british politicians are facing one disaster after another but the way they are facing them should be a lesson for the tribe that exists in India.

As in our country, the high fuel prices have become a source of major contention and with fuel blockades being threatened there is panic buying and retail outlets are running out of fuel. The protesters consisting of truckers and farmers who have come under the banner of People's Fuel Lobby are demanding a tax cut in fuel taxes. Indeed the potential for reducing fuel prices through tax cuts is enormous.

Unleaded petrol costs 80.6 pence (Rs 56.4) per litre of which 75.4 per cent is made up of taxes. But chancellor Gordon Brown, the country's finance minister, has refused to buckle under the pressure even though the government is expected to have a budget surplus of nearly