Competition is its own regulator

Is it just my imagination, or is petrol and especially in my case diesel going up every week - in some cases, every day?

At my local garage three weeks ago, it was £1.17 a litre. Last Friday it was £1.20. I heard on the radio that they are forecasting £1.50 by September.

As usual the government is trying to pull the wool over our eyes by telling us that the rate of inflation is only 2.5% using their very convenient Consumer Prices Index as a measure, which includes such everyday shopping items as a Plasma screen TV. In the press today I saw a couple of surveys stating that a basket of popular foods and drinks had risen by over 15% in the last year.

One item in one of the lists was insurance, which had the lowest increase. Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that we are helping the government to keep inflation down?

In the UK, we must have one of the most competitive insurance markets in the world: we give customers excellent products at very competitive prices, which is just what the customer wants.

Or is it? maybe a higher being knows better!

I also see that we have a new set of laws from our nanny state, the EU, called the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which comes into force in May. As usual the law is to protect someone or something, and as usual, some of it seems like a good idea. But, as always, it is just an all-encompassing broad brushstroke, which our government has gold plated.

Two weeks ago we had a psychic wanting some liability cover, I think similar professions could be a good source of business, maybe someone should set up a special scheme for all the Spiritualists, Psychics, Mediums and Tarot card readers who now come under this new legislation as they now have to prove they did not mislead or coerce consumers.

Funny thing is, you would have thought they all would have sorted their insurance earlier, as they should have seen this coming!