Petrol panic buying

[XAM2175]

(This was really a non-story blown up by ITV and BBC to create a crisis to promote a Remainiac agenda, but that's another issue; the original BBC website report was actually correct and low-key but the headline was clickbait and panic-inducing).

Oh please

I should clarify. That's where the Brexit myth is coming from, for those curious.

The shortage of HGV drivers has been exacerbated by Brexit, unquestionably - first in that a certain number of EU-citizen drivers chose to go home, and secondly in that a much larger number of non-resident drivers are no longer willing to put up the with hassle now involved in crossing the border.

 

[MattRat]

The shortage of HGV drivers has been exacerbated by Brexit, unquestionably - first in that a certain number of EU-citizen drivers chose to go home, and secondly in that a much larger number of non-resident drivers are no longer willing to put up the with hassle now involved in crossing the border.

Then why is the USA having the exact same problem as the UK, when they have no such migration problems?

 

[XAM2175]

Then why is the USA having the exact same problem as the UK ...

Leaving aside your apparent and deeply-flawed assumption that everything in the US has to happen for the exact same reasons as in Britain, is it the US actually experiencing the same problem at the moment?

 

[the sniper]

For people who've got it in for the BBC, whatever they do and whatever words they choose will be wrong.

And so much for people not believing the BBC anymore if they managed to cause this...

 

[GB]

The situation in the US was/is slightly different. First of all one of their major pipelines were hacked and had to be taken off line which caused a lot of panic buying as seen over here. This was back in May. Then when that was back online there was a huge demand for fuel (due to previous panic buying) and they found themselves short of truck drivers due to layoffs with the pandemic and older drivers having retired. I assume supply is back to normal over there as I haven't seen any news articles after early June.

 

[alxndr]

The problem I had on Monday was that I needed AdBlue but was not allowed onto the HGV area to use the AdBlue pump due to HGVs queuing (service station on M-way was only selling diesel to HGVs), in the end I managed to get a small drum of AdBlue from the forecourt- but had to resort to making a funnel out of a water bottle to get it into the tank.

Was there not a screw in spout hidden under the label? I don't think I've ever found one which didn't.

 

[Iskra]

I’m seeing less traffic on the roads, I think discretionary leisure travel is well down. The Premier Inn I was at last night and the restaurant car park was half empty while it’s been constantly full for the last 5 weeks. During the day I’ve seen a decline in business at work. There’s a risk of a knock on economic affect to an already fragile (in places) hospitality industry.

 

[reddragon]

Brexit is the cause of the supply chain crisis simply because it was the tipping point that tipped a creaking system over the edge.

90% of the cause was not Brexit.

 

[yorksrob]

That said, we do still need to address those underlying supply chain issues, rather than having the country constantly on a knife edge awaiting the next shock.

 

[chorleyjeff]

That said, we do still need to address those underlying supply chain issues, rather than having the country constantly on a knife edge awaiting the next shock.

Agreed. Also applies to providing more resilient food and particularly energy security but saying so provokes accusations of being a Little Englander and isolationist when it is just a limited means of reducing short term shocks to our economy.

 

[jon0844]

Depends how good the depot delivery systems are. It's all about cash-flow.

When bulk fuel is ordered (whether by a forecourt retailer, railway or other) the fuel is paid for at the point of delivery or before. Then it's sold over time. Where demand is predictable and fuel available on a next-day basis it's easy to keep the fuel in-fuel out levels balanced- so the tanks don't run dry AND also so there's not much cash tied up in unsold fuel.

That is actually why the BP forecourts were having problems originally- when they had to wait a week between deliveries it was harder to predict and they didn't want cash tied up in unsold fuel so they didn't always get it right- so ran dry. (This was really a non-story blown up by ITV and BBC to create a crisis to promote a Remainiac agenda, but that's another issue; the original BBC website report was actually correct and low-key but the headline was clickbait and panic-inducing).

Where trains are serviced regularly, there will be a known level of use and a regular delivery schedule....... so unlikely to be an issue. A problem might arise if a bunch of trains got out of pattern due to an incident and ended up at a different depot to usual. All depends on how tight things are being run, especially if the depot also lets freight locos fill up there too.



Resilience and emergency planning is unpopular because you needs to spend money without seeing immediate return- like an insurance policy, no-one likes paying but everyone is glad they had it when a mishap occurs and it pays out.



