Politicians are failing UK motorists, the war on cars must stop

With almost 2,000 of my columns published since I helped launch Auto Express in 1988, now seems an appropriate time to reflect on a handful of the written warnings, suggestions, predictions and demands I’ve issued and the reactions they provoked.  

First, the con known as Special Car Tax. One of my first campaigns was to meet the Government and others to fight for its abolition. By the early nineties, the tax was scrapped. My pleasure. You’re welcome.  

More recently, I’ve argued that as most pre-tax car prices have rocketed in the 2020s, the Government is now inappropriately profiteering from its 20 per cent VAT. A parent needing a seven-seater for his/her large clan currently has to pay as much as £12,967 in VAT when purchasing, say, a Kia EV9. A reduction of this excessive tax on new car sales is essential. 

It’s a similar tale of legalised theft with petrol and diesel taxes and levies. In 2022, I exclusively revealed that BP pumps were selling fuel at more than £10 a gallon. The £2.21 litre/£10-plus gallon has made a comeback in 2026. Yet HM Treasury’s tax take is still at the same, exorbitantly high level. There’s something almost obscene about all this. 

Talking of obscenities, the Government last week admitted that it has considered scrapping the HS2 debacle. The project has already sucked tens of billions of pounds from our wallets, with the total bill expected to be well over £100 billion. There will be no trains until 2036 at least. Tickets will be prohibitively expensive. HS2 is Britain at its worst. 

Driverless vehicles are largely unwanted – not least because they’ll make millions of taxi, van, truck and other drivers redundant, and Britain will rob itself of the income and other taxes they paid before being forced to claim state benefits. A Waymo recently driving into a police cordon and, separately, a fleet of them gridlocking a cul-de-sac, prove that the rush to dump driverless vehicles on public roads is problematic and premature. 

As is the refusal of the Government to create more UK jobs, profits and legitimate taxes by drilling for and harvesting urgently needed new reserves of UK oil and gas. Madness. 

Almost as mad as the ban on the sale of new pure-petrol and diesel cars in 43 months. The deadline is unworkable, because consumers hate being told what they can and can’t own and drive. Also, countless companies are massively modifying or abandoning their ludicrously loss-making EV strategies as they reluctantly admit what I’ve been pointing out for years: demand for such vehicles from genuine, paying customers is nowhere near as high as manufacturers and politicians guessed it would be. 

Worry not. I remain convinced that new pure-petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles will be sold alongside EVs for many years, if not decades, to come. And that’s the way things should be. It’s called consumer choice. And we need more, not less, of it.   

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