Who's Bribing Who

The fact that yet again in a tight by election Gordon Brown's Government bring out a big policy decision; this time it is the freeze on oil duties.

Of course Alex Salmond and David Cameron are both up in arms that Gordon and his Darling sidekick are bribing the electorate of Glasgow East. But hang on one minute weren't these the same two party leaders who earlier in the campaign took great pleasure in informing us all that 60% of the Glasgow East electorate do not own cars. So obviously Gordon is only therefore concerned about the 40% down in Mount Vernon and other such locales that actually own their own transport.

Of course it is only a freeze and the Government will have already made up for it through the increased VAT they have already experienced on fuel since the start of the year. So hardly much sacrifice on the part of the exchequer just rearranging the money in the coffers really. In fact this was an orchestrated bit of teasing out a decision to do the right thing under current circumstances. Maybe the Government had finally noticed the the fuel price rises were already affecting their inflationary targets and heaping fuel, pardon the pun, on that particular fire wasn't very helpful.

The fact that they do wait long over such decisions and then turn them out at key moments does smell of hypocrisy, but then so does the Tories and Nats speaking at cross purposes about just what the electorate in Glasgow East is like and liable to benefit from most.