OK, this isn't funny any more. Where's the army?

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

One quarter of staff and students late to school this morning, and 10% didn't get there at all. It has been announced that, excepting physical disability, any student within 4 miles or adult within 6 miles will be expected to walk in, but Its expected to be worse tomorrow with a good chance we will be closed by Wednesday.

AA reporting over 100 "incidents" on the road within a 10 mile radius of the school - mostly roads blocked, and mostly by queues outside petrol stations.

I struggled to get home by bike, because of the chaos on the roads - I got off my bike and walked several miles of it.

I called in at a supermarket on the way home. The shelves were more than three quarters empty. No bread or milk. So I'm sitting here drinking black tea planning rice for dinner instead of cheese on toast.

I know its not a catastrophe that I spent an extra hour getting home, and dont have milk in my tea, but what is that saying about the state we are in?

AIBU to say the army should be called in. What have we got an army for? Surely, an organisation of thousands of fit, capable, organised individuals, with vehicles and capacity and skills in logistics is exactly what we need to be utilised in this situation right here right now.

PS, is it ok to feed dog food to cats? does anyone know?

Adult staff who live 6 miles away need to walk in? What in the dark in the early morning for over an hour and a half? Setting off at 5/6am.

I'd not be doing that.

I went to my local Asda for fuel ( Nottingham) had to queue for 5 mins plenty of food on shelves too .

I'm in Hampshire and our local towns have no fuel. Petrol stations have had to close and there are roads that have been gridlocked

@Iusedtobecarmen

Is this thread for real? How many people really can't survive without petrol or actually cannot get to work/school? Not as many as are claiming I bet

Unless you are very rural or have a job that involves driving.
I live in a big city
School walking distance and all major shops.
Buses and trains are excellent.
Mostly its over dramatic people or idiots panic buying.
People are so reliant on their cars they have a panic attack at having to walk anywhere.
And as for supermarkets, again plenty of stock here.

Well bully for you! A lot of people live in towns where ther are not good transport links, but so long as you are ok with getting a bus eh??

@Beaudalaire

Why do people think on Mumsnet if something isn’t happening to them/ the immediate area they live in it’s made up. I never see this in real life but always on Mumsnet

Conversely, just because some people ARE experiencing shortages, those of us who describe how we aren't are 'in denial'. Can we not just accept that we live in different places, shop in different places and are having different experiences?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58713770

@DixonD

Brexit is NOT causing a fuel shortage. There isn’t one. There’s a driver shortage. There was a driver shortage before Brexit. Made worse by COVID and “some” drivers heading back to the EU.

There’s no fuel shortage!

Well, if I can't get fuel because my 10 nearest petrol stations have none, I'd call that a shortage. Just because there's plenty at the refinery doesn't really change that- I can't go there to get it.

I’ve said this before. Lots of lorry drivers are retiring, leaving the industry. Not all down to Brexit, although it’s a factor.
Lots of young people don’t want o work on the hgv industry. So they don’t get replaced.
The public see hgvs as a pain, getting in their way. There no where in towns or cities for them to unload, and when they do, they get a parking ticket.
I’ve seem traffic wardens slap parking tickets on lorries while the poor driver is trying to deliver to a Tesco express, in a town centre. What’s the driver supposed to do? Selfish car drivers parked in loading bays.
That with long hours, lack of toilet facilities, sleeping on motorway services in a cold cab.
We’ve treat our lorry drivers like second class citizens for way too long and now they’re all leaving and retiring ,we are all moaning about the consequences.
Let’s appreciate our truck drivers more, we can all do our bit. Let them out at a junction, maybe stop and give way to them when we can.
Surely the government must now try and solve these long term problems rather than look for a quick temporary fix?...

I used to live in London zone 5 with multiple options of tubes and buses within walking distance.
I moved to a commuter town with a station (one train line) but I was really shocked how expensive and infrequent the bus service was compared to tfl. I know several people who work 5-10 miles away and drive to work because there isn't a realistic option using public transport.

Regarding fuel shortages. Here in Australia when there have been fuel shortages for one reason or another, fuel is rationed. They do this by allowing drivers who’s registration ends in an odd number to fill up on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, even number Regos can fill up Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This cuts by half the number for people queuing (except for clever buggers who have two cars, one odd and one even number lol)

Surely the government must now try and solve these long term problems rather than look for a quick temporary fix?...

That would assume that they are actually competent to do so and want to make things better rather than just pursue an ideologically driven dead end. I don't think they know how to fix the problems. I don't think they understand the problems. I don't think they actually care that much as long as the optics are good and people keep voting for them.

Please stop voting for people who don't care about you. That would be the Tories, for avoidance of doubt. They just don't care about ordinary people.

@Iusedtobecarmen

Is this thread for real? How many people really can't survive without petrol or actually cannot get to work/school? Not as many as are claiming I bet

Unless you are very rural or have a job that involves driving.
I live in a big city
School walking distance and all major shops.
Buses and trains are excellent.
Mostly its over dramatic people or idiots panic buying.
People are so reliant on their cars they have a panic attack at having to walk anywhere.
And as for supermarkets, again plenty of stock here.

