[Closed] Petrol Prices........

Look at the developments in technology where there is a demand. I have spent the best part of 30 years working in IT (yeah, I know) and have seen amazing advances. Why? Because there is a demand and the will to supply it. In terms of motoring, there is not the will to provide an alternative? Why? Because the status quo generates a shit load of tax.

Battery Technology is the problem, petrol and diesel are very efficient ways of storing energy, Li-Ion cells aren't. While a electric motor will get a car from a to b perfectly well the question is how to provide energy to that motor? I should also point out the problem with rare earth metals and obtaining enough to manufacture enough batteries.

We've spent the last 50 or 60 years setting everything up to revolve around cars, and we can't just pull the rug out now. It's all very well saying people shouldn't live 50 miles from where they work (although I often do!) but rightly or wrongly people do, and it's all bound up with all sorts of other things like home ownership aspirations and the lifestyle priorities people have.
But I do think it's little short of a tragedy how much everything has been given over to the car and what it's done to us and our environment. Sure it's improved our quality of life in some ways but in others it's been very detrimental and I'd like to see that recognised more.
For the role of the car to change though lots of other things have got to change too and it's a massive ask. I think it's telling that bikebuoy and others talk about people's rights being somehow curtailed if they can't drive when or where they like, but I reckon people are going to have to start rethinking their expectations about lots of things over the next couple of decades, and their `rights' won't come into it.

Battery Technology is the problem, petrol and diesel are very efficient ways of storing energy, Li-Ion cells aren't. While a electric motor will get a car from a to b perfectly well the question is how to provide energy to that motor? I should also point out the problem with rare earth metals and obtaining enough to manufacture enough batteries.

Where there is a will (and a buck to be made...) there is a way. But there isn't the will.

coyote - there is plenty of will. there is no way. You cannot get anything like the energy density in batteries. Huge amounts of research going on

Battery tech is so much better than it used to be - but its still not even in the same universe as petrol

Electric cars are simply not going to replace the petrol one unless there is a major breakthrough in battery tech.

You need to take your head out of the sand. the days of cheap energy are over. even electric will go up and there is no alternative fuel possible that can provide the amopunt of energy needed.

it took 50 years to get here - I think we could change it in 25 to end our dependence on the car.

I think there has been a small but noticeable shift already, the greatest of which (as Ianmunro pointed out) is the internet which enables more and more people to work from home at least some of the time. Shopping via the internet is another.

A small Tesco has also opened in the village next to mine and is open until 11pm which means I can get groceries enroute home instead of an 8 mile trip to the shopping centre. They have obviously done their homework and realised that a smaller local version will be profitable now and presumably even more so in the future.

I really can't see many people giving up their car in the short to medium term and with advances in technology via solar panels, electric cars will become much more prevalent. As JTD pointed out, we have expanded our 'living circle' in line with the ability to travel relatively cheaply and quickly and contrary to what TJ is saying, that energy via the sun is not about to go for some time, we just need to harness it a bit more efficiently.

There has been too radical a shift in population distribution and the way society works in general to return to non-reliance on the car. It is just not going to happen.

woody - how?

Please tell the world this amazing new form of energy storage that you know about that no one else does?

there has been serious and significant research on this for decades and non one has come up with anything that even looks hopeful.

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Biofuels - simply not enough crop growing land, electricity - storage is so poor and yo still need to make it somehow, hydrogen - storage and manufacture too difficult.

so please - all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Maybe the science world hasn't seen fit to inform you yet TJ
[img] [/img]

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Of course you are not privy to the R&D departments of major corporations. Just because it's not on Google doesn't mean it's not being worked on.

Biofuels - simply not enough crop growing land

Agreed, total non-starter. It is not the green option it is often mooted as. Vast tracts of land would have to be turned over to the production of crops.

electricity - storage is so poor and yo still need to make it somehow, hydrogen - storage and manufacture too difficult.

It is not in the interest of govt or big business to produce either. Vast quantities of revenue for both in oil. Not so in other technologies.

so please - all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

Sadly, I am not clever enough to come up with that one. However I do know that battering people into submission with tax is not big and it's certainly not clever.

Please tell the world this amazing new form of energy storage that you know about that no one else does?

TJ, you are right when you say we have not seen a significant game changer in energy storage technology commercially but that doesn't mean we won't.