You don't necessarily need bigger tanks at existing fuel stations- just more of them (and under control of those who need them). Why does every ambulance station, Fire Station, Police HQ and Local Authority Highways depot not have their own fuel tanks? I'll tell you why; the top brass would rather spend money on "diversity officers" and on being all "engaged" rather than on the nuts and bolts of delivering a resilient service. Usual politricks which lets down the front line. Once upon a time not so long ago, they would all have had their own fuel systems.

In the last fuel crisis, I worked in mid-Wales. In those days, the Local Authority Highways dept had fuel tanks in every depot- as they needed a reliable supply particularly for winter salting. So they made that available to the local Emergency Services. But that fuel system was relatively unusual, even then most LAs had got rid of or were getting rid of tanks rather than maintain and replace them as they aged. Thing is, if the Elected Members have a choice between a few more books in schools or paying to secure infrastructure resilience inevitably the emotions will win and it'll be books in schools (or another emotive issue) any day.

There's also far fewer fuel stations that before- just look at how many became second-hand car dealers or fix-it garages- because the big supermarkets undercut their margins (the big supermarkets were often selling fuel at a lower price than these small forecourts could buy it for). Plus the regulations for underground tanks are onerous (and above-ground tanks need space and new planning permission which in a built-up area might be difficult to obtain).



I take issue with this sort of "fuel rationing." Like the emotive response which tends to prevent proper resilience spend, it's all very well to gush over helping "Doctors and Teachers" jump the queue, but they won't be able to do much if the lights go out because power workers cannot fix faults or food is not delivered to supermarkets. And are ALL of the HGV journeys being done strictly necessary or could they wait a day or two? There were plenty HGVs on the M42 and M5 today and I doubt very much they were ALL carrying "essential" supplies like food. Perhaps the local care worker or the local Train Driver needs the diesel more than the truck with a container of garden furniture on it......?

There's also some rather more "essential" things than (say) the local school or GP- starting with electricity, gas, water and sewage infrastructure, food deliveries and blue-light services.

I do wonder if all the Category 1 responders in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 actually have "failure of fuel availability" in their Risk Assessments; even if they did, one could argue their mitigations were obviously unsuccessful and they have failed in one of their core duties.



Road tankers to train maintenance depots. Big fuel tanks, with dispensing pumps- fueling roads with the correct dispensing fittings for the units/locos using the system. Can also have the tanking facility on the same pad, put the train in and fuel/tank it. (I was involved in the upgrade of such a depot facility a year or few back). Pretty sure most if not all use road tankers.


Basically- resilience costs money.

The current fuel crisis is primarily a media/RHA construct by Remainers with an agenda to take political advantage of the fact that for 20 years successive govts have run down resilience and robustness- the "peace dividend" and it all started when the Berlin Wall came down. Blair was the PFI artist, although Thatcher started the "externalization" of Local Authority based services, Blair continued it with a vengeance and often the stuff lost was the infrastructure needed for resilience like fuel systems.

Finally- the media has been very silent on the role of DVLA and the PCS union on the HGV driver situation. DVLA is in a hack of a state and the sooner the heads of DVLA management and the PCS whingers are banged together and they start behaving like grown-ups the better.

TPO

tl;dr: Problems all down to remaniacs in the media and the hiring of diversity officers instead of installing fuel tanks.

And so much for people not believing the BBC anymore if they managed to cause this...

Indeed, the #defundtheBBC brigade all say they never, ever watch it. They won't even allow the BBC onto the TVs.

But they know everything the BBC supposedly said, and almost certainly went out to buy fuel.

Never mention the fact the Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph and GB News had all the photos and video of long queues too. I guess they were simply commenting on the BBC's inconsiderate reporting, not of the news itself.

Is it that only those who voted remain were 'stupid' enough to try and get petrol? All leavers presumably staying at home without a care in the world as they know there's no shortage of fuel. Sure, they can't get the fuel, but they know there's plenty of it.

 

[Dai Corner]

tl;dr: Problems all down to remaniacs in the media and the hiring of diversity officers instead of installing fuel tanks.

But Councils need to be seen to ensure that nobody has found it more difficult to buy fuel due to having a protected characteristic.

 

[jon0844]

But Councils need to be seen to ensure that nobody has found it more difficult to buy fuel due to having a protected characteristic.

Councils have had so much funding cut from central Government that it's no surprise that more and more things are outsourced. Giving staff fuel cards to fill up at local petrol stations saves a whole load of logistics, regulations and so on.

Problem is; things like this then cause the problems we see here.

The emergency services have limited filling facilities and I believe many use normal petrol stations as a matter of course. The ones at HQ simply couldn't cope with filling up the entire fleet.

