THE price of crude oil has risen because of the rapid industrialisation of China and India, which, between them, have 38 per cent of the planet's population.

Then a cataclysmic natural disaster knocked out eight giant oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, thus causing a petrol shortage in USA, the greatest industrial power in the World.

These events have caused a dramatic increase in petrol prices at the pumps in the UK. Of course, these causative occurrences are beyond the control of the British government. It is, therefore, criminal folly for farmers, truckers or anybody else to contemplate even, causing further chaos by mounting so-called blockades.

D E MARGRETT,

Worcester.