Conservative Party leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt has announced the support of pro-motoring lobby group FairFuelUK, which calls for lower fuel duty for motorists, along with the news that she would cut fuel VAT by 50 per cent “immediately”.
Mordaunt, who this weeked was backed as the early front runner in the race to succeed Boris Johnson in a poll of young Conservative members and is the current second favourite with the bookmakers, spread the news of FairFuelUK’s backing on social media, saying she is “glad” for it.
Glad to have the backing of @FairFuelUK.
I will introduce an immediate 50% cut in VAT on fuel, reducing filling up the average family car by £10 per fill. #PM4PM pic.twitter.com/fnLoFZEGsv
— Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) July 10, 2022
“Penny has been a staunch and loyal backer of UK’s 37 million drivers and as an MP, is a founding supporter of FairFuelUK,” Howard Cox, founder of FairFuelUK, said.
“I have known her for 12 years and truly believe she will deliver on the need for lower and fairer fuel taxation. She will introduce fairer incentives to drive cleaner, instead of inflicting ill-informed cliff edge, idealistic and costly punitive bans.
“I am also certain she will bring a large dose of common-sense fiscal tactics to reduce the pain of the cost-of-living crisis. Our leadership survey shows she is a popular choice to lead her party to what millions of new Tory converts wanted back in 2019.
“I am looking forward at long last, to working with a kindred spirit in creating an effective road user strategy that benefits the economy and UK’s much-villified drivers.”
FairFuelUK, which is funded by the Road Haulage Association and Logistics UK, boasts that it has saved drivers £165 billion in planned fuel duty rises.
In August last year the lobby group paid for and produced a report on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers titled What does the 2030 fossil fuelled new vehicle sales ban really mean to the economy, environment, and UK’s 37m drivers?
In the report were repeated references to it aiming to give a voice to “the UK’s 37 million drivers” – described as “hard-pressed” and “perennially demonised” and all for the benefit, apparently, of cyclists, supported by the policies of a “virtue-signalling government” and a “political bias […] towards cyclists, particularly in urban areas.”
Just a week after the report’s publication, Mr Cox accused Jeremy Vine of “politicising” cycling and “fuelling a war between drivers and cyclists”.
One month later, Mr Cox blamed a “militant cyclist” for marking his house as a petrol station on Google Maps during the shortages of last September. While in February the lobby group’s founder wrote that the “lunatic Highway Code” encourages road rage and gives cyclists carte blanche.
Mordaunt’s campaign got off to a high-profile start after Paralympic athlete Jonnie Peacock was one of several public figures who asked to be removed from a promotional video.
The video also used footage of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, convicted in 2014 of the culpable homicide of his partner Reeva Steenkamp after she was shot dead at the couple’s home in Pretoria.
[Main image: Michael Hughes / DFID / CC Attribution 2.0 Generic]
67 thoughts on “Conservative leadership candidate backed by controversial FairFuelUK — pledges 50% fuel VAT cut”
Well, she’s got my vote.
Well, she’s got my vote.
I’ve just done a quick search for her and active travel, and I’m sure nobody here will be surprised to learn that the result was zero hits, but she does seem to have supported a hire bike scheme in Portsmouth; I wonder what Howard Cox thinks of that? And she did support the Times’ Cities Fit for Cycling campaign; anyone remember it?
That said, anyone so desperate for support to have to resort to the deranged FairFuelUK is doomed. And she was in Boris the Liar’s cabinet, so is tainted because she supported his lies.
Could there be a more telling
Could there be a more telling picture of someone so desperate to appease the ‘My Right To Drive’ nutter Tory lobby than this?
She’s not even the worst of
She’s not even the worst of them, not by a long chalk. Not that we get any say in who becomes our next PM.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24938/penny_mordaunt/portsmouth_north/votes
Mungecrundle wrote:
Not that we EVER get any say in who becomes our next PM.
We will have a choice of two only after the two main parties have picked a leader and then graciously allowed us to vote for one, the other or any third party who won’t win anyway.
In recent years I can only think of two leaders in the UK or USA who had huge support amongst their parties regular members and who might have actually gone against their corporate and media backers and actually kept their promises but both were removed or sabotaged by their own parties elite.
NOtotheEU wrote:
Not true – you can move to Scotland (SNP) or Northern Ireland (who knows?). Or even – Seigneur help you – the likes of Sark.
Actually, Sark doesn’t have cars. hmm…
chrisonatrike wrote:
Scotland & Northern Ireland are still all part of the UK though, at least for now anyway.
No cars & better weather? Sark sounds like paradise! I’m planning my retirement there already.
YEStotheEU.
YEStotheEU.
Unfortunately the next leader
Unfortunately the next leader will be another brexthicker. They seem to be in plentiful supply in The Tory party.
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:
I wonder if they think 90bn of damage just isn’t eniugh, and they want to get it to the full 12 figures asap
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:
From what I have heard the party is split 50/50 on Brexit, at least among the MP’s.
If you are a regular person your life will not change much whoever gets the job.