For them, is that even down to local councils or the Government of the day?

I'd ignore attempts to deflect by the mentioning of 'diversity officers' and the like. Not only is it unlikely that if such a post exists, the money was sourced by closing a fuel filling facility, it also ignores what the role actually exists for and the actual benefits of ensuring an employer is caring for all of its employees and the people it serves.

 

[Dai Corner]

Councils have had so much funding cut from central Government that it's no surprise that more and more things are outsourced. Giving staff fuel cards to fill up at local petrol stations saves a whole load of logistics, regulations and so on.

Problem is; things like this then cause the problems we see here.

The emergency services have limited filling facilities and I believe many use normal petrol stations as a matter of course. The ones at HQ simply couldn't cope with filling up the entire fleet.

For them, is that even down to local councils or the Government of the day?

I'd ignore attempts to deflect by the mentioning of 'diversity officers' and the like. Not only is it unlikely that if such a post exists, the money was sourced by closing a fuel filling facility, it also ignores what the role actually exists for and the actual benefits of ensuring an employer is caring for all of its employees and the people it serves.

Perhaps I was too subtle and should have actually added an emoticon rather than let it be implied by the context.

 

[reddragon]

There are 2 key issues here.

1 - Most HGV license holders do no drive a HGV. This is because they want a job with a living wage; to be able to see their family and have a family life; to have facilities on the road and not wee in a pot & wash on the roadside with baby wipes.

2 - We are all wrong to expect free same / next day deliveries. It is destructive on those who work in the supply industry and the cause the above. Big business expects free immediate just in time supply at below cost. This is wrong.

This is not about Brexit, remain or what the BBC reported. We are in a huge mess due to greed, all of us!

 

[jon0844]

It seems the jobs of tomorrow will likely be made up of quite a large number of delivery drivers of some sort or another. I can't see businesses ever wanting to pay well, and will be hoping that they can rush through more and more people to get the necessary licenses so they can keep wages down as they always have. The current bounties and pay increases won't last once we can find a balance.

Ocado HQ has now installed a new machine that can issue 110 meals per hour. On test now, but if successful they'll install more. Think of it as a fancy robotic vending machine, where you customise your order (ingredients etc) and it makes the meal and cooks it. A great way to get rid of kitchen staff and replace with a minimum-wage operative that refills and cleans from time to time. More likely Ocado will outsource that to the company that makes the machine, so said employee will drive there and get paid peanuts and not have to enjoy any benefits that an Ocado member of staff might enjoy.

Everyone hopes for the day all these vehicles will drive around automatically. I don't believe for one second anyone will get to level 5 autonomous anytime soon, so we're going to need to keep drivers for another 10 or 20 years at least (not least we need people to load and unload/deliver) but that's the aim.

Because so many people keep pretending that this 'this time next year' we'll be millionaires! everything will be automated, I am sure some businesses bought into this (no doubt even invested their own money into these startups) and thought they wouldn't need to worry about staffing for much longer.

 

[reddragon]

An excellent place to keep up on this is from Robert Llewelyn on the Fully Charged show.

In his news show he talks about over sized SUVs, talks to Energy UK about the energy crisis, our failure on domestic heating (what Insulate Britain are on about) etc

 

[341o2]

Petrol reacts chemically with most plastics. You cannot for example lay a water main in plastic through land contaminated with hydrocarbons for this very reason.

The dangers of doing this was demonstrated in spectaular style during the last fuel crisis some 20 years ago. A family was storing petrol in water containers at home, the outbuilding filled with vapour from the leaking containers. When the central heating was started, they didn't have any outbuilding, let alone a central heating boiler.
I was talking to someone yesterday who believes the whole situation regarding the current crisis has been orchestrated because the refineries have stocks of fuel near its sell by date due to the lack of demand during lockdown. Furthermore, as everybody is blaming someone else, it takes the heat off the government.

 

[reddragon]

The dangers of doing this was demonstrated in spectaular style during the last fuel crisis some 20 years ago. A family was storing petrol in water containers at home, the outbuilding filled with vapour from the leaking containers. When the central heating was started, they didn't have any outbuilding, let alone a central heating boiler.
I was talking to someone yesterday who believes the whole situation regarding the current crisis has been orchestrated because the refineries have stocks of fuel near its sell by date due to the lack of demand during lockdown. Furthermore, as everybody is blaming someone else, it takes the heat off the government.

Well it was BP and not the media who set this all off, so it makes some sense. Petrol / diesel has a short shelf life!

