Donald Macleod: Dipstick Phil is driving me mad (in my dirty diesel)

I’M fuming at Phillip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his blatant highway robbery.

Owners of new vehicles, particularly of “dirty” diesel vehicles, were treated as April fuels in his recent budget.

He introduced punishing new tax bands on April 1, based on how many grammes of CO2 per km a new vehicle emits, as well as an extra tax for those who can afford to buy a car costing more than £40,000, regardless of how clean the engine is.

Simply put, the lower a car’s emissions, the less the owner will pay in tax.

Zero-emission vehicles, such as electric cars, will pay zero. Owners of 4x4s, delivery vans, lorries, taxis and whole fleet of other diesel vehicles will be fleeced and blamed for our so-called poor air quality.

That’s even though vehicle emissions contribute a miniscule amount of air pollution compared to the huge effects that air travel, wood burning and the wind of the world’s cattle do.

And let’s not forget the massive amount of poison being spewed into the atmosphere from coal-fired electricity generating power stations, especially in China.

These are facts that are ignored when the subject of air pollution and its effects on health comes up.

Instead, the motorist ends up paying the price for the world’s ills.

I don’t disagree there are 12,000 deaths a year in the UK attributed to air pollution.

I do disagree, as a driver of a diesel car, with the ridiculous view being spouted by government and pressure groups like Clean Air, who claimed diesel engines were “the biggest health catastrophe since the Black Death” that myself and the other 11 million UK owners of diesel vehicles are somehow at fault for these deaths.

I also question the reasoning, behind hiking up the tax for these vehicles.

Are they really saying the blame for the nation’s health problems lie with the drivers of diesel vehicles – but if they pay more in tax everything will be OK?

That a heavy fine will make the whole problem disappear?

It’s an ineffectual solution politicians apply to problems they don’t have an answer for,

Smoking – increase tax. Alcohol – increase tax. Obesity – increase tax. Fuel poverty – increase tax. Motoring – increase tax and the duty on fuel, squeeze the motorist dry and then increase the taxes some more.

No, the problem lies with their outpouring of ill-informed lies and money-making half-truths.

The furore they have created over diesel emissions has spectacularly back-fired.

Unless the brakes are applied, this will become a financial car crash and wreck the UK’s car industry.

The rush to buy new vehicles before the April 1 deadline on the new tax bands was as welcome on the forecourt as it was worrying for the Government.

A record number of new vehicles – 540,000 – were sold.

Motorists took one look at the new tax bands and were driven to purchasing a new car. All very well, but how will new car sales play out over the rest of the year? Where’s the incentive to buy a new car if they are only going to get clattered by the Government.

I will want compensated for any losses I incur when I try to sell my car. After all, ex-Labour PM Tony Blair’s Government actually encouraged us to buy diesel vehicles as they were better for the environment, a policy we now know was based on lies.

No, enough is enough.

PM May says owners of older diesel vehicles will not be taken for a ride by her government.

Well, she has a lot of miles to cover and I doubt she has enough fuel in the tank to go the distance – especially as she is carrying such a dipstick of a chancellor.