To be more scared now than I was of Covid?

[Thesupercosyquilt]

I know IABU. I need to get a grip.

I wasn't frightened of Covid. The first few weeks were scary, all the uncertainty etc. But once my kids school closed, life for our family kind of carried on somewhat normally. DH and I were both out working at that point. I never thought we would catch it, we're all relatively healthy. I understood people felt differently and was sympathetic towards that, despite some of the more extreme opinions.

But now, with fuel price hikes, food shortages and now petrol being rationed, I am actually scared. It feels like all the panic of March 2020 all over again.

Don't worry, I'm not going to panic buy five million loo rolls. But I have such a sinking feeling knowing this is the start of really crap times ahead unravelling right before our eyes.

Moving on, Covid is still about but the backlash of leaving the EU with reduced drivers available is in full force with lack of drivers and food pricing going up.

And the easy win that Johnson's Government had with being able to vaccinate earlier than EU countries has now gone, since all the others have caught up.

Moneysavvymam You do realise how privileged you (and I tbh) are to have access to spaces where you can forage. But are you suggesting that people living in cities can scrabble around picking enough weeds to give them nutrition. That's some dystopian image I have in my head right there.

Also, once we get past October, there really is very little to forage. All those leaves you mentioned are not in season or are dying back. Also, where are the calories?

Planting stuff if you have outdoor space is great, but there's nothing really you can plant now, other than some windowsill salad which wouldn't take you very far, to get you through the winter.

We've had fuel shortages here (Isle of Wight) for weeks now. Tesco garage completely shut a couple of times and smaller places shut too. Yes, panic buying going on as well. Seemed to have settled down.

@Spiindoctor

I'm not sure the Gov is to blame, more the just-in-time delivery /shop set up the supermarkets adopted over the last few years. But really - did the hugely paid CEO of Tesco not ponder one day that if all the eastern europeans are leaving to spend lock down at home he might just need a few more lorry drivers to replace them. It's inexcusable of this lot of supermarket owners - they put profits first, save on drivers as everyone is shopping online, then when shopping starts again no one to do it duuuuh. The fuel thing is another thing that should have been seen by BP etc - it demonstrates the attitude of those at the top - pay peanuts for drivers, get monkeys, Ha the monkeys leave and they have NO contingency plans. And the gas normally comes in on tankers - Oh, tankers stuck in China due to on board Covid etc - let's do somethina about it - Oh, No let's not do anything then blame the gov when there's shortage. The other gas thing is that it comes into Europe (which we are connected to I believe) By pipeline from Russia - oh that's a good idea to be dependent on Russian gas. Not particulary Gov decisions, more corporate decisions.

This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the conservative/gammon/head in the sand party. Later in our scheduled events we’ll be discussing the feckless women who recklessly had Boris’s children(number unspecified). Followed by keeping it in the family where we explain how Tory ministers patriotically gave millions of pounds of PPE to their families, friends and Tory donors. Finally we will be showing Brexit fearmongers. An in depth study of how the smug experts are talking down our beloved Brexit by shamefully predicting what would hapoen.

YANBU OP, our local garage is Texaco and they have a sign on the pump asking drivers not to take more than £30 due to the disruptions to the supply chain caused by driver shortages.

I remember when there were fuel problems in 2011 was it? and we were on holiday and couldn't find any fuel to get home again, we were near Bournemouth so plenty of garages so we just had to keep driving until we found one that had fuel. It was quite scary thinking that we might not get home.

We live in a rural area, so people depend on their cars to get to work as public transport is very limited. You need a car to get to the train station. So to see a sign limiting you to £30 is not good, but at least if people are driving to the town/city to work they can hopefully get more fuel there.

@Hihelp

I’m worried about the fuel bills more than anything. Then food prices. It looks like shit times ahead. Yet house prices still rising.?🤔

Yes, funny that. If there was ever a case for the housing market being artificially inflated this would definitely be it.

