Contact us using the link at the bottom of this page. We print almost everything sent to us for balance and fairness!

Thanks to all those who have written in. We've had a long all-nighter trying to catch up with your emails - for and against! Look forward to Ray and perhaps Ron who will also comment on letters where required. Nice guys both.

BANNERS - AT LAST!!

 Print off, cut them up and do what you like with them.

CAMPAIGN FOR FAIR FUEL PRICES FOR EVERYONE IN THE UK

Hello All

The following picture was taken at 6pm GMT facing the entrance to the Trafford Park Fuel Depot, Manchester on 14 September 2005 from our car. Dead quiet..

A couple of us popped along after a hard day's work to support the 'protesters' for a few hours (and pass round the bacon butties!) and found we were alone. Well, apart from the convoy of fuel tankers driving out from the place and a few folk who gave us a honk of support as they drove past our car. One police van was parked at the entrance - no more were found in the area. Two ambulances and a fire engine were parked further up the road off the expressway - drivers looking bored... Oh well, it goes to show how people get themselves all het up about nothing doesn't it. The people who want high fuel prices will be thinking this is something to gloat about. It isn't! More fuel increases (perhaps up to $80-120 a barrel) are being forecast by expert after expert on CNBC Wednesday. This is a sad day for a number of reasons. The main one being that we are still dependant on foreign oil imports, greedy oil international speculators, and a greedy Government. Congratulate yourselves. The second one being that most of you lot are good at talking a good protest!!

Well done! to the good folks from other organisations who selflessly did peacefully protest today. We bet you're sick at the lack of support?! Our problem is that we've now got half a hundredweight of bacon butties going spare and I'm on a diet...damn! £25 worth!

How sheepish do all the panic buyers feel now? Very entertaining while it lasted. Didn't see any punch-ups ourselves but we heard that it was getting heated in some places. At least it made the media sit up and take notice 6 weeks or so into our own campaign. All this despite everyman and his dog - including Govt - advising against panic buying of fuel.

Folks who read our letters page may be interested to hear that we haven't spoken to any media 'on the record' yet. We felt this wasn't the time and it was somehow wrong to jump on someone else's bandwagon. Our protest isn't a 5 minute wonder and thus we will wait a couple of weeks till this has all blown over and then see how interested the media is once its not front page stuff. Watch this space.

Letters have been sent to a number of MP's complaining at our vulnerability to international oil price fluctuations and speculators. Responses will be published as they arrive.

Finally, www.fuelprotest.com didn't organise blockades but welcomed the call to turn this into a peaceful protest. OK, you tried to get people to care, to get off their backsides, to galvanise some team spirit. We here know how you feel, guys. How about we take this forward and unite our seperate energies to ensure that each candidate at the next general election is closely scrutinised for his/ her attitude to a SUSTAINABLE AND VISIONARY SERIES OF POLICIES TOWARDS THE ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT, PLANNING AND FUEL - especially the rapid availability of alternatives to oil!? This is the strategy of our campaign here and we already have a great deal of support promised to force change. Watch out Gordon Brown. We're going to make it a hard fight for you matey!!

Due to the sheer volume of emails and information we are receiving please bear with us if you are looking for a response. This is obviously a hot topic that people feed strongly about. This is fast becoming quite a team effort and due to some kind offers of help we will try and catch up shortly. Can we suggest for the time-being hooking up with the Road Users Forum if your enquiry is about organising a local protest or anything else that needs a quick response. Can we also suggest that you go straight to our letters page to get a feel for what we at www.fuelprotest.com are about? We publish all sensible communications sent to us and you should find our campaign to vote for sensible, sustainable and visonary policies by individual candidates at local and national elections to be the best way of achieving the change in how this country is run, that most of us yearn for... Thanks

Photo courteousy of Matthew Myatt, British Association of Journalists (1671), Freelance Photographer.

