Best Of

Rising fuel prices are great for the chancellor all that tax ontop of tax.

This crisis does afford an opportunity to the government to re-set fuel duty structures.

Pump prices have been historically low for some time, after repeated freezes of duty and that “temporary” 5p cut that never got reversed. From being some of the highest in Europe we are now among the lowest. Until this week they were the same in 2026 as in 2013, and that’s not even adjusting for inflation.

But raising fuel duty is always politically toxic, even if it’s just reversing a cut. It’s like abandoning the triple lock. However, a crisis means the possibility of a quid pro quo: if the government introduces an automatic stabilisation mechanism that essentially dulls volatility, easing peaks in times of high prices and moderating troughs, then if they set the range right they could help motorists now while booking a significant windfall down the line if, as seems likely, we enter another period of low prices.

Same logic has been discussed for North Sea ring fence taxation too, which would increase predictability and avoid situations like the current one (well, until Trump’s adventure) where the numbers don’t add up for investment.

Weirdly fuel duty is a price stabiliser because it's fixed - in proportionate terms, tax is actually going to fall on fuel over the next few weeks (months, years?).

It's the VAT that is going exacerbate it.

The sane approach would have been to fix the taxes on fuel to £x per litre. That way price movements don't get multiplied, the Treasury gets a steady tax return (though declining in the long run).

The only downside is "But what about windfalls of tax?". Well, when the price drops, you get the reverse. Give up both, and you get the same tax income in the long term.

Apple will reportedly launch a 'MacBook Ultra' this year featuring an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price

An ultra luxury iPhone Ultra and now a Macbook Ultra, going to be an expensive year in TSE household.

Who wants a touchscreen Mac? I don’t see the point

A touchscreen PC is a pain in the arse, apart from a few very specific use cases.

If nothing else, the screen gets covered in fingerprints and always needs cleaning.

I have an iPad if I need a touch screen for something.

My client laptop is windows - it has a touch screen which is useful for when the trackpad occasionally (fairly often) fails.

It also can’t cope with 2 27” screens with the fan whirring from the moment I switch it on at home

Has anyone used the governments new petrol price finder website? Perhaps it also has a code for "no fuel available..."

Some sites have new functionality...

Is this going to be like that incident from a few years ago, when a couple of stations in a specific area ran out of petrol, but Radio 5 Live could talk about nothing else for six hours, treating it as a national emergency and setting off panic buying among all the road warriors who spend their days listening to the radio.

I have all the toilet rolls in Norfolk. I am now de facto King of East Anglia

Apple will reportedly launch a 'MacBook Ultra' this year featuring an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price

An ultra luxury iPhone Ultra and now a Macbook Ultra, going to be an expensive year in TSE household.

I managed to spec a new BM Pro on the UK Apple Store up to £7,448.

Not sure what an even more expensive one looks like.

I suspect 128gb of memory will be essential for Devs going forward given how AI works - I think the spec for the 14” Mb I would get is £5500 ish - although as I bought a Studio earlier this year I can’t justify it just yet

The MB Pro Max top model has 48GB RAM as standard, upgrade to 128GB costs £1,000 extra.

I managed to spec a Studio up to £12,299. That one has 256GB.

Only because the entire run of 512gb M3 Ultras have been sold far earlier than Apple planned