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We are back to talking about petrol again, aren’t we? That can only mean bad news.
If you have been asleep or in a trance for the last few months then you won’t know that fuel prices reached a record high in April, causing consternation among those of us unlucky enough to be fully awake and conscious.
However, this was followed by a pretty good drop and all was well with the world again for a while. However, prices are starting to go back up again and our old friend “the European wholesale market” is said to be to blame.
The rather ominous words from the AA is that the price of petrol is “back on the path” to the highs which we saw earlier on in the year. In fact, since the hazy, half forgotten days of the start of July the price has crept up by 3.3 pence a litre, to 135.5, according to the dudes at the AA. This is apparently a 2.5% rise (I can’t find my calculator so I’ll trust them on that one), which is the biggest increase since spring disappeared in a hail of blooming flowers and hay fever induced sneezing.
A Tenner a Month More
It is now said that the average two car family in the UK will need to spend, gulp, £288 a month on petrol, which is an increase of a tenner from the pre July prices. In fact, the trend for lower prices lasted a whole 75 days.
The highest point in April was reached at 142.5 pence for a litre and while that seems a long way off I think we all expect that prices will go up before they go down again. The AA also warned that the cost of fuel could help to keep inflation higher than the 2% target set by the Bank of England. It seems that price tends to fall around now, due to less demand, but those wretched commodity speculators are keeping prices high while lining their own pockets this year.