Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have decided we all need a little bit of summer cheer.

The economy is shaky, the jobless figures have taken a big jump, and public servants are out on a rare strike.

Add to that the fact that the voters of Glasgow East will give their verdict next week in a contest vital to Mr Brown's short-term fortunes, and you can see why they have decided against holding back what little piece of good news they have in the locker.

Scrapping the 2p October fuel rise was never in doubt. It has happened a lot in recent years and this time round it was inevitable. Motorists are hard-pressed and many are staying off the roads. That might be welcome to the Government if the objective was only to secure its green objectives. But people using less fuel ironically means less revenue for the Treasury. And they are going to need it if they are to make the sums add up in the autumn Pre-Budget report.

So rather than wait until September to provide a little post-holiday relief, the Chancellor has acted now. It is another way for him and Mr Brown to reassure the voters that they do understand people's pain and are doing what they can to ease it.

But, as Mr Brown readily acknowledges in private, there is a limit to what any government can do in the short term to counter the impact of the high world oil price, which now looks with us to stay. At the G8 summit last week he was preaching the case for alternative energy forms and found a listening audience. According to officials, every leader at the gathering in Japan was seized of the need to diversify. So Mr Brown thinks the world needs 1,000 new nuclear stations and has decided that at least eight will be sited in Britain. Unfortunately for him none of those will come on stream until after at least two general elections. His needs are more pressing and will the electorate thank him for thinking ahead?

Treasury officials admit they have an extremely busy summer ahead of them. The Chancellor has to sort out a permanent solution to the 10p tax rate abolition row which has already cost him an additional £2.7 billion this year. Then he has to look at again at his reshaping of vehicle excise duty. Labour MPs want him to drop the plan to tax more highly the heavier emission cars which have been bought since 2002. They say such "retrospection", a word the Treasury refuses to accept, is inequitable.

Today's decision was easy and pain-free for Mr Darling. He has a lot harder ones ahead.

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