We have seen a progressive improvement in battery technology over the last 25 years. If anyone remembers the old 6V ever-ready Zinc style batteries and you compare them to the modern lithium-ion batteries in your iphone for example, technology has come on significantly. This can be seen in other energy storage technologies too for solar collectors etc.

Science will provide! 🙂

yes we have seen improvement in batteries. However its still not in the ballpark for an adequate car. Costs of thousands, range of a few miles,uses loads of rare materials, been researched into for decades.

Batteries don't need to double the capacity - they need to be 100 times as good. And they still need to be charged by something - all the infrastructure and energy consumption that requires

What touching faith that science will provide something - me - I'd rather be pragmatic and plan for the end of cheap energy so we are well placed and organised as this happens. The is no sign of an alternative energy source being developed

all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

Fusion? Granted that doesn't solve all the storage issue but it is a way of generating large amounts of energy. Not a whole solution by any means but it certainly has a part to play.

and how are we going to get that energy into the cars?

No one has made a working fusion generator yet anyway. So thats two bits of imaginary tech to be invented - the car energy storage and the electricity generator

and how are we going to get that energy into the cars?

No one has made a working fusion generator yet anyway. So thats two bits of imaginary tech to be invented - the car energy storage and the electricity generator

25 years ago no-one had DVD's... BLue rays, USB storage or only just a half decent microchip. I was selling 8mb of RAM for over £120 a time less than 20 years ago.
Now i can buy over 100 times that for the same price.

Technology will catch up... just not yet.

Batteries don't need to double the capacity - they need to be 100 times as good

100 times? What's that based on? You need to have a car that has a range of 20,000miles between charges?

Nuclear Fusion whilst not finished is not far away.

Electric cars using huge arrays of expensive batteries have a practical range of tens of miles. Certainly batteries need to be orders of magnitude more capacity to be anything like practicable.

Fusion - really. Pie in the sky.

so you think two unknown technologies will suddenly become viable in the next ten years?

UK fuel is cheaper than Italy!!!! a litre of unleaded in our village 1.63 euro. thats £1.45 a litre.

diesel is the cheapest in the supermarket at the local town for 1.42 euro £1.26 litre.

Fusion - really. Pie in the sky.

Have you actually read anything about Fusion technology at all and how far advanced it is?

The first electric cars would carry 2 peope had a range of 30-40 miles and a top speed of 40mph.

The new generation of electric cars will carry 5 people, travel at 90mph and have a range of 115miles.

Stop typing so fast and give your brain chance to catch up!

so you think two [s]un[/s]known technologies will [s]suddenly[/s] become viable in the next [s]ten[/s] 15-20 years?

Yes.

The Earth was once flat, man would never walk on the moon and the thought of splitting an Atom was witchcraft!

TJ to call fusion imaginary technology and pie in the sky is wrong and only serves to highlight your ignorance. It is already being worked on here in the UK and I'm sure at other sites. Whether it will realised within 10 years I don't know, personally I doubt that it will be on a comercial scale, but neither will oil and gas run out by then either so that's a rather pointless timescale to impose.

As for the car part well which part of

Granted that doesn't solve all the storage issue but it is a way of generating large amounts of energy.

did you not read.

LHS - what electric car does that? Even if one did you have still not solved the issue of the rare raw materials - we do not have enough to make the amount of batteries required to replace every car with an electric one nor do we have the generating capacity nor the charging infrastructure.

Fusion - its no where near ready and I don't believe it ever will be. Its apparently 25 years away and has been since I was a kid

We need solutions now. Not based on an imaginary next generation tech. We need to moving to the post car society now in a controlled and planned manner.

Granted that doesn't solve all the storage issue but it is a way of generating large amounts of energy.

No it is not! it might be in the future sometime but now - its pie in the sky - not even close to being a practicable realisable tech.

I am not ignorant. I am realistic.

Fusion - its no where near ready and I don't believe it ever will be.

Do you not believe a 'transporter' system from Star Trek or high speed space flight will EVER be viable ?

IT's completely insane what you're saying.

Look at technology in 100 year past. We'd only just invented cars 100 or so years ago. Bicycles were made of wood and flying was a new technology. We can now fly faster than the speed of sound (by quite a lot actually), we've been to the moon (maybe) and are debating a manned flight to Mars...