I've just checked and for me to get my kids to school via public transport it will take us 1hour 20 mins. It'd be 1hr 40 to walk (at adult pace). I'd then have a 45 minute wait before the train to work which would take 44minutes and a 20 minute walk. So that's 3hours 10 minutes to get to work and I'd be 1hour 40 minutes late and have to leave 1 hour 15 minutes early to do the reverse to collect my kids. Bus is similar time frames but more connections which could go wrong. By car it's 35 minutes for the full job.

Just in case the question was serious - no, you shouldn't feed dog food to cats. They have very different nutritional needs.

If it's 6 months from now and the cat hasn't eaten anything except apocalypse rats for the last few weeks because the country has shut down and plague zombies roam the streets, then yes, go ahead and feed the cat a tin of dog food.

I get cronyism is everywhere in politics. Including the Labour Party.
But look at these shysters we have in charge now.
Boris , who left his last two wives and god knows how many kids.
Hancock- getting caught with his pants downbeat while we were in a pandemic.
Giving his mate down the pub contracts for PPE. Tax payers money!
Priti Patel who talks a good game but does square root of fuck all in achieving when it comes to coming down on crime.
Gavin Williamson- the man is not only a wet blanket, but utterly incompetent.

Utterly shameful what’s going on in this country, and unfortunately the opposition is doing an equally poor job too.

@user89000005

How on earth will we fix this situation when the logistics chain is broken?! This is our reality now and to think over half the country voted for this just blows my mind.

There is nothing broken in the "logistics chain" for fuel, jobs are plentiful, tanker driving is still a desirable role due to the higher income, go online and try to find a tanker job. BP had one slight issue that they've very publicly announced to manipulate the market to push for visa changes that they benefit from to keep wages low.

Brexit is shit, the lack of HGV drivers is worrying, but do not confuse them as the reason as to why we are being manipulated in this specific situation.

Brexit is not 'shit' and this recent fuel situation has nothing to do with it. There is plenty of fuel, but there are numerous idiots panic buying when advised not to.

On a wider scale, before Brexit this country had a high number of foreign drivers - many from Poland/Romania and other Eastern Bloc countries working as HGV drivers on a low wage, well a low wage for Britain, but a high wage for their country - they could earn a living and still send money 'home' making it almost impossible for British people who may have wanted to become lorry drivers do that job for a decent (UK) wage. This was plainly stupid and Brexit has, or rather will, solve it. but we may have to suffer short-term pain, for long-term gain.

It was always ridiculous to open up certain parts of Europe to free movement of people whilst the economies were so divergent, furthermore whilst I didn't have a problem with the EEC, the EU was something else entirely and it happened too quickly: too many old veterans from WWII must have wondered why did we bother saving Britain from invasion in 1940 as now thanks to free movement anyone could come here under freedom of movement rules anyways....

No, Brexit isn't shit and in the future it will be considered quite the opposite of that.

@Iusedtobecarmen

Is this thread for real? How many people really can't survive without petrol or actually cannot get to work/school? Not as many as are claiming I bet

Unless you are very rural or have a job that involves driving.
I live in a big city
School walking distance and all major shops.
Buses and trains are excellent.
Mostly its over dramatic people or idiots panic buying.
People are so reliant on their cars they have a panic attack at having to walk anywhere.
And as for supermarkets, again plenty of stock here.

I start work sometimes at 7am. To walk there I would have to leave my house at 5.30am, walk 2 miles (not the issue) in the dark, and one road is completely deserted, no houses, nothing. I will not do that. It's not about relying on cars and "panic attacks". It's very genuine anxiety and fear of walking, alone, in the dark down deserted streets.

Happy to get a public transport to work sadly it would take be 4hrs 11 minutes EACH away and given the first train runs at 05:41 I'm going to be late to get to work and then not get home again 21:45 so but if a long day really....I would get my steps up too as I have a 25 minute walk to the station as the buses do t run that early....

patkinney, first of all, the veteran generation voted, in the main, against leaving the EU.

No, Brexit isn't shit and in the future it will be considered quite the opposite of that.

Will I still be alive to see it?

too many old veterans from WWII must have wondered why did we bother saving Britain from invasion in 1940 as now thanks to free movement anyone could come here under freedom of movement rules anyways....
Whoa. If this is not the ad hitlerum of the year, I don't know what is.

@Bluntness100

We don’t need the army, we just need the absolute twats panicking to stop.

This with bells on

There’s no fuel shortage and no empty shelves, media needs to stop telling lies.

I walked past two petrol stations this morning that are always open - they were closed. Coincidence?

And if you haven't seen any empty supermarket shelves, good for you. Perhaps you haven't noticed the sad cardboard inserts many supermarkets are using to give the appearance of full shelves.

Our brave Brexiteers were enjoying their misty eyed fantasies of rationing and wartime lifestyles - and of course keeping calm and carrying on - before we started to get the tiniest taste of it. Now they've all been thrown into denial mode...

It took me two hours to fill up in West London yesterday. One petrol station ran out of fuel just as I reached the front of the queue.

@GatoradeMeBitch

Our brave Brexiteers were enjoying their misty eyed fantasies of rationing and wartime lifestyles - and of course keeping calm and carrying on - before we started to get the tiniest taste of it. Now they've all been thrown into denial mode...