As a driver, smoker and drinker I feel like I am single-handedly funding the
redecoration of MP's second homes.
On the other hand, and unpopular though it is, there is an argument that the rise in fuel prices is around about the level required to encourage people not to use their cars as much which, while we continue to primarily use oil for fuel, is pretty much a necessary (I hate it but that sadly does not make it any less true).
TBH I wouldn't mind so much if public transport wasn't such a steaming pile of shit in our country; dirty, under-capacity, unreliable, inconvenient and full of arseholes. Until they get that sorted people are tied to using their cars and so eventually there will come a tipping-point where the government has to take public transport and/or alternative fuel seriously rather than just soaking up all the tax they can squeeze from the little people to spend on on their fancy rugs, mock tudor windows, £5000 taxi bills, official cars, egotistical multi-billion money-sink projects and medieval foreign policy.
Yes, OPEC rig the prices and tax is a big chunk of prices at the pump but even if those two things did not happen Oil prices will continue to rise because oil is a finite resource, demand is ever growing, the stuff is running out and what's left is harder to get.
We need to elect someone with real motivation to find alternatives and the will to do something concrete to make the solutions happen. Sadly there does not appear to be anyone around who fits the bill. Lot's of talk and little conviction or deed to back it up. It's not easy as someone will complain about whatever solutions are proposed - people don't like change, especially change that requires even a temporary sacrifice, and are reluctant to admit things cannot go on the way they are forever. Changing the world's energy use is probably the biggest political challenge facing ever seen.