Bernard Ingham: Nuclear answer to the ever-rising price of petrol

Incidentally, I am still lecturing on the subject – and if our utterly misguided Energy Secretary. Chris Huhne. has anything to do with it, I've got a job for life.

The easy bit was getting to Lancaster by train. But how would I get from the station to the university? This was a good question because farmers and hauliers were trying to blockade the country to a halt in protest at escalating petrol and diesel prices.

As it happened, I found a taxi driver with a tiger in his tank and the buses were running.

Petrol prices were then about 81p per litre. When I filled up the other day, I paid 119.9p for unleaded.

For all the panic buying and undoubted, if patchy, disruption the protest caused, at a cost to business of about 1bn, clearly did not have much long-term effect. The protest petered out after six days following the Government's invocation of emergency powers to keep fuel flowing to the forecourts.

In November 2000, Gordon Brown staged a modest tactical retreat in a budget effectively ending the fuel price escalator, which the Tories had introduced in 1993.

But petrol and diesel prices have continued to rise – to about 90p in 2005 when there was more unrest; to about 1 in 2007, when transport got uppity again, though with even less conviction; and now to the 120p mark.

So far, the only signs of acute distress are to be found in Unite, the trade union that is bidding to take over the Parliamentary Labour Party. It says tanker drivers are being "forced" towards conflict with the oil companies because of "job losses, pay cuts and constant re-organisation".

Before the drivers stop doing what they are paid to do, they would be well advised to consult Unite's British Airways' cabin crew and take my word for it that within four days of the start of the 2000 blockade, public sympathy for the disrupters had fallen from 78 to 36 per cent.

The British public are suckers for almost any collective action you can think of – until it interferes with their convenience.

After a decade of intermittent unrest and much exposure of the

breakdown in the cost of a litre of petrol, people only too readily

blame the oil companies for profiteering at the pumps. Yet the Government has consistently taken the lion's share of what you pay for your fuel.

Whisper it softly when we have a 156bn budget deficit, but that lion's share has steadily fallen in percentage terms since 2000 when fuel duty and VAT accounted for 75.2 per cent of the pump price. In 2005, it was down to 66.7 and two years later, to 65.2 per cent. Now it is only 63.5 per cent, though with an increase in VAT from 17.5 to 20 per cent to come in January.

On this basis, the 2000 blockaders might claim some success, though not if they recall they were demanding anything from 15-26p per litre off the tax.

Still, the Government runs off with roughly two-thirds of what we pay to fill up our tanks. It is unlikely to get much lower since there is nothing left in the kitty, to paraphrase a singularly insouciant former Labour Treasury Minister.

Let us also face the fact that our demand is what economists call price inelastic. It is not just that we are wedded to our cars. Speaking for myself, I simply could not enjoy my present lifestyle with my physical limitations, even in an outer suburb of London, without a vehicle. The authorities have us where they want us. They know we will pay.

So, petrol prices can only get worse medium term. Oil production is going to struggle mightily to keep pace with demand, with India, China and South America roaring ahead, and sooner or later we shall

hit "peak oil" – when it starts to fall behind what the world needs.

That is why Secretary Huhne should hear my updated lecture on why we need nuclear power. The only way in the foreseeable future we are going to reduce transport's very substantial oil demand is to electrify our vehicles. And the only way to electrify them cleanly is through nuclear power.

So when next time you fill up, remember it is the likes of Secretary Huhne who are part of the problem.