 

[RichJF]

I rode my motorbike to the office today & dare I say it, it looked like a little improvement.

Still 50% of forecourts closed, but the queues were much smaller than on Sat/Sun/Mon. Say 5-10 cars in each queue instead of the 30-40 that were everywhere at the wekend.

Hopefully a good sign of things easing *touch wood*.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I woke up with the truth in my head this morning.

It is "Just In Time" at fault - well kind of !.

What I realised is the one part of Just In Time chain that no one seems to have identified is the last link in the supply chain. That is :- All those motorists who only ever fill up at the last minute and then many only put in a small amount of fuel. They have broken the rule (well their predicted behaviour) by filling to the brim and earlier than they usually do. OK why did they do it ? - becase they lost fauth in the very system they relied on, are part of and helped create - and that system relied on them.

It is why I have held fast and not yet bought petrol. I usually buy when I hit around 1/4 of a tank and then I fill to the brim. I fill prematurely if I have a long journey coming up. I have not yet modified that behaviour in the face of this panic. I have put off car journeys in the hope that normallity is just around the corner. After all these failed Just In Time motorists cannot keep buying extra petrol so the supply chain will eventually catch up.

BUT, now that limiting the amount of fuel one can buy has raised its head, I too will join the queues. I need to make sure I never have more space in my tank than for £30 worth of fuel.

Depends how good the depot delivery systems are. It's all about cash-flow.

When bulk fuel is ordered (whether by a forecourt retailer, railway or other) the fuel is paid for at the point of delivery or before. Then it's sold over time. Where demand is predictable and fuel available on a next-day basis it's easy to keep the fuel in-fuel out levels balanced- so the tanks don't run dry AND also so there's not much cash tied up in unsold fuel.

That is actually why the BP forecourts were having problems originally- when they had to wait a week between deliveries it was harder to predict and they didn't want cash tied up in unsold fuel so they didn't always get it right- so ran dry. (This was really a non-story blown up by ITV and BBC to create a crisis to promote a Remainiac agenda, but that's another issue; the original BBC website report was actually correct and low-key but the headline was clickbait and panic-inducing).

Where trains are serviced regularly, there will be a known level of use and a regular delivery schedule....... so unlikely to be an issue. A problem might arise if a bunch of trains got out of pattern due to an incident and ended up at a different depot to usual. All depends on how tight things are being run, especially if the depot also lets freight locos fill up there too.



Resilience and emergency planning is unpopular because you needs to spend money without seeing immediate return- like an insurance policy, no-one likes paying but everyone is glad they had it when a mishap occurs and it pays out.



You don't necessarily need bigger tanks at existing fuel stations- just more of them (and under control of those who need them). Why does every ambulance station, Fire Station, Police HQ and Local Authority Highways depot not have their own fuel tanks? I'll tell you why; the top brass would rather spend money on "diversity officers" and on being all "engaged" rather than on the nuts and bolts of delivering a resilient service. Usual politricks which lets down the front line. Once upon a time not so long ago, they would all have had their own fuel systems.

In the last fuel crisis, I worked in mid-Wales. In those days, the Local Authority Highways dept had fuel tanks in every depot- as they needed a reliable supply particularly for winter salting. So they made that available to the local Emergency Services. But that fuel system was relatively unusual, even then most LAs had got rid of or were getting rid of tanks rather than maintain and replace them as they aged. Thing is, if the Elected Members have a choice between a few more books in schools or paying to secure infrastructure resilience inevitably the emotions will win and it'll be books in schools (or another emotive issue) any day.

There's also far fewer fuel stations that before- just look at how many became second-hand car dealers or fix-it garages- because the big supermarkets undercut their margins (the big supermarkets were often selling fuel at a lower price than these small forecourts could buy it for). Plus the regulations for underground tanks are onerous (and above-ground tanks need space and new planning permission which in a built-up area might be difficult to obtain).



I take issue with this sort of "fuel rationing." Like the emotive response which tends to prevent proper resilience spend, it's all very well to gush over helping "Doctors and Teachers" jump the queue, but they won't be able to do much if the lights go out because power workers cannot fix faults or food is not delivered to supermarkets. And are ALL of the HGV journeys being done strictly necessary or could they wait a day or two? There were plenty HGVs on the M42 and M5 today and I doubt very much they were ALL carrying "essential" supplies like food. Perhaps the local care worker or the local Train Driver needs the diesel more than the truck with a container of garden furniture on it......?

