Fuel if you think it's over

Like most dads my primary role in life as far as the kids are concerned is that of taxi driver.

From football training to dance to matchday to hockey...then by 8pm I might get time to put my feet up for an hour or so and enjoy a relaxing beer.

Yet when the recent budget revealed the two pence a litre hike in fuel tax was to be put on ice, there was hardly joy unconfined in our house.

The reason? Almost every garage in and around Birmingham had seen it coming and jacked up the prices by two pence a litre anyway.

It doesn't seem that long ago that we had fuel protesters outside Kingsbury moaning about diesel going up to 95 pence a litre - now you're lucky if you can find it for less than £1.10.

Have they gone soft or are the British public apathetic and realise there's little point having a go at Gordon Brown and Co?

The garages, in my possibly jaundiced opinion, are cynical money-grabbers operating in an environment where the Government is doing nothing to protect the public.

Surely it's not right that oil companies are raking in massive profits while drivers are hit at the pumps.

But back to the point. It's families - mums and dads in particular - who are being clobbered the hardest.

My kids need to get from A to B and they eat like horses. Petrol costs a fortune and the price of food has rocketed as hauliers pass on the costs to the consumer....effectively we're hit twice.

Time for another beer to calm me down - oh no, that's gone up as well.