VAT and petrol prices - 'It all makes for a grim start to 2011'

It doesn't dilute the pain much, either, that we all knew last weekend's increase in fuel duty and today's VAT rise were coming.

Combined, they mean that drivers are facing hikes of 3p to 4p per litre on the petrol or diesel they need to get around, and a further duty rise in April could double that increase.

Here in the Lothians, the News has already found petrol stations where the cost of diesel has broken the 1.30 barrier, with unleaded due to follow today - taking prices to about a quarter higher than they were just a year ago.

As well as the general cost of filling up, the rise in fuel prices adds to pressure on struggling freight firms, likely forcing some out of business and pushing up the price tag on a spectrum of goods as costs of getting them into the shops are passed on.

It all makes for a grim start to 2011 and it can surely only be a matter of time until we face fuel protests like those which threatened to cripple the UK in 2000 - when drivers rebelled at paying "just" 80p per litre for unleaded petrol or diesel.

Not that any of the main political parties are guilt-free: it was Labour's Alistair Darling who planned the latest 0.76p fuel price increase, while the Lib Dems and Tories have respectively gone back on pledges to resist VAT and further fuel rises.

Fuel and wider cost rises could yet play a big role in May's Holyrood election - and here the SNP has a clear message, having called for the VAT increase to be deferred for six months and, of course, for Scotland to have wider powers over fuel duty.

Ed Miliband has moved into popular territory by calling the VAT rise the wrong tax at the wrong time, but the bad news is that with each penny on fuel bringing in 500 million to the Exchequer, there is unlikely to be relief any time soon.

Bunny boiler

EDINBURGH has nothing to prove when it comes to being open-minded about the arts. We show it every August, after all.

But it is hard to see there being much appetite locally for Ian Moir's plan to parade a dead rabbit around the Capital and then crucify it on Arthur's Seat.

Many people will have some sympathy with his view that both Christmas and Easter are overly commercialised these days, especially those who recently had to face down the excessive demands of kids weaned on a diet of constant TV adverts for toys and gizmos.

But the answer isn't to nail a dead bunny to a cross in a very public place. And, sorry Ian, but that isn't art either.