I think the shortage of drivers is also down to pay and conditions we have many people with hgv licences in the uk , who
Don't driver for a living now as the pay and conditions are so bad, supposedly we are fast tracking hgv drivers etc as this is why we have food shortages , petrol etc , covid will also play a little part as people isolate etc so if your short of drivers anyway , it has a big impact
Brexit plays a small part as some drivrers went home ( especially when covid happened) but if it was all brexit that would of impacted straight away not months later
We don't have to have a major food shortage if people actually buy what they need , don't stockpile and accept that you may not be able to get certain things one week , but we are not starving we have other options , can't get beans get spagetti etc, in some countries the choice is not there, we can get through it if people just remain level headed

Ah the wonderful world of Brexit. What a utopia

It is true that there have been fuel price rises in Europe and that there are some driver shortages, but Britain is the only coutnry in the world that has made those problems worse and more complex by inflicting Brexit on itself.

Around here its only lidl and co op that seem to have food issues , asda, Morrison , aldi and Tesco and small independents are fine .
Our bin service was short of hgv drivers so had an impact on our collections , so they have now offered free training to their employees , which has had a good uptake and they should have many more hgv drivers soon.
There are lots without jobs and lots of company's are paying one off payments etc for people to train up as hgv drivers,

Ughhh I need to fill my car up today for a long journey. I really hope I can and people aren’t going to be stupid and panic buy fuel. This is going to stress me out all day!

Yanbu…this is our winter of discontent…
BrexSHIT…the gift that keeps on giving

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun

It's dire but it's not covid. You can thank brexit for the current shit show.

Yep.

And imo it’s worse than covid. At least we had the hopes for a vaccine/treatment.
With brexit? I can only see years of struggle, esp as our government still hasn’t a plan as to what brexit means. Bar. trying to give ultimatum to the EU about the Irish border.

@Thesupercosyquilt

I know IABU. I need to get a grip.

I wasn't frightened of Covid. The first few weeks were scary, all the uncertainty etc. But once my kids school closed, life for our family kind of carried on somewhat normally. DH and I were both out working at that point. I never thought we would catch it, we're all relatively healthy. I understood people felt differently and was sympathetic towards that, despite some of the more extreme opinions.

But now, with fuel price hikes, food shortages and now petrol being rationed, I am actually scared. It feels like all the panic of March 2020 all over again.

Don't worry, I'm not going to panic buy five million loo rolls. But I have such a sinking feeling knowing this is the start of really crap times ahead unravelling right before our eyes.

Thing is, unlike COVID, this will impact everyone very badly if it’s not fixed (ie stop Green nonsense)

Possibly but they said covid would affect everyone badly and it didn't

I’m at my local Tesco and the queue for the petrol station is right down the road. Fucking hell. I can remember the strikes that caused massive queues for petrol decades ago and the thought of that aim over again is depressing.

Basically I'm sick of people telling me to panic, cos I ain't gonna

Brexit plays a small part as some drivrers went home ( especially when covid happened) but if it was all brexit that would of impacted straight away not months later

If Covid hadn't happened and the country hadn't shut down, so that there was virtually no traffic on the roads, it would have happened much sooner.

@RickJames

I remember the 2000 shortage! Fortunately I had a 1 litre Corsa at the time and ran on fumes but I do remember queuing up for an hour and a half to get tanked in Chester-le-street coming home from work

No shortages at all in Germany now but we have far fewer shopping options in supermarkets anyway. I always feel like I'm in Las Vegas or something when I go in Asda or Tesco in the UK - so many out of season fruits and vegetables, so many types of product and each product has 5 or 6 types or brand choices. Greengrocery is mostly seasonal here and produced within a 30 mile radius. Boring but consistent.

I remember 2000 as well. Funniest/saddest experience was spotting a garage that had petrol, great as I was running low. Stopped filled up went to pay, the man in front of me was paying for his petrol, it was pennies. I can't remember the exact amount but it was well under £1. I bet he used most of that queuing up to get to the pump.

@Roominmyhouse

Ughhh I need to fill my car up today for a long journey. I really hope I can and people aren’t going to be stupid and panic buy fuel. This is going to stress me out all day!

