ARE we supposed to thank George Osborne for delaying the fuel increase?

Some might, but with the gap between rich and poor increasing by the second, it can only end in more losers than winners. Looking to poverty; the future and the bigger picture, much more is needed!

At the tail-end of the human race — the Rat Race — we have “dirt poor”.

In war-torn Sudan, for instance, where petrol’s the least of their worries, women (at risk of rape and genocide) must walk miles and queue for hours to get the family’s daily water supply, and diseased water at that.

Leading “the race” are the filthy rich with private jets taking them to paradise, where the water in just one swimming pool would keep a dirt-poor village thirst and disease free for months.

Who in Britain suffers water poverty? Isn’t Britain paradise?

Not quite! Back in February, the RAC Foundation issued figures showing that four in five families were living in “transport poverty”. Today, that poverty has surely increased, and even with the price rise delay, millions of families will remain so.

Doesn’t poverty create a divide at every level? With transport, it’s those who walk and cycle, and those who have cars — man power v petrol power.

Then divide drivers: those who must drive economically and, indeed, safely (can’t afford a crash — no car; injured; no job), and those with money to burn.

To any driver on a motorway looking to keep their cost of living down, it’s all too apparent that a good many drivers (travelling way in excess of 70mph) don’t fear high fuel prices, or indeed crashing.

On public roads, however, it’s the slow-moving and unprotected pedestrians and cyclists for whom excessive speed becomes all too apparent. At best it’s intimidating, at worst, terrorising. After all, aren’t we looking at potentially lethal missiles, which kill and seriously injure seven children daily?

How unfair does it need to get before the poor get a better deal? With increasing poverty, financial crises, and climate change, don’t we need zero tolerance on excessive speed?

An end to unlawful gas-guzzling, and to unlawful CO2 pollution; an end to anti-social disregard for the nation’s poor and vulnerable.

Land, road space, speed, money, food, water — when rich takes more than its fair share, leaving poor “for dead”, how greedy is that? If a glutton with enough food on their plate to feed 10 denies a starving family a crust, how selfish is that?

If speeding-rich kills walking-poor, how uncivilised is that? Women in Sudan, pedestrians in Britain: with speed, greed and no compassion, how cheap will life become?

Allan Ramsay Radcliffe Moor Road Radcliffe