Whether you vote tory or not and whether you are a brexitier or remainer, any improvement in your life bought about by any political party will be purely coincidental to their quest to gain power and then pay back their media, corperate, and wealthy individual backers.
YEStotheEU.
YEStotheEU.
HarrogateSpa wrote:
If you are after a negative responce I’m sorry to dissapoint you. Life would be pretty boring if we all agreed and I’m perfectly capable of not hating you or insulting you when your opinions differ from mine.
I’m sure we both love cycling and want to be happy, healthy and free to live our lives as we want while being kind and not hurting others along the way.
The lack of imagination from
The lack of imagination from all the candidates is horrendous. Didn’t Penny Maudaunt say how proud she was that Portsmouth pioneered food banks. I can’t think of a more fucked up world view than that.
She also lied to parliament
She also lied to parliament to get the vote to change (cut) the firefighters pension. Check Hansard for the final exchange before the Labour spokesman, having had her lying assurance then said “In that case we can support this bill”.
….and peddled the lie that
….and peddled the lie that the UK didn’t have a veto on any future Turkey membership of the EU.
Judging by the number of
Judging by the number of short journeys and the amount of idling I see, fuel is too cheap.
Has she abandoned net zero by 2050?
I think they all have.
I think they all have.
I kinda wanted him to stay
I kinda wanted him to stay because I knew he’d lose the next election and also…his replacement will be even worse…
EddyBerckx wrote:
Yes, every subsequent tory PM has been worse than the previous one since Maggie. Which begs the question “Who could possibly be worse than Boris the Liar?” The answer being almost any of the declared candidates.
eburtthebike wrote:
FTFY
eburtthebike wrote:
Can’t believe I’m going to write this as I would never in normal circumstances defend a Tory, but John Major did abolish the Poll Tax, push through the Maastricht (sp?) Treaty in the face of strong opposition from his own party and laid pretty much all the foundations for the Good Friday Agreement, so I’d rate him significantly better than Thatcher.
Oh Yes !
Oh Yes !
Basically. People who
Basically. People who complain about an incompetent Tory PM don’t remember how much damage a competent Tory PM can do.
Oh, typical politics.cc
Oh, typical politics.cc nonsense. Why on earth would the fact that our potential next PM is glad to have the backing of a group that has been shown time and again to oppose active travel measures and indeed promotes aggressive attitudes towards cyclists have anything to do with a cycling website? More echo chamber dog whistle leftist woke drivel.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I assume this is sarcasm
You can tell that from the
You can tell that from the last sentence you dropped !
IanGlasgow wrote:
Just a smidge, though not far off the reality of a small coterie of PBUs and rightist fellow travellers who think a cycling site shouldn’t do politics (unless and until they feel like introducing a bit of politics, then it’s fine).
It’s all irrelevant posturing
It’s all irrelevant posturing as they won’t be called upon to deliver any of their promises as the only ones who get a vote are Tories who have been supporting a lying liar for the last 3 years.
Though if someone twisted my arm she’s relatively sane compared to some of the gibbering loons in the running.
I don’t know about relatively
I don’t know about relatively sane, but she does seem to be a bit smart and not as bat shit crazy as some of the other swivel eyed loons.
She will appeal to the frothers on the back benches, the first electorate she has to win with and probably to the elderly Tory party voters, who’s numbers must have been affected and lessened by COVID, and who are the second set.
And she is probably better than Truss. Watch The Cheese speach.
I’ve never met Penny Mordaunt
I’ve never met Penny Mordaunt, but a number of my colleagues have and they generally have a good opinion of her.
Steve K wrote:
She certainly seems to lie as well as any other Tory.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/12/penny-mordaunts-credibility-was-destroyed-by-her-claims-about-turkey
The problem with slashing VAT
The problem with slashing VAT on fuel when wholesale prices are high is that it won’t get put back up when prices inevitably drop.
Not just VAT: they’re all
Not just VAT: they’re all talking about slashing taxes all across the board.
Someone remind me, but aren’t taxes the main source of income for a Govt/State?
So, lower taxes means the wealthy will have more money; it means they can afford all that private healthcare they’ll need when the Govt announces, ‘sorry – no more money for the NHS, we’re selling it’; ‘no more money for social services/benefits, we’re outsourcing so a US company will run a workhouse for us’, etc etc.
The sole principle of the
The sole principle of the tory party is to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. Anything else is just fluff.
eburtthebike wrote:
Don’t forget tax evasion/havens
Discovering the lack of
Discovering the lack of dental care this week. Was offered an emergency appointment in september or ring 111.
Tax cuts also add to
Tax cuts also add to inflationary pressures.
As does virtually all
As does virtually all government spending.
All of the contendors for
All of the contendors for Conservative Party leadership and PM were ministers under Johnson, and they all happily supported him until suddenly they didn’t. I don’t think we can expect any great changes to the status quo, whoever ends up
in the firing linesorry, in the Big Chair.It’s time the Tories went
It’s time the Tories went into Opposition for a long time, preferably for ever.
There was a story in one of
There was a story in one of the papers yesterday, Number 10 was actually forced to publicly confirm that Johnson did not intend to stand as his own replacement in the leadership contest!