There's also some rather more "essential" things than (say) the local school or GP- starting with electricity, gas, water and sewage infrastructure, food deliveries and blue-light services.

I do wonder if all the Category 1 responders in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 actually have "failure of fuel availability" in their Risk Assessments; even if they did, one could argue their mitigations were obviously unsuccessful and they have failed in one of their core duties.



Road tankers to train maintenance depots. Big fuel tanks, with dispensing pumps- fueling roads with the correct dispensing fittings for the units/locos using the system. Can also have the tanking facility on the same pad, put the train in and fuel/tank it. (I was involved in the upgrade of such a depot facility a year or few back). Pretty sure most if not all use road tankers.


Basically- resilience costs money.

The current fuel crisis is primarily a media/RHA construct by Remainers with an agenda to take political advantage of the fact that for 20 years successive govts have run down resilience and robustness- the "peace dividend" and it all started when the Berlin Wall came down. Blair was the PFI artist, although Thatcher started the "externalization" of Local Authority based services, Blair continued it with a vengeance and often the stuff lost was the infrastructure needed for resilience like fuel systems.

Finally- the media has been very silent on the role of DVLA and the PCS union on the HGV driver situation. DVLA is in a hack of a state and the sooner the heads of DVLA management and the PCS whingers are banged together and they start behaving like grown-ups the better.

TPO

A lot of good explanation on Just In Time. Will be lost on the masses who did not know they were an integral part of that.

All the petrol station violence, selfish attitudes, media sensationalism, Government having to intervene into poorly private-run critical industries and more can all be linked back to one inescapable conclusion: neoliberalism doesn't work.

I could probably write 1000+ words explaining why I believe in this, but in summary much of the above have happened either as a consequence of neoliberal policies (or lack of state attention), or a side effect of things that are required to keep a neoliberal economy afloat (such as marketing tricks designed to trick people into buying things they don't need). Thatcher said "there's no such thing as a society", well if you're made to believe we live in an economy, when we're meant to think we live in a society, panic buying and/or anything that's a breakdown in society is inevitable.

In a nutshell. We expect people to believe the adverts (and gosh they do) BUT then we are amazed when they react innapropriately to "information" from exactly the same media. A lot of people are sheep I am beginning to realise.

Leaving aside your apparent and deeply-flawed assumption that everything in the US has to happen for the exact same reasons as in Britain, is it the US actually experiencing the same problem at the moment?

The connection could be that the good citizens o the US have seen what is happening in the UK - after all we get plenty of news coverage about the US here in the UK so maybe they are seeing a lot about us.

And so much for people not believing the BBC anymore if they managed to cause this...

Ha ha - so true.

There are 2 key issues here.

1 - Most HGV license holders do no drive a HGV. This is because they want a job with a living wage; to be able to see their family and have a family life; to have facilities on the road and not wee in a pot & wash on the roadside with baby wipes.

2 - We are all wrong to expect free same / next day deliveries. It is destructive on those who work in the supply industry and the cause the above. Big business expects free immediate just in time supply at below cost. This is wrong.

This is not about Brexit, remain or what the BBC reported. We are in a huge mess due to greed, all of us!

There are a lot of unpleasant jobs around and those vacancies get harder to fill if there are other more attractive jobs for people to move into. A mobile workforce. I for one am looking at changing my job to get less pressure and stress, it is actually getting too physical for my age. I did enjoy it but think its time to earn less and live better. I might even retire early.

So I wonder how many drivers etc have got used to semi retirement while Covid has been rife - have we woken up to the rat race ?.

Well it was BP and not the media who set this all off, so it makes some sense. Petrol / diesel has a short shelf life!

It was a finely balanced system that had a little wobbe. BP made a small mistake effecting a small part of the country. But it fell off the knife edge of JIT and all the way down the cliff. That was because it was blown out of all proportion because the media like an interesting story. Saying 99% of the country is NOT affected does not interest people so the media avoid saying that. The headline is usually all people read.

 

[jon0844]

I was talking to someone yesterday who believes the whole situation regarding the current crisis has been orchestrated because the refineries have stocks of fuel near its sell by date due to the lack of demand during lockdown. Furthermore, as everybody is blaming someone else, it takes the heat off the government.

Yes, there have been a few memes circulating that this was all done deliberately because the fuel sat around during the pandemic when nobody went out and is now about to expire, so they created the panic buying to get rid of it. The people sharing it were the same people that liked to share things like 'do your research, the vaccine is killing more people than Covid' and the like. Thankfully the talk of Covid and vaccines has died down now they're all talking about petrol.