Much feedback on the concept of fuel protest publicity cruises! Many emails quite rightly comment that many people can't afford it. Fair enough.. Also had feedback regarding the issue that in times of apparent fuel shortage, using up valuable fuel may be seen as counter-productive. Once again, we can see the logic in this. Others haven't bothered to read the detail and don't understand that these are NOT intended as blockades. Please, if you haven't anything sensible by way of information, comment, file submissions and the suchlike to add to the website, why bother?

We continue to receive some well-written and informative emails that widen the debate. We encourage visitors to spend the time browsing through them. We may comment at some length on some of them but this is intended to promote further debate. If you agree/ disagree with any of the material on our Letters page, including our own comments, then we welcome your own input (assuming it is not just throwing insults or misinformation around!). This is ultimately where our campaign wants to go so that we can ALL reasonably develop a long-term solution to this extremely worrying fuel problem that will only continue to affect us more and more. If the better informed out there feel they have something positive to add we whole-heartedly welcome anything you send to us. Doesn't matter if you think it is negative. The debate needs to consider all viewpoints. No sensible input is negative!

Any of you doubt that 'ordinary' people are being really hurt by these fuel costs should check out the letters page. Some of the letters and emails we've had are really harrowing. There a lot of small businesses and individuals panicking right now. The fuel price increases only go to demonstrate that we in the UK seem to be very exposed to oil market fluctuations, and our current Government seem reluctant to act quickly to do anything productive. We are more and more understanding that at least part of the answer is to remove ourselves in some degree from this vipers nest of international oil speculation by developing alternatives to oil. If these vulnerable people are hurting in the short-term what is the long-term approach of YOUR Government to protect US in the UK from the nightmare scenario of 'Peak Oil', where oil prices spiral out of control and oil shortages will become the norm'? We would most definitely welcome an official brief explanation of long-term Government policy on fuel, transport policy, planning, and the environment to allay our fears that this whole mess is being sorted NOW! What world are our kids going to inherit? We're not holding our breath waiting...

Message

Hello to you out there who shares our frustration and anger at the exponentially increasing cost of using our cars. You needn't be a driver to be angry, as the extortionate cost of fuel is affecting drivers and non-drivers alike in the form of increased till prices. That loaf of bread and that posh new TV need to be manufactured and transported. Who's picking up the tab?

You are! And your employer is! Is it any wonder that British industry is being crippled by high wage bills, transport costs, and taxes (compared to foreign competition), not to mention the stifling over-regulation by our own Government. As long as this never-ending spiral of taxation AND beaurocracy is not stemmed the future of British industry is pretty much cast. WHERE IS ALL THIS MONEY GOING TO AND WHY DOES OUR GOVERNMENT NEED EVER MORE?? WHY ARE WE COMMITTING INDUSTRIAL SUICIDE???

Every day seems to bring a new surprise for us 'typical' road users. Fuel cost increases, road tax increases, tolls, parking costs, extortionate parking fines (I can use this word legally in this context under Scots Law), unrealistic speeding restrictions, the endless roadworks, costs of motorway 'services', costs of buying cars, costs of disposing cars, costs of supplying and disposing of other people's cars, the cost of insurance, cost of repairs - the list goes on and on and unfortunately on.... I'll leave it to that most excellent champion of the road-user, the ABD, to supply much of the relevant information for your cerebral consumption.

The Aims of 'www.fuelprotest.com'

The main aim of this website is simple. We - the great British Public - continue to want cheap fuel combined with sustainable planning, transport, and environmental policies. Other websites and organisations are adequately dealing with the other valid complaints that we, as roadusers, share. We'll leave other issues for another day - once we've sorted out THE BIG ONE. We want to force the buggers to create PROPER sustainable solutions. We stand to be corrected but we, and most of the people we are contacted by, DO NOT PERCEIVE OR BELIEVE THAT ANY REALISTIC OR SUSTAINABLE FUEL STRATEGY IS UNDERWAY! Is this down to poor publicity by the Government bodies or are our perceptions corect?

