>From my perspective it looks as if the German situation is much different
from the British one:
1. It looks as if the Blair government is in its deepest crisis, where as
their German counter-part is much more popular at the moment.
2. Fuel prices are much more higher in the UK than in Germany
3. Certainly the working class does not like to pay increased taxes and
higher fuel prices, but the protest are lead by the private transport
business and the peasants. Since the peasants are highly subsidized at the
expense of the working class and shifting transport from the train to
private trucks is seen as partly responsible for the traffic jam, the
protests dont spill over to other parts of the society. The unions oppose
them.
4. The conservatives are using the protests as a tool to divert attention
from their own funding scandal. The CDU/CSU is concentrating on the planned
increase of the fuel tax at the beginning of next year, but obviously the
tax increase is responsible for only a small share of the current fuel price
increase. Most of the price increase is due to high oil prices and a weak
Euro. Furthermore as a compensation for increased fuel prices the payments
for the pension scheme were reduced.
So there is not so much need to appease popular protest, which is clearly sectional and manipulated by a still unpopular conservative opposition.
Johannes