Day Jar View

This isn’t going to be some polemic on the outrageous cost of oil, and how dare the government take 60% of the cost of a litre of petrol in tax, and than have the sheer audacity to charge us VAT too! It isn’t going to be one of those.

In fact, I actually think petrol is still too cheap. There, I said it.

And before you say anything, I do drive; and it isn’t some feeble 1 litre Getz that does 300 mpg, which I only use on warm days when the traffic is light and the wind is behind me in order to conserve fuel. I drive a 3 litre diesel estate, which goes like the proverbial off a shovel, as well as fitting the missus and my daughter in the back (not the boot I hasten to add).

The reason I think petrol is still too cheap is that it is only in the past few months that my nearest petrol station has started charging me more for my petrol than my corner shop does for my milk.

I pay 55p per half litre for milk, which equates to £1.10 per litre, and I pay around £1.30 for diesel.

I don’t remember ever seeing anyone protesting about the price of milk, except those on the receiving end of our reluctance to pay a proper price for it: the farmers. Why not? £1.10 is more than 30p per litre higher than petrol was at the height of the fuel protests in September 2000.

Now, I’m no scientist, but I don’t think you get milk from the ground; I think it comes from a cow. And cows produce it with little or no engineering, other than a bit of grass-grinding with their teeth, and presumably some amazing alchemy work in their four stomachs. Sounds pretty cheap to me.

Oil, however, comes out of the ground, and it takes an amazing amount of time, money and effort to get it out. And it isn’t going to be replaced, at least not in our lifetime. Of course, over millions of years it will gradually be replaced by rotting vegetation and sedimentary activity, but we are gulping it down too fast for that. Milk, on the other hand, is limited only by the number of cows and the amount of grass around, assuming the government doesn’t build on all of it.

So here’s my suggestion. Unless you know where an untapped oilfield is, and you know how to get the black stuff out of the ground, and you can afford to develop the site, pump it out, distribute it, process it into the various fuel grades, and then distribute it again, I would keep my mouth shut about the price of it if I were you. Or by all means moan, but then please spend an equal amount of time working out what we are going to replace it with.

And in the meantime, think about organising a milk protest and see how far you get. Count me in!