Anyway, the fact is that people were still driving throughout the pandemic and in many cases avoiding public transport by using their own car to keep away from others. Then when lockdown lifted, the roads were back to 85-90% of normal capacity.

I don't believe this story one bit, but social media is doing a grand job of stoking the fire and I think the people creating these memes and TikToks are just doing it for the 'banter' and getting off on helping cause more and more panic.

And yet the media is getting all the blame!

 

[reddragon]

I woke up with the truth in my head this morning.

It is "Just In Time" at fault - well kind of !.

What I realised is the one part of Just In Time chain that no one seems to have identified is the last link in the supply chain. That is :- All those motorists who only ever fill up at the last minute and then many only put in a small amount of fuel. They have broken the rule (well their predicted behaviour) by filling to the brim and earlier than they usually do. OK why did they do it ? - becase they lost fauth in the very system they relied on helped create - and that system relied on them.

It is why I have held fast and not yet bought petrol. I usually buy when I hit around 1/4 of a tank and then i fill to the brim. I fill prematurely if I have a long journey coming up. I have not yet modified that behaviour in the face of this panic. I have put off car journeys in the hope that normallity is just around the corner. After all these failed Just In Time motorists cannot keep buying extra petrol so the supply chain will eventually catch up.

BUT, now that limiting the amount of fuel one can buy has raised its head, I too will join the queues. I need to make sure I never have more space in my tank than for £30 worth of fuel.

A lot of good explanation on Just In Time. Will be lost on the masses who did not know they were an integral part of that.

In a nutshell. We expect people to believe the adverts (and gosh they do) BUT then we are amazed when they react innapropriately to "information" from exactly the same media. A lot of people are sheep I am beginning to realise.

The connection could be that the good citizens o the US have seen what is happening in the UK - after all we get plenty of news coverage about the US here in the UK so maybe they are seeing a lot about us.

Ha ha - so true.

There are a lot of unpleasant jobs around and those vacancies get harder to fill if there are other more attractive jobs for people to move into. A mobile workforce. I for one am looking at changing my job to get less pressure and stress, it is actually getting too physical for my age. I did enjoy it but think its time to earn less and live better. I might even retire early.

So I wonder how many drivers etc have got used to semi retirement while Covid has been rife - have we woken up to the rat race ?.

Very well put

 

[jon0844]

Very well put

Yes, and much the same at supermarkets which now have bigger retail outlets where all stock is out - and there are regular deliveries from one of those mammoth warehouses miles away. Now when people rush in to buy all pasta, toilet paper, meat or whatever there's a problem with the logistics and shelves go empty.

Supermarkets do of course have bigger problems with the warehouses also running empty, and more problems likely due next month with meat in particular, but the just in time model does indeed need people to only buy when they need something, not to prepare for a perceived shortage then they make a reality.

Now we've proven as a nation that we're easily scared into panic buying, I hope the Government is preparing what to do if we get shortages in the run up to Christmas. I know on social media everyone is saying "I don't care if we can't have Turkey this Christmas as long as we can be with family" but I don't believe that for one second. People will go into a state of panic if they can't get food before Christmas.

 

[simonw]

The connection could be that the good citizens o the US have seen what is happening in the UK - after all we get plenty of news coverage about the US here in the UK so maybe they are seeing a lot about us.

We get a lot of coverage of some things that happen in the US, they get very little about a little island off the coast of mainland Europe and care even less.

 

[reddragon]

Yes, and much the same at supermarkets which now have bigger retail outlets where all stock is out - and there are regular deliveries from one of those mammoth warehouses miles away. Now when people rush in to buy all pasta, toilet paper, meat or whatever there's a problem with the logistics and shelves go empty.

Supermarkets do of course have bigger problems with the warehouses also running empty, and more problems likely due next month with meat in particular, but the just in time model does indeed need people to only buy when they need something, not to prepare for a perceived shortage then they make a reality.

Now we've proven as a nation that we're easily scared into panic buying, I hope the Government is preparing what to do if we get shortages in the run up to Christmas. I know on social media everyone is saying "I don't care if we can't have Turkey this Christmas as long as we can be with family" but I don't believe that for one second. People will go into a state of panic if they can't get food before Christmas.

In Portugal they have fights over cod fish and a special cheese every Christmas. We are all the same.

We get a lot of coverage of some things that happen in the US, they get very little about a little island off the coast of mainland Europe and care even less.

