IN his latest explanation of the oil shortage, I think D E Margrett may have shot himself in the foot. The first thing to hit me was his comment that the USA "is the greatest industrial power in the world".

Really? Has he actually been to America? I expect so, or he wouldn't make that sort of comment - he patriotically ignores England itself - not to mention all the other highly industrialised countries in the world.

We are not the powerhouse we once were, but we can still pack a punch! Also, the fuel protests were not so much about the rise in 'fuel' prices as the excessive tax that Uncle Gordon creams off all our pump prices!

The actual fuel price rise was small and in proportion to the demand. But Gordon Brown still takes around 75 per cent of the price you pay at the pump, which includes VAT and then another tax on the VAT itself! They are not petrol pumps - they are his private money machines!

Unfair in the extreme I call it and well worth protesting over. He's just greedy and then, when he's got it, he doesn't spend it on our roads, or even in this country, he sends it to Africa!

STANLEY D PARR,

Pershore.