Sorry, more facts...
It costs the average (12k miles/annum) driver of the average (Cortina MkIII v Mondeo, both 2.0 litre petrol) car just about £200 more in fuel each year today than it did in 1980. In 1980 the average wage was £6k and today it is £19k. As stated above, more tax was taken out of the economy in the 1980s than today.
In addition, in Jan 2006 Gordon Brown was taking 67.5% of the price of a litre in tax, and by October last year George Osborne stung us for just 57% of a litre price in tax.
In so many ways we have never had more disposable income. Even during the contrived boom years Gordon Brown set up he took more of our GDP in tax and charged us more tax on a litre of fuel. A a nation we owe more than £1trillion in personal debt and we are still paying that down. For the next 50 years we will be paying off the £1trillion the Government has borrowed to bail out the banks, and that will suck even more tax out of us.
Sorry to say that even if the fuel duty went down to 40% (£1/litre), that would only release £8bn into a £900bn economy. Not enough to give anyone anything to relieve the current situation.
I know I am a pain, but the facts and some reasoning don't support the position that Wilson and Co. put out - they are just making publicity. That's my point; people see fuel prices as the fix for everything but in fact it fixes nothing as it is just a flea-bite number in the whole economy. There are so many other things that will conspire to keep the economy as it is for the next ten years that fuel price is just a distraction. Sorry!
PS - the Mrs. just went to fill her car at the same station - gone up 1p a litre since Thursday!