However you think fusion technology will NEVER happen ?

Come on...seriously ?

No- its completely insane to think that battery tech and fusion will suddenly magically become viable when there is no sign at all of it happening. No one has demonstrated a battey with anything like the capacity needed

No one has ever made a stable fusion generator on any scale yet.

ten years is the sort of timescale that we need to be looking at to start implementing the solutions -we need it all in place with 25 years.

To move to fusion and electic cars is a huge infrastructure development 0- it can't be done overnight

tens of millions of charging points needed for starters

Agree totally... but there's a huge difference between 25 years and never.

No-one is trying to say it will be a week on Friday...

Whoah there - [b]Fusion?[/b] you're making a bit of a leap arent you TJ.

No reason we can't use existing clean forms of electricity production (nuclear, wind, wave etc) to make Hydrogen and fuel hydrogen fuel cells.

I really don't know where you get the "storage and manufacture too difficult" - its no more difficult than storing LPG and there are Hydrogen powered vehicles out there at the moment - generation isnt a problem, we just need plenty of electricity to do it.

proven technology that we could start pushing tomorrow, easy to refuel and maintain our current lifestyles without dependence on hydrocarbons.

Hear that - [b]maintain our current lifestyles[/b] in a clean and efficient fashion - no need for all the painful changes you're trying to impose on everybody.

The Win-Win scenario.

...Electric cars will never be able to do what petrol ones do - simply not enough energy storage...

maybe true, but they'll get close enough for most people to not really notice much difference.

you can buy battery cars that'll do 100 miles per charge, and recharge in about an hour.

this is fine for city driving: less than 100 miles

and not too bad for distance driving: drive for 2 hours, have a coffee/pee/rest repeat.

someday soon we'll see a battery-exchange system trialled; where batteries will be swapped over in minutes.

it's not going to happen tomorrow, partly because there's so much more profitable oil to sell first*...

(*there really is loads left, 3,000,000,000,000 barrels is a good estimate. it's enough to last 100 years at the current rate of consumption. Assuming we can wean ourselves off the stuff - we'll still be burning oil in 200 years, we've got plenty of time to adapt)

Fusion - others said that was the solution not me.

Hydrogen - very difficult to store and move - far more so than LPG. Put hydrogen in a steel tank and it will escape. Fuel cells - where are you going to get the rare raw materials from to make them on the scale needed?

I think hydrogen could be a part of the solution to power generation - like a scaled up version of the unst project but it will never be viable as a fuel source for cars in the time-scale needed.

you can buy battery cars that'll do 100 miles per charge, and recharge in about an hour.

Any links?

nissan leaf.

100 miles, and a recharege time of about an hour does not sound great.

But, it's good enough for most journeys, and not even that bad for long distance stuff.

and in 10 years it'll be a bit better, and etc.

LHS - what electric car does that?

Nissan Leaf, that new Renault Fluence.

No one has ever made a stable fusion generator on any scale yet.

They're building a number of reactors around the world, France, Japan and the USA.

They said you can't generate the heat to start a fusion reaction.

Done.

They said you can't control it within a magnetic field

Done.

They said you can't generate Nuclear Fusion in a controlled fashion.

Done.

Don't limit your views based on what you don't know!

So do we move nearer to work or nearer to the good trails? THAT is the real delema

tens of millions of charging points needed for starters

ahem:
[img] http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSERid9UBE7MPCbMu3nLyAXjGtMYo7NOiZHEzm79wYNqFMI1DS_ [/img]

they're not ideal; they can't handle the high currents needed for rapid-recharge.

but if you can park your car in the garage, and leave it overnight, you can get 100miles worth of 'fuel' for about £1.

Do you not believe a 'transporter' system from Star Trek or high speed space flight will EVER be viable ?

I don't. It's not always just a matter of giving it more time.

LHS so who has made a stable electricity generating fusion plant?

The nissan leaf quick recharge is 3 phase is it not and will shorten battery life, its not a full recharge anyway and its real range is nowhere near 100 miles.

recharging it off a standard socket is 10 - 20 hrs

awhiles - still need the recharging points - I have not noticed many standard sockets on the road

Hear that - maintain our current lifestyles in a clean and efficient fashion - no need for all the painful changes you're trying to impose on everybody.

