On the subject of the increased demand for fuel, I made sure I was in one of the queues early on so I could fill up. We all knew the manufactured frenzy whipped up by the gutter press would result in supply issues so I figured I had a duty to myself/family to make sure that I wasnât caught up in the shortages (in turn playing my part in the self fulfilling prophecy).
Still, itâs generated a lot of clicks and eyeballs on those gutter news websites so itâs worked out well for them. I wonder what theyâll report on next. I donât think theyâve played up the turkey shortage to the max yet.
Trouble is if you tell someone not to panic you just know their going to panic. Luckily myself and the wife both working from home at the moment so not using our cars much. ÂŁ50 of diesel is lasting me over a month when previously it only got me through the week.
Makes me laugh when they come on TV saying everything is fine despite everyone involved with trucking, petrol or any other industry suffering problems saying its not.
Boris says a lot of things. He not worth listening too. I remember at the start of the pandemic when there was concern around social distancing he said he was out there shaking as many hands as possible and we all know how that ended up.
If âpeople panic anywayâ then might as well tell the truth. A mature, responsible government would at least acknowledge there is an issue before detailing what, if anything, they plan to do.
To people who are saying this is nothing to do with Brexit: why arenât EU countries facing the same shortages? Itâs not just the loss of 15 thousand EU drivers here, in the EU single-market, cabotage is easier. Might see if my car will run on blue passports and remoaner tears.
TBF they are not saying everything is fine, they are saying there is no shortage which there is not. It is only due to panic buying and in many places not an issue at all. I filled up last night in a empty station.
And people in the industry are not all united in saying the opposite. Many have highlighted problems caused by cheap labour eroding work conditions and pay for years.
The simple fact is too many people live in echo chambers now on both the left and right wing when reality is somewhere in the middle.
Thatâs not to say HMG have done a good job at all, I wouldnât let them run my bath, but too many people are tribal today and ignore reality. Just look at the Labour conference to see how ridiculous it is getting when they should be uniting and offering an alternative government and not bickering with each other.
Just to echo this, on Saturday I saw massive queues everywhere even at 23:20, so didnât bother even queuing despite my tank being almost empty (about 20 miles left). The only place that still had fuel after maybe midday were the pricier ones, like Texaco, but as I said, the queues persisted all day and night.
On Sunday lunchtime, I noticed Sainsburyâs had reopened with a long queue (Iâd estimate 30 cars waiting), but when I went on to the Tescoâs, there was barely any queue - with free pumps, the delay was just because only half had diesel, so they were stopping everyone to make sure they went to the correct pump.
By Monday, I noticed that all the garages seemed to have fully reopened with no queues at all.
To be honest, Iâm surprised that people are still talking about this. With the best will in the world, if people are going to panic buy anything, then there will be supply issues. This isnât a fuel issue, this is a basic fact of modern just-in-time delivery supply chains.
With fuel, there arenât really many contingencies people can make. Once your car is empty you either fill it up, or else donât use it for a journey you presumably needed to make. I denounce the violence, the aggression, the idiots running out with jerry cans - I wish they could be banned but understand why thatâs impractical - but ultimately at the first signs of shortage there will be more acute panic with fuel than anything else.
Contrast this with the situation with food. The media have been talking about food supply issues for months, and theyâre not wrong the situation is tentative. But with food, people have learned from 18 months ago that there are ways and means of handling that in a relatively orderly manner without increasing what they buy (and/or have learned that if you panic buy a freezer, fridge and six cupboardsâ worth of food that you have no intention of eating, youâre just throwing money down the drain).
All very true but and this is why it is never black and white, many people are just topping up tanks so they have full tanks with no real need to do so. This is what is causing the shortage. I understand panic but people always use the nurses etc as a reason for needing to but the vast majority did not need to run out to the pump and make sure they canât get another drop in the tank and sometimes extra in cans etc.
The real sad thing about all this is that not enough is being made of why this proves EV and solar are a great idea to get ASAP. We have scared people away from public transport so they use more fuel and then moan about the environment
MSM and social media thrive on a constant crisis and people believe then live it. Maybe I live in a magical area of the country but food shelves are pretty full and I have always got what I wanted bar a few things for a week during toilet roll panic and never had more than 5-10 mins wait for petrol similar to a busy/sunny bank holiday.
