'Signs that everybody's spending is dramatically slowing are now absolutely everywhere. Marks & Spencer sales are down, NCP car parks say their business has fallen and Premier Foods, the UK's largest food producer, may even breach its banking covenants. This is chilling stuff. The high street is in mortal danger because consumers are running out of money in the middle of the month. If something drastic isn't done, the first two quarters of 2012 will be an economic Armageddon the like of which we've never seen before. Its time the Government stops whistling in the dark and does something that instantly puts money back into people's pockets. The UK needs to go out and start spending again.

And the instant, immediate fix is to reduce fuel duty. FairFuelUK has always argued that high petrol and diesel prices are damaging economic growth but now our argument has a deep and dire urgency. Instead of faffing around reducing duty by a miserable penny or two in order to gain political capital, The Treasury needs to understand these immutable facts. 

Slash duty by 18% and they'll reduce transport costs, put badly needed cash into the economy, raise VAT and tax revenue by increased spending and help businesses and consumers survive the coming storm. And here's the thing. A reduction in duty will cost The Treasury very little in the long-term. Money that people don't spend on high fuel taxes will be spent elsewhere in the economy and tax revenues will be maintained. This will create growth and reduce the deficit.

On November the 15th the historic debate on fuel pricing that FairFuelUK has so tirelessly campaigned for will finally take place in the Commons with the all-important MP vote. We're working enormously hard to get MPs to understand the logic of our economic argument and to back our call for an immediate cut. This is simply the right thing to do because extrodiary times require extrodiary measures. Help us by lobbying your MP to make sure they go to the debate and realise the enormous social and economic benefits that a duty cut will bring. Fuel duty isn't a gilded calf that can't be touched, its an unfair tax that causes enormous pain to the most vulnerable in society and is strangling our desperately fragile economy'. 

SO! If you are angry and upset by the high cost of petrol and diesel please do the following two things for us as soon as you can:

1. If you haven’t already done so, go to this linkhttp://action.fairfueluk.com/debateNov15, put your postcode in and then follow the instructions to send an email to your MP urging them to attend a major debate in Parliament next Tuesday 15th November on this vital issue. If they don’t know how upset and angry we are about this issue, they may not attend.

2. Please just pass this link on to everyone you know urging them to use the link shown above above and then pass it on to all their contacts.

Quentin Willson