The Win-Win scenario.

Dunno about that. However they're powered, millions of cars dominating the country and jamming up the roads is not A Good Thing IMO.

TJ the latest Tesla or Karma electric cars will and do have ranges of up to 300 miles (depending on which battery you choose). These are big saloons but cost appox the same/ a little more as equivalent BMW/Merc/Audi. They have all the range 99.9% of people require and will be less cost to the end user once you take the petrol out of the equation. Once the large companies get into this area (VW golf in 2013) economies of scale will bring costs down (already most new cars are designed for multiple power sources -electric/hybrid/petrol/diesel) we just have to get over our skeptism as consumers and buy them - this is largely why they are not being made. However I think that reasonable range (50miles or so) hybrids/range extenders will be the way the car market goes in the next 10-20years.

As for our power needs. Yes fuel/electricity is going to become more costly but alternative techs fusion/nuclear/renewablable will take over as they become cost effective to fosil fuels (they are just not a sustainable business at the moment).

Fusion - the utlra high power lasers are going close to generating energy. As a scientist I feel that eventually we will find a way to fusion - it just takes a huge amount of time and effort.

...so who has made a stable electricity generating fusion plant?...

we're* building it now! 🙂

[url= http://www.iter.org/ ]www.iter.org[/url]

(*Europe)

LHS so who has made a stable electricity generating fusion plant?

No one.

Good to see armchair scientists at work here. All speculation and random verbalisation in conversation. All good, not didmissing any points but in reality, current reality, that affects everyone here and there..

The need to cut fuel duty. And after last nights debates it looks like it'll happen. I hope that 110000 online petition is enough to sway the current political format, but I fear if the petition was widely known and promoted it would surely have gotten more votes. I voted.

The real point should be why do we have to be taxed 2/3rds on goods we buy, it's the only "product" that is treated this way.

Can we ignore the "not enough money for Edinburgh's tram system to go further than the end of Princess St" please and bring back the basic need for people to move around, now, freely.

Shall we.

Cos' my wifes parents can't afford to get in thier car from rural Harrogate and go fetch some shopping.

Think local not global for a change, think about how it affects you and your family.

LHS - Member

"LHS so who has made a stable electricity generating fusion plant?"

No one.

Point made. In the timescales we need this to happen fusion cannot be apart of the answer

awhiles - still need the recharging points - I have not noticed many standard sockets on the road

my point is this:

for lots and lots of people, battery cars are ALREADY a viable option.

they're cheap to run, and lots and lots of people already have the means to recharge them at home.

it's already happened.

stupid double post.

bikebouy - I ask you again - how are you going to fund the road network and why do you believe non drivers should further subsidise drivers? Why should it cost me money so your wifes parents can live an unsustainable lifestyle?

An electric charging point has appeared at the leisure centre just down the road from me, never seen anyone using it yet though but it's a start I suppose.

...how are you going to fund the road network and why do you believe non drivers should further subsidise drivers? Why should it cost me money so your wifes parents can live an unsustainable lifestyle?...

aren't we always banging on about how cars don't pay road-tax - roads are paid for out of our council tax?

and aren't we always banging on about how roads are there for people/bikes/horses? - cars needing a license to use them?

we all use roads - even people without cars.

roads are ace.

'challenging' fuel issues will force cars/vehicles to become lighter, road wear will reduce, maintenance costs will come down.

at the moment, battery cars are fine for the '2 car household' where they also have a petrol car. The trouble is that they are a bit pricey

In the next 10 years I don't see why hydrogen won't be the tech to use. It can be seen as just a way of storing electricity. Production hydrogen cars already exist, it wouldn't take much in the way of tax incentive (lets say - fuel stations with hydrogen pumps don't have to pay the latest increase on fuel duty - that'd get them built pretty quick) to get a network of filling stations built.

Interestingly, I wonder what the environmental impact of thousands of tonnes of water vapour being released in central london will be..

for lots and lots of people, battery cars are ALREADY a viable option

As much as I wish it were the case, I don't think it is. Have you seen the prices? You cannot justify the purchase on grounds of economy given the usage patterns they need.

Point made. In the timescales we need this to happen fusion cannot be apart of the answer

😯

What do you mean point made? There is no point made at all.

