requiring a huge amount of work and no little convincing of a sceptical public.
Our message to any wannabe Tory leaders glibly floating the idea is this:
Either promise it, understand it and mean it . . . or don’t promise it at all.
Ed’s turned
IN opposition Ed Miliband was quite the fan of Extinction Rebellion.
Its anti-social stunts, he said, were merely “trying to draw attention to an incredibly important issue”.
Now, as Energy Secretary, he sings a different tune. He says XR’s offshoot Just Stop Oil is “disastrous” because it is “alienating” the public.
True, but it hasn’t been disastrous politically, has it, Ed?
The real aim of JSO’s serial criminality is to bully weak politicians into surrendering to its “demands” — the first being the banning of new North Sea oil and gas licences.
And Miliband himself has done just that.