@Peregrina
It's a pity they don't just dish out petrol coupons to be fair to people.
Remember the power shortages of the early 1970's? Many of you won't be old enough, but they dished out coupons then, which turned out not to be necessary. It was obvious from the style of the print that they had originally been printed for the Suez crisis. (When the US made it known to the UK and France that they didn't support them. France learnt the lesson, the UK didn't.)
What strikes me about this weekend is the lack of civil contigency planning in place.
We KNOW how fragile the fuel supply chain is and how quickly it can force the country to grind to a halt.
And this has still happened for the second time in less than 10 years. We know that fuel depots are targets for terrorism, strikes and protests.
This isn't a crisis thats unforeseeable - precisely because its happened before.
The 2012 crisis was also a supply chain shock issue rather than an actual shortage. We know that Brexit and Covid increased the chances of multiple supply chain shocks occurring. EVERY political persuasion and opinion within the major parties has now admitted this, even if its begrudgingly.
The media is being blamed for this, but the Petrol Retailers Association was actively saying for people to not go below 1/4 tank to avoid getting caught out - and thats the general advice the rest of the time too and many people ignore this. That is obviously going to have an impact.
People need petrol. Yes lot more people can work from home, but they still need to get kids to school and many need to arrange working from home with their employer before they do it.
I'd also argue that with so many having been working from home, delivery schedules have been significantly reduced over the last year, so refill schedules for petrol stations will have been cut back heavily because of decreased demand and that is only just being increased now as people go back to work (arguably this is why BP were struggling in the first place because they cut back on drivers during the pandemic and have been unable to recruit staff they need when demand has increased again).
So why wasn't this increase in demand as normality returned, on the government radar?? Why weren't concerns from business taken seriously earlier? Why weren't fuel issues put at the front of priorities? Clearly, its got ignored / over looked in the fuss about food.
Part of the reason for the quick supply chain shock, is people having experienced this before in recent memory. They KNOW the impact and don't want to get caught out. Its an entirely predictable reaction.
I have to say even if this is resolved very quickly (though petrol stations are suggesting that they aren't expecting their next delivery for up to 9 days), what exactly are the government going to do to stop the next petrol pump run??? Or will it be forgotten immediately as we lurch into the next crisis.
Cos there will be a third - simply because we know there is such a fragility there. And the reality of this year and probably at least the next few, is the government isn't doing anymore than crisis management which neglects other issues until they become the next crisis. We are now into a cycle of crisis after crisis due to lack of ability to cope with anything more - without the previous crisis truly having been fully resolved.
Its government by spinning plates. Thats the thing I find scary, and I think thats the thing that makes me wonder whether we need to seriously consider how we 'prep' on a long term rolling basis rather than merely for crunch dates as some have over the last couple of years. Its that sense of the inability of government to actively govern.
Arguably we are teetering into the start of a failed state scenario.