What timescales are you referring too? Is the world suddenly going to run of electricity in the next 25 years.

Are you privvy to some information the rest of us are not?

Have you seen the prices?

much of the purchase price is for the lovely exotic stuff in the battery.

which will be worth loads even when it's knackered.

second-hand prices will be interesting...

Roads are maintained by Council Tax, proven (a million times over, with major routes maintained by COunty Council via both Council Tax and Govt funding), no need to hammer that particular point anylonger thank you Mr City dweller.

As for my wifes parents moving, nope, thier choice to live where they wish as is yours to live in the city.

You pay council tax don't you? Ahh good, I see you have a motor vehicle of some sort too, good, then you use the roads and transport facilities, good, facilities that should be open to all.

I think you need to get out more.

As for my wifes parents moving, nope, thier choice to live where they wish as is yours to live in the city.

It's their choice to rely on their car so much then. Obviously people have the right to live where they want but they don't have the right to be free of the problems that go with that.

LHS - we need the replacement for the petrol driven car to be in place in 25 years or less as oil will be running out then and oil will be prohibitivly expensive. Fusion will not be viable in that timescale. Fusion cannot be a part of the solution. Point made.

Bikebouy - so you want me to pay more tax so your wifes parents have to pay less.

5lab - how are you going to solve the issues of Hydrogen storage and transport? You still have to have the elecrrcity to create split water to get the hydrogen.

313mpg. Would that help a bit?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/volkswagen/8293372/Volkswagen-XL1-review.html

we need the replacement for the petrol driven car to be in place in 25 years or less as oil will be running out then and oil will be prohibitivly expensive.

nah, the canadians have realised just how much money they can make out of the tar sands, they'll continue to rape their wilderness for money, and we'll burn the oil they sell us.

you may not like it*, but that's what going to happen.

and when Alberta has been scraped back to the magma, we'll move onto Saskatchewan/Montana/Dakota/blackpool**...

There is simply loads of oil left - and it's profitable at $115/barrel.

(*i don't, but that won't stop everyone else buying/burning the stuff)

(**pathetic attempt at humour)

stumpy - thats the sort of realist direction for a stop gap solution.

All this talk of electric cars misses a fundamental point. There is no plausible scenario in which we could generate enough electricity to power our road vehicles as well as our homes and factories.

The unpalatable truth is that we need to significantly reduce energy demand.

LHS - we need the replacement for the petrol driven car to be in place in 25 years or less as oil will be running out then and oil will be prohibitivly expensive. Fusion will not be viable in that timescale. Fusion cannot be a part of the solution. Point made

I thought latest estimates were that we had recoverable oil reserves equating to approximately 60 years, with countries like Canada, Venezuela and Iraq having recoverable reserves of over 120 years. Thats with current extraction technology which can on average only pump out a fraction of what is actually there.

Developing fusion in the next 15-20 years gives us plenty of time.

indeed ransos - and petrol is going to get more an more expensive. Anyone who thinks we can carry on as we are doing into the future is sadly mistaken and hiding from reality.
There is a lot of this going on
[img] [/img]

Nice wheels stumpy. Thats the great thing about the future....it's really exciting.

Get off your bloody high horse TJ.

To move to fusion and electic cars is a huge infrastructure development 0- it can't be done overnight

tens of millions of charging points needed for starters

Ever heard the phrase, necessity is the mother of invention?

We absolutely MUST massively increase distance working.

How many of you need to physically be at the place you work? TJ of course, who else? I sure as hell don't. In fact as I type I am also having a work conversation via sametime....

Woody - most people on here seem to be saying that some new tech will come along that means no adjustment is needed or flatly denying there is an issue. No high horse at all from me - just a realistic attitude to teh massive changes needed

Hydrocarbons are a dwindling source and there will be a period of adjustment (probably naturally via the spiralling cost).

I would like to do this adjustment in a controlled and planned manner - anticipating the changes not waiting to be forced. My preferred mechanism for doing this is to ratchet up fuel prices and use the money generated to smooth the changes needed.

I believe people massively underestimate the scale of the change needed

I like going to work. I dont want to work from home and I'm not going to.

How many of you need to physically be at the place you work?

Yup and have to use diesel to do it too.

I don't either.. i could work 5 days a week from home.. not sure the bosses agree fully although they are quite flexible.

electric ambulance for you drac?