'Just how do we achieve this aim?', you ask, gazing upward for divine inspiration?

'Yeah, sure, we all want to save money but hasn't it been tried before?', you may mutter, rolling your eyes?

'I'm a woman driver. Surely this is a man thing?', you whimper.

'I only use my car a couple of times a week so I don't really count', you utter.

'I have a job where I am being threatened with replacement by a cheaper Eastern European worker, and kids, and a mortgage, and huge credit card bills, and huge heating bills, and huge telephone bills, and.....where can I find the time to protest....and I don't want to lose my job' [pause for effect], you sigh resignedly.

'I am proud of being British. Stiff upper lip and all that, Old Man'.

'Protesting ain't my thing. What would the neighbours think?'.

All these points and observations are commonplace. The point actually is that it is easier to sit at home, at work, or down the pub whingeing to all and sundry BUT DO NOTHING ABOUT IT! If you ain't gonna put up then shut up...

I've noticed that the biggest problem we face today in MY country is apathy. Yes, apathy. You can blame Mr Blair, Mr Brown, Brussels, Martian Invaders, or whoever, but the reason that the cost of fuel (and everything else) is so high is that YOU ARE PREDICTABLE. As a mature democracy WE are pathetic. The guys who decide where they are going to stick the tax boot in know this and sit back with their fat cigars and their inflated salaries without worrying that we are going to do anything other than whinge. This latest fuel increase has been created by speculators for their own ends. Its that simple folks. What have our Government done to protect you, me, and the guy next door from these international speculators and their obsession with greed?

Yep, it goes against the grain. Isn't protesting for spotty students and sandal wearing, tree-hugging, Lesser Spotted Whale-saving vegetarians? Aren't I too old or too sensible to be getting off my fat backside and doing something to make my life that little bit more bearable? You answer.

The difficulty, of course, lies in the misinterpretation of the word 'protest'. We have been conditioned to be afraid of protests. People die in protests. Property gets casually destroyed in protests. Protesters.....oooer....bad people! Those lovely policemen with their batons and tear gas are there to save us from these irrational protesters, aren't they? That's the image that we have had inserted into to us from an early age and then told to be proud of because we are 'British'. Be aware that the 'social engineers' are very schooled in the art of making us irrationally proud about our ability to take a good kick in the whatsits with only a grunt of pain and tear-stained apology through gritted teeth for getting in the way of the bullies boot.... The new people who have taken over at www.fuelprotest.com, we've had enough.

Protest can also be peaceful, respectful, legal and doesn't require 'bovva' boots or disruption. Anoraks are of course optional ;)

The Campaign

Soooo. How DO we campaign against high fuel costs without breaking the Law? How DO we orchestrate change when challenged by politicians who are more concerned about their future careers in Europe or Big Business than actually listening to Joe Public? In the few weeks that this website has been back up and running we at www.fuelprotest.com are realising the bigger picture. Its not just about immediate relief from the current high fuel costs. The real campaign to is remove us from our vulnerability from international oil speculators and develop and visionary approach to fuel in the long-term.

We speak. 'They' laugh.

We shout. 'They' go deaf.

We write. 'They' ignore.

We blockade. 'They' use threats, media misinformation, propoganda, and the Law to break our will.

We vote for the other guy. 'They' lose. We, Democracy, justice and fairness win! (Read this last again..)

What we do is - we all agree that unless 'they' stop wasting our tax money on that month's fashionable, politically correct 'scheme' and manage our nation/ national budget more successfully in order to bring down the requirement for excessive fuel duty (as well as everything else) - we will pledge to vote. Hmmm, surely we mean NOT vote. No, we choose to vote - ESPECIALLY those who don't normally bother! At the next General Election and at each By-Election, we - you, the folks supporting this campaign for a sustainable policy to cheap, readily available fuel- will opt en-masse to get rid of the lackies and sycophants who currently reside in our Parliament/ Councils and replace them for people with vision and ability.

