Fuel protests: who's won?

Who's in trouble now?

The Metropolitan Police estimated this lunchtime that the final tally of lorries joining the fuel protest in London would be around 450.

They came from all over the South of England, with a hundred-strong contingent travelling up the M4 from Wales.

All the drivers were issued with a notice of the rules they would be required to follow, and were instructed to park their vehicles on the A40 road to the west of the city centre. From there they had to make their way to the Hyde Park rally on foot or by public transport.

In their original planning, the Police thought that thousands of vehicles might converge on the capital, but it's become clear in the past few days many potential fuel-protestors have decided to stay at home.

Not disappointed

The People's Fuel Lobby, which organised the demonstration, denied that they were disappointed by the response.

Hauliers make their point

On the World at One, one of the PFL leaders, Mark Francis, said that none of his fellow-protestors wanted to inconvenience the public who had 'had enough' in recent weeks. Some, he pointed out, were still trying to clear up after the floods.

Future plans

But Mr Francis insisted that in the future, when the weather improved and the railway system was back to normal, public support for the campaign to cut fuel-duties would be as strong as it was in September.

There has certainly been no gloating from Government ministers about their apparent success in averting a second fuel-crisis.

Since the original protests in September, they have worked strenuously to make sure that the 60-day deadline laid down by campaigners did not trigger another wave of direct action.

Concessions

The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, set up a task force with the oil companies and the police to find ways of keeping fuel flowing whatever happened. While the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, prepared the £2.25 billion package of concessions presented in last week's Autumn Statement.

This stick and carrot approach - for the time being at least - seems to have paid off, although the People's Fuel Lobby says it will not rest until it has achieved deep cuts - up to 26 pence a litre - in the duty on petrol and diesel.

The opposition spokesman, Archie Norman, however, accused the Government of storing up trouble for the future.

He attacked the Chancellor's measures as being too complicated, and said that the promised 3 pence cut in the duty on low-sulphur fuel was likely to be clawed back by the oil companies because of the higher refining costs.

And the Shadow Transport Secretary said that his party would stick by their plan to cut the duties by three pence across the board.