Stop taking motorists for granted, cut the cost of petrol and diesel now

Unless they wish to become unemployed and unemployable, Britain’s leading politicians can and must learn lessons from what happened last week in America. US voters turned heavily against their President, who is largely, if not entirely, to blame for skyrocketing fuel prices – not just in their country but elsewhere, too. Shame on you, Donald Trump.

Almost two years ago in this magazine, I claimed he was the incoming “No.1 mover and shaker in the automotive world he’s about to seriously disrupt”.

Later, I wrote about his “drill-baby-drill ethos aimed in part at reducing pump prices” and hailed him as the “most powerful car bloke on the planet, 2025”. In January this year, I praised him for playing an impressively pivotal role in lowering the price of gasoline to an average $2.31 (£1.71) per US gallon.

Then he went and blew it by waging war on Iran, creating the dire situation in the Strait of Hormuz and, in doing so, almost doubling the average price of that US gallon to over $4 (£2.96). Dodgy Donald can and should be fairly and squarely blamed for this huge price hike, which is the major reason he was given a political kicking in America’s mid-term elections. The average Joe or Jolene does not take kindly to being forced into paying around $100 (£74) or more when refuelling his or her workhorse pick-up truck or SUV, which usually covers an awful lot of gas-guzzling miles per annum.

So what’s this got to do with Britain? Plenty. What happens in the USA yesterday often tends to be replicated here tomorrow. Many of America’s 242 million drivers are so incensed by Trump upping prices at the pumps (thanks to greed, interference, warmongering and more) that they’ve voted to express their understandable disgust.

So why haven’t we, the 43 million drivers of Britain who pay two or three times more than our American cousins to fuel our cars, been equally keen to punish our guilty-as-charged politicians at the ballot box, when they’ve taxed us so unjustifiably by forcing us to pay heinously high prices for our petrol and diesel?

The lesson that Labour, the Conservatives, Reform and the Lib Dems should learn from Trump’s recent oil-related catastrophes is this: he was pasted because he arrogantly and contemptuously took drivers (most of them voters) for granted – before duly paying the political price for doing so. Quite right, too. My faith in democracy is partially restored.

The question that Burnham, Badenoch, Farage and Davey should be asking themselves is this: will I go into the next General Election (possibly in 2027) with an unashamedly pro-motorist agenda and manifesto? One that would surely win over a huge chunk of Britain’s 43 million deeply disillusioned drivers, each one of ’em with precious car, van or truck keys in their pockets… and valuable voting cards up their sleeves.

Did you know you can sell your car through Auto Express? We’ll help you get a great price and find a great deal on a new car, too.