That's how you do it! Its the one thing the Politicians fear. Not being in power!! Scary thought isn't it. A Parliament of MP's with a large number of them selected because they whole-heartedly support a sustainable policy towards fuel, British Industry, and also improving the environment. Ah, but we can only dream...

But....there is always a but......we have to get our message over to the guys who fought for our votes at the last General Election. We have also to get our message out to the public and advise the UK populace - our neighbours, family, friends, colleagues - of the impending nightmare scenario if we do not sort this out now! I heard that the UK population just topped 60Million. Reduce this for the thick, the mis-guided, the sheep who blindly follow the party line, and, let's say, we have plenty-million pi**ed off folks who only have to tick the right box on the big day to start something new and visionary! People need to start thinking and relying less on others folks to do the thinking for them. Let's be honest, we all quietly understand that most of the people we rely upon to look after us are influenced by cash donations, party politics, their careers, power ambitions, plain greed, unending bureaucracy, sometimes crazy laws, and a gamet of other factors. Where does the future of MY - YOUR - country - our childrens future - lie in their list? You make up your own mind.

A bit more

How do we get the word out there? A determined few of us started making a noise with our peaceful Funny Car protest/ publicity cruises to raise public awareness. Public support to our small band was extremely encouraging but we understand that these were too expensive for some people with the current high fuel prices. Those started back in early August 2005 with a cruise from Manchester to London. Due to the depressingly low numbers of people taking up the offer to join us or set up their own peaceful protests we pulled back from this idea, although we still feel that if CAR drivers had joined in to voice their united outrage at the current price of fuel, Gordon Brown would have been forced to do something about it weeks ago. We can organise more protest events but quite simply WE NEED IDEAS! If you want to start something up yourself or contact like-minded folks then let us know or join the Road Users Forum to discuss your ideas. If the mass protests do in fact take place, we at www.fuelprotest.com will offer our support to the lads at the front line. Watch this space for further details. We have however, as a website, pulled back from the organisation of blockades and feel that a longer-term approach is needed to really solve the problems of fuel costs and availability.

Should you wish to take more direct action outwith this campaign we ask that you make it clear that your own particular protest is not connected with www.fuelprotest.com !

Check out our events page for information. Why not arrange your own event?

Other Campaigns

We are always open to new ideas that will move us a step closer to achieving our aim.

As a kit car owner I had designed the original Funny Car campaign around the world I know. How about you?

Email us for any motoring event you need publicity for.

There must be some great campaign ideas out there that will complement what we are trying to do. How about these groups of motorists?

Women drivers;

Taxis;

Van drivers;

Bikers;

Scooterists (?);

The Elderly or Infirm;

Commuters;

Businesses;

Celebrities;

People that have other gripes that we can help with later.

What are you???

Do not be mistaken, the Government needs YOU pay for the black hole in the economy caused by overspending and of course that tiny matter of starting an unjustified war. What are YOU going to do about it? If you think the UK motorist is being over taxed, please sign our e-Petition.

• Think about what your mobility means to you, for your standard of living and that of your family.
• Think about having no alternative to your car - forced to have a car and forced to pay through the nose to run it.
• Think what would happen if you lost your licence for exceeding any of the ever lower and ever more inappropriate speed limits.
• Think about what you will have to cut back on in order to pay £5+ for a gallon of petrol.
• Think about paying tolls to use the roads on your way to work or to enter the centre of your own town.
• Think about paying again to park your car when you get to work.

This website is constantly under development. We are looking for interesting articles, files, events listings, news, ideas, discussions, and any input that may help to further our cause together.

All messages (subject to removal of offensive, rude, slanderous, and distasteful material as per Fedweb hosting rules) will be posted in the letters page where they are submitted through a recognisable email address. Have your say!

Interesting pics or anything motoring related welcomed. Thanks for visiting this website and we hope we have done something at least to get your attention to this important subject.