Except our little crisis is being mockingly reported worldwide so they can laugh at us, which is unusual.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Yes, and much the same at supermarkets which now have bigger retail outlets where all stock is out - and there are regular deliveries from one of those mammoth warehouses miles away. Now when people rush in to buy all pasta, toilet paper, meat or whatever there's a problem with the logistics and shelves go empty.

Supermarkets do of course have bigger problems with the warehouses also running empty, and more problems likely due next month with meat in particular, but the just in time model does indeed need people to only buy when they need something, not to prepare for a perceived shortage then they make a reality.

Now we've proven as a nation that we're easily scared into panic buying, I hope the Government is preparing what to do if we get shortages in the run up to Christmas. I know on social media everyone is saying "I don't care if we can't have Turkey this Christmas as long as we can be with family" but I don't believe that for one second. People will go into a state of panic if they can't get food before Christmas.

I remember about 18 months ago the reports of people trying to refund the goods thay had panic bought !. It cold be worse with supermarkets because it is easier to fill a room with toilet rolls than it is with petrol. And yes Petrol has a shelf life unlike toilet rolls. Even Pasta, rice and canned food has along shelf life.

As for greens I can hardly keep up with the runner beans we are growing n our own garden. Next job is to dig a well before the frackers beat me to it !.

We get a lot of coverage of some things that happen in the US, they get very little about a little island off the coast of mainland Europe and care even less.

But surely we are an important country in the world . And we are ready and able to export to all those far away, little and under-developed countries (e.g. China) that we currently import from .

 

[reddragon]

I remember about 18 months ago the reports of people trying to refund the goods thay had panic bought !. It cold be worse with supermarkets because it is easier to fill a room with toilet rolls than it is with petrol. And yes Petrol has a shelf life unlike toilet rolls. Even Pasta, rice and canned food has along shelf life.

As for greens I can hardly keep up with the runner beans we are growing n our own garden. Next job is to dig a well before the frackers beat me to it !.

So at last aggressive debate turns to humour.

I am chopping & freezing so many runner beans but alas the water table is too far down for me to dig a well.

 

[Peter Sarf]

So at last aggressive debate turns to humour.

I am chopping & freezing so many runner beans but alas the water table is too far down for me to dig a well.

Oil, I am after oil mate, gotta be more important than water I fink

 

[TPO]

There are 2 key issues here.

1 - Most HGV license holders do no drive a HGV. This is because they want a job with a living wage; to be able to see their family and have a family life; to have facilities on the road and not wee in a pot & wash on the roadside with baby wipes.

2 - We are all wrong to expect free same / next day deliveries. It is destructive on those who work in the supply industry and the cause the above. Big business expects free immediate just in time supply at below cost. This is wrong.

This is not about Brexit, remain or what the BBC reported. We are in a huge mess due to greed, all of us!

Good points @reddragon.

Certainly this is NOT all (or even mainly) due to Brexit.

The problem with Remainiacs trying to fit everything into the "due to Brexit" lens is that it prevents a proper fix of a big issue, which is why their blinkeredness annoys me so much.

For those of us who are older and have longer memories, when Blair immediately opened up to Free Movement for new Eastern European EU members (unlike most other EU states), the availability of cheap HGV drivers who would put up with exploitative conditions went through the roof.

What that did was disguise and delay some fundamental problems in UK HGV driving which started then and grew over 15-20 years and include:

- Supermarkets (and others) driving down supply chain prices and the whole sector becoming casualised with logistics companies using cheap agency drivers
- Lack of basic HGV license training paid for by employer- why should they when they could get cheap labour from abroad?
- Youngsters not coming into the trade- it is not only unglamourous and by then badly paid and deteriorating conditions, but Blair was behind the push to get loads of kids into second-rate "uni" education which did nothing much for them but did a LOT to enrich those in the Educational establishment. (Same for other trades).
- Older drivers retire and others leave as conditions worsen.
- CPS training came in which is extra cost for the Driver
- Poor conditions as @reddragon describes
- Extra tracking and monitoring by agency staff employers as part of just in time delivery- which is in effect low-cost storage on a moving truck
- Demand from the better off middle classes and office workers for "free" next-day delivery.
- IR35 which meant that drivers effectively get a pay cut (Gordon Brown loved contractors using IR35 loopholes because it kept up-front prices down. I was contracting in the early days- I remember). Thing is, the HGV Drivers didn't choose those conditions of quasi-self employment, they had to take them or leave them (the same way agency track workers did until Network Rail stepped in a few years ago and put a stop to the worst of those practices). This was all about keeping transport costs down so that you, the consumer, can have an item a quid or two cheaper.