Whilst some of me agrees in principle with what TJ is saying, planned change is much better than forced change.
From other threads it has been debated and a common theme is that we need to keep growth in the economy to avoid recession. If we now hike taxes on fuel will we not stunt growth over the whole of society, impacting the poorest families.

electric ambulance for you drac?

Probably not make it to the hospital and if it did we'd have to wait 24 hour for it to charge.

Whilst some of me agrees in principle with what TJ is saying, planned change is much better than forced change.
From other threads it has been debated and a common theme is that we need to keep growth in the economy to avoid recession. If we now hike taxes on fuel will we not stunt growth over the whole of society, impacting the poorest families.

Absolutely, but people have a lot of inertia and most of them won't change their ways until they're made to.

[s]As a small incidental those who say push up fuel prices might like this one. At a rough estimate it every penny increase per litre costs about £300 per year more just for my station alone. Which is the roughly equivalent of one transport to hospital.[/s]

Ooops I messed my equation right up. I timed by 52 (weeks) instead of 12 (months) so it £66 per year.

😳

Sorry, TJ's approach is bollocks, and the worst of the socialist "we know whats best for you" totalitarian top down tell the proles what to do, know your place, shite

If petrol gets sparse and expensive then it will naturally limit supply and cause changes in use over time, nobody has suggested for one second that it will suddenly disapper tomorrow, Mad Max was a work of fiction, not a documentary.

we've already seen huge changes in use and improvements in technology to counter this gradual change - it happens slowly, but it takes place, but as was said, it took us 50 years to get here, its will take 25 to change - that will happen of itself.

Petrol is artificially expensive because we tax the **** out of it, simple as.

If petrol gets more expensive, then thats life, and we will see alternative technologies come forward as they become more viable - I'm all for government reducing taxes for alternative technologies - but the change does not need to be foistered upon people, it happens of its own accord, and over time.

but people have a lot of inertia and most of them won't change their ways until they're made to.

Yep, but if petrol gets sparser, then it becomes more expensive, and that makes them change

I'm sorry TJ, but maybe you ought to consider taking these off.

People like living where they do out of choice, and thankfully you have no control over that aspect of those individuals lives.

[img] [/img]

so zulu - you would rather react to events rather than anticipate and make change planned and easy.

BTW - my approach is nothing to do with socialism and socialism and totalitarianism are different things

Bikebouy - can you explain why I should have to pay more tax to subsidise your wifes parents lifestyle?

awhiles - still need the recharging points - I have not noticed many standard sockets on the road

Or they could implement a battery swapping scheme where you effectively rent a battery then swap it when it's flat. I think they've got a trial scheme running in Israel or somewhere.

so thats massively increasing the amount of raw materials needed to manufacture batteries, that means the batteries will need to all be interchangable and have you seen the size of a decent car electric battery to say nothing of the cost of it

make change planned and easy

i) Change is never easy
ii) Yes, we'll all work in the factory the government tell us to, live in the house they tell us to, and marry someone from the town we were born in, grow up in, and die in.

I'll tell you this TJ - hows about you explain to someones kids why nanny and grandad cannot visit more often, because petrol has been artificially hiked up, because thats whats good for them 🙄

Yep, but if petrol gets sparser, then it becomes more expensive, and that makes them change

Yes, that's what I meant- they'll change when they have to, but isn't the problem the situation they'll be in then? Everything still set up for car dependence, but with no car? I think TJ's point is that it might be wise to anticipate this rather than just wait for the penny to drop.

Bikebouy - can you explain why I should have to pay more tax to subsidise your wifes parents lifestyle?

Because people want to exercise their right to live wherever they want, without accepting that there is a responsibility attached to those rights. A responsibility to appreciate that their future situation may change and a responsibility to fork out for that change should it arrive.

My parents moved to a small market town and chose to live within five mins walk of the town centre inc. local shops, amenities and PT links. They recognised there would be a time when they couldn't drive and did what they could to mitigate it. Many people don't think long term...

can you explain why I should have to pay more tax to subsidise your wifes parents lifestyle

To be fair TJ, I've been asking [b]you[/b] this very same question every time we've discussed public sector wages and pensions, and you've never once come up with an explanation on why I should pay more tax to subsidise [b]your[/b] lifestyle 😉