I think that was because
I think that was because Petronella Wyett made a joke in a tweet but it was taken literally !!
Oh, OK
Oh, OK 🙂
They’ve been in opposition in
They’ve been in opposition in Wales for a quarter of a century now.
The land of milk and honey it is not.
Jeremy Hunt?
Jeremy Hunt?
Not all of them were.
Not all of them were. Tugenhat wasn’t. He’s considerably less unplatable than the others. That doesn’t mean he’d be a great PM. He’s just not a totally nasty piece of work.
It is worrying, though, that
It is worrying, though, that we are discussing the potential PM as “Well, he’s not a total monster”
Liz Truss is stepping up her
Liz Truss is stepping up her campaign: https://newsthump.com/2022/07/12/liz-truss-appeals-to-the-tory-base-with-commitment-to-murder-everyone-under-the-age-of-40/
I prefer the Priti Patel one:
I prefer the Priti Patel one:
https://newsthump.com/2022/07/11/priti-patel-crawls-out-of-television-set-during-her-leadership-campaign-video/
brooksby wrote:
Yeah, I liked that, but she’s not running for leadership now
Sajid Javid to be humanely
Sajid Javid to be humanely destroyed after falling badly at first fence in Tory leadership race
https://newsthump.com/2022/07/13/sajid-javid-to-be-humanely-destroyed-after-falling-badly-at-first-fence-in-tory-leadership-race/
Priti Patel rules herself out
Priti Patel rules herself out of Tory leadership race to focus deporting Sir Mo Farah
https://newsthump.com/2022/07/12/priti-patel-rules-herself-out-of-tory-leadership-race-to-focus-deporting-sir-mo-farah/
brooksby wrote:
I found it amusing that the Home Office have made a statement about Sir Mo: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62137599
I like this bit from the NewsThump article
I think it’s bad, the way we
I think it’s bad, the way we all know that if Sir Mo was just Mo from the office, or Mo from the supermarket or something, the Home Office would be on him like a ton of bricks and he’d be on a flight to Rwanda before he had chance to catch breath.
Still time for our woke* PM
Still time for our woke* PM to rescind Farah’s knighthood and open that door.
* I actually saw a fox news clip last night where some english unknown claimed johnson had to go due to greta thungberg’s influence on him and also being woke.
hirsute wrote:
Statistically, anyone using “woke” unironically is 98% likely to be spouting complete rubbish
hirsute wrote:
Is that the same Fox News that won a defamation court case by arguing that “given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”
hawkinspeter wrote:
Which, IIRC, was summarised as “Well, if you are taking what we say as being actually true then that’s on you, isn’t it”
I clicked once to many times
I clicked once to many times last night, just in time to catch apoplectic middle class white man from Tunbridge Wells (or somewhere else in middle England) being interviewed on GB news:
“If they open an immigrant hostel here we’ll stop them when the get off the train and send them back, we don’t want them here, it’s far too dangerous.”
They didn’t ask him whether he was christian or not; I would love to have known that.
I don’t get how any candidate
I don’t get how any candidate for the leader of a party can promise all these things to just a few people. Surely any changes being made should have been in the manifesto being voted on by the general public, not by the members of one party which represent a fraction of a percent of the country.
Awwww – that’s so sweet that
Awwww – that’s so sweet that you think that…
Anyone ready to
Anyone ready to #BringBackBoris yet?
Many of the potential replacements are pretty terrifying.
Private Eye had a ‘Number
Private Eye had a ‘Number Crunching’ today, comparing which potential Tory leaders are using their “My parents came here from another country and made a new life” story as a positive thing in their campaigning, and comparing that against which of them support “Let’s send immigrants to Rwanda”. Funny thing is how the Venn diagram would be a circle.
Well, I’m backing Nadine
Well, I’m backing Nadine Dorres, Go Nads
Can’t a modern day Guy Fawkes
Can’t a modern day Guy Fawkes character do the job properly and blow the lot of them to smithereens? Not just the Tories, but politicians of every hue?
Perhaps we could then have the great reset and start all over again with common sense policies that appeal to the masses, rather than the minority.
If that bloke can raise £6k for a new set of gnashers I reckon a gofundme appeal might be, errr…..appealing.
Just in case anyone is
Just in case anyone is interested in the tory leadership election and their commitment to active travel, Sky tv is having a debate with all the prospective PMs, and have asked for questions from the public, so I’ve bunged one in, emphasising the value for money and public support aspects amongst others.
If anyone else feels like doing the same, newsdebates@sky.uk
Given the real audience is
Given the real audience is Conservative party members I suspect we’ll hear something more like “tough on cycling, tough on the causes of cycling” than “Bobby-dazzling Boris bikes for all”.
I’ve always thought that cycling and road safety are potential open goals for any political group, but then there’s “change” (mostly avoid) and “public opinion” (or rather – some noisy subset of that). And yes there are plenty of Conservative cyclists but it doesn’t appear this is a topic that’s important to the party – indeed maybe the opposite.