Then, some 15-20 years on, the perfect storm breaks as the holes in the slices of cheese all line up.

As Eastern EU countries get better standards of living, as UK standards of living are more difficult (think house prices) and we get a COVID pandemic, and we had Brexit, some EU drivers went home. We also have a DVLA meltdown and a lack of ANY HGV tests for a year making it difficult for new drivers to get a license. However, the number who went home was far smaller then the number of HGV licence holders in UK who don't use the category. But that last issues of a bunch of drivers departing for home was the tipping point- the last later of protection removed. It was A cause- not THE cause.

Fact is, we've enough drivers holding HGV Class 1 in the UK, but many don't want to drive as the conditions so bad- apparently it's better conditions driving an Amazon van (which according to the Graun is hell on earth). Those conditions became so low due to a big labour supply so there was always someone else to take the job for a pittance. Basically, UK logistics exploited oversees labour to keep prices down- is that acceptable or moral? I think not!

Blair has a lot to answer for in this. He casualised a whole swathe of previously skilled trades by immediately allowing a huge number of Eastern EU nationals in without ANY restriction (whilst other big EU countries including France and Germany put in initial controls). That made those trades unattractive and the UK dependent on a constant stream of cheap labour to be exploited. With Thatcher having destroyed the Trades Unions, and Blair the true heir to Thatcher, where was no-one to push back. The loopholes in IR35 allowed many employers to reduce their costs by pushing staff onto "self-employment" with poor conditions. Blair was a Labour PM who seemed to hate the skilled working class- which makes it much more egregious than the Tories doing it- and Starmer is another one cut from the same cloth unfortunately.

Think what would have happened if at privatization of the railways we'd had the European Train Driving License. Rather than train new Drivers, I'd bet that the newly private sector TOCs would have imported cheaper Drivers from EU. And the Train Driver grade would have suffered the consequences. However thanks to late introduction of the TDL, Aslef, and helped by something of a natural monopoly due to different philosophy of rail operations in GB vs EU (route-based vs speed-signalling), train driving is still a good (and hence desirable) career. As it was, there was a migration of train Drivers to the best paid TOCs with some smaller TOCs like the original Valleys franchise effectively being a Driving school for the bigger TOCs for a while. And train driving conditions remain good enough that drivers often stay beyond retirement on a part-time basis. That's what happens when there is a strong and not over-supplied skilled labour force- conditions and wages must be decent. (There is a strong Socialist argument for Brexit).

This storm has been a long time brewing and the solution is not to continue to mask the structural issues by calling "Brexit we told you so" rather it's to look honestly at the last 20 years of heir-to-Thatcher-Blair and his successors, and sort the mess out. We have got to get beyond this culture of importing low-wage labour to exploit so that the Guardianistas can have their cheap Uber and latte whilst they check how well their AirBNB properties are doing.

The quickest interim solution would be to persuade a bunch of the existing licence holders to drive again- maybe guarantee some decent conditions and suspend CPS as a starter for 10. Give us a bit of time to sort the rest out. Then- when there's a properly controlled and structured fair playing field, we could allow others from overseas to apply but only if the conditions are maintained and the same standards are met. Just like with train Drivers in fact.


My issue with the BBC is that it's become another edition of the Guardian. Whereas it should be unbiased as it is funded by the taxpayer via a mandatory levy. If I want to take the news from the perspective of the champange-socialist metropolitan elite I will read the Graun (or the New Statesman). If I want a traditional conservative slant I will read the Spectator. If I want to understand the level of sleaze etc I will read Private Eye. If I want a tory equivalent of the Graun I will read the Times or Telegraph. As it happens I regularly read the Guardian, Spectator and Private Eye and try to understand issues from more than one perspective. I don't indulge in FB or Twitter and I recognise that the tabloids are just playing clickbait games with the sector of the population they target.

The BBC should be a distillation of that; respectful but not indulging in wokery, balanced and analytical- not playing the emotional clickbait game the way they have been wont to do in recent years. The BBC could have kept things much calmer if they chose, lets face it most of the population will believe pretty much anything they are told by authority (look up the Milgram experiment....). The BBC has historical respect, so it should behave responsibly as only a national state broadcaster should and be factual and analytical rather than taking sides and pursuing stories from that slant. Only in recent days has the initial Remain-perspective coverage moderated slightly- maybe someone reminded the news editor of the BBC charter?


TPO