I just stopped at local garage after dropping GC off for school bus. I wasn't buying petrol, it is a hermes drop off and I was just sending a parcel. The woman who was serving said they had plenty of petrol and diesel but people were panic buying. She said it had been madly busy since 6 am.

Good luck.

@travellinglighter

By the war, relying on yet the military to take up the slack is nonsense. They have 3500 at best and the great majority of them don’t have the specialist skills required to deliver fuel. When I was in, most of the LGV. Drivers had LGV 3 licences and can’t drive articulated lorries.

Yep, agree the comment along the lines of “We have a massive military” made me sit up a bit, let alone the implication that they didn’t need to be qualified to haul around umpteen thousand liters of dangerous liquids…

As others are saying what we might be starting to see is one of the consequences of letting T&Cs erode in the interests of companies chasing profitability/competitiveness , and that is something not a phenomenon confined to the HGV or transport industry….the again the public what food/goods at minimal cost, so how is that circle going to be squared?

Finally, I was in the UK for the shortages of 2020(?) and would agree with a pp who pointed out that the rumored situation developing ATM appears to be caused by something completely different and is a situation that might perhaps be less easy to resolve.

It's dire but it's not covid. You can thank brexit for the current shit show.

Brexit hasn’t helped, but it isn’t the sole cause.

“According to ONS data, the loss of EU drivers is only a minor cause of the shortage. At the start of 2020, before the pandemic hit, there were 37,000 EU drivers in the UK. Now, there are 24,500.

That loss of 12,500 drivers only goes a little way to explaining the current shortfall. Given a total of almost 70,000 HGV drivers left during the pandemic alone, this represents just 18% of those who exiting.”

www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-the-hgv-driver-shortage-and-why-we-cant-blame-it-all-on-brexit/659841.article

After any situation that has stretched worldwide governments to the limit and disrupted the way of life for most, there is always a period of readjustment where people have to live differently, as the true economic costs of dealing with the situation come home to roost.

Generally what happens is after 10/20 years it all rebalances. We just need to adjust in the meantime.

What scares me the most is the massive potential for a recreation of the post Great War reaction, when people’s desperation leads to arise of blaming others. A friend sent me a link to what can only be described as a hate speech channel masquerading as telling the truth. My friend is on the face of it incredibly intelligent and open minded. Yet this channel is full of anti Semitic hate speech. Linking Jews to every single powerful person in the world who has existed ever. There’s so many of these conspiracy media outlets out there and people are convinced now more than ever. Even a basic understanding of European shows this guy to be a liar, but so many people don’t have an understanding of history. Our educational system has become geared towards information rather than understanding. It’s the outcome of this that we need to fear in the inevitably uncertain times ahead, not the lack of petrol or loo rolls, we need to be careful how we react to these things to stop throwing round blame and pull together to get through.

Fuel worries me as we live rural and need to drive the kids to school as no bus service. Food I could cope for a short while and I can work from home at least.

My car is empty so was planning to fill up today anyway, but now I'm panicking I wont be able to!

It would be better if the news didnt report this kind of thing, then no panic buying would mean stocks lasting longer surely.

Covid never worried me, brexit breaks me out in cold sweats.

We’re now in the perfect storm of: Autumns effect on Covid, Brexit shortages and price increases. The realisation hasn’t set in for many people, the shelves are still full (at least they ‘look’ full) and Covid has suddenly become the flu (allegedly) so the public continue to behave as though everything is just fine. Watch the papers especially those who pushed Brexit and minimised Covid, once they start addressing our woes you’ll know it’s not good.

The HGV driver problem is a combination of pandemic and Brexit. We’ve had a year of drivers retiring or sadly succumbing to Covid who haven’t been properly replaced due to testing restrictions throughout the pandemic, add to this the loss of foreign workers and suddenly you have a logistics nightmare that is not easy to fix.

What the situation will look like come Christmas is anyone’s guess, one thing is pretty certain, it won’t look anything like it did in previous years.