Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-gas-stations-are-running-dry-english-cities-retailers-association-says-2021-09-27/

by underscore_ku • 5 years ago

192 332 5 years ago

pjc50• 5 years ago

Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out, a minister told everyone not to panic buy, so they immediately started panic buying. Like the great toilet paper shortage.

The lorry driver shortage inflicted by Brexit is starting to cause problems, though.

davzie2• 5 years ago

I honestly think Brexit was only a very small part of this. It's probably also a combination of IR35 making the entire endeavour not worthwhile for UK AND European workers and the government not having enough HGV tests available to bring newly qualified drivers into the workforce. It's a combination of a lot of different things.

rjsw2• 5 years ago

And poor working conditions. Why live in a truck when you can get paid the same to stack shelves in a supermarket and wake up in your own bed.

telmo• 5 years ago

What a coincidence that something that was claimed for years to be a likely outcome of Brexit happened right in the aftermath of Brexit.... but it turns out that it was mostly unrelated to Brexit.

What. A. Coincidence.

twic• 5 years ago

Only on a programmers' forum could this all be IR35's fault!

(could well be true - but i did laugh out loud)

p_l• 5 years ago

I'm not sure drivers could fall afoul of IR35 anyway.

What Brexit did impact it was that it removed EU cabotage and availability of drivers. For example, cargo would arrive on a RoRo ship in Dover, without changing to a british driver. The same driver could take other cargo while in UK (for example having delivered to point A, then taking a load from point A to another british location at point B, and finally taking a load from point B to a continental destination at point C). With Brexit, you suddenly have extra demand (as even with dimnished cargo traffic you need more drivers to service ports as cargo no longer comes with its own drivers) and inability to hire (whether complete firms through cabotage laws or simply due to smaller pool of candidates.)

teamonkey• 5 years ago

I find that a strange take. There is a HGV driver shortage solely because a lot of drivers have left, due to Brexit. The UK wouldn't need so many extra HGV licences without Brexit, because drivers from the EU would be qualified. The IR35 issues are because people in the UK are used to cheaper labour from mainland Europe, which is no longer available, due to Brexit.

That's not to say that the UK government isn't characteristically unprepared, despite months or even years of warnings about these very issues, or that they couldn't have done better to mitigate problems.

thinkingemote4• 5 years ago

People on the whole do not know what "panic buying" actually is.

I've had multiple conversations which run along the line of "I'm not panic buying, I am rational. I'm only buying this because others are panicking and there wont be any left for me. "

fallingknife2• 5 years ago

Sounds like they do understand panic buying. The issue is that it's completely rational on an individual level. "Panic" buying isn't really a good term for it.

jack_riminton4• 5 years ago

My wife was the same during lockdown, I said there's no need to panic buy stuff we don't need. She told me she was just buying stuff so we could eat if the shelves went empty

daxfohl• 5 years ago

Minister needs to tell everyone not to panic vaccinate.

consp• 5 years ago

This reminds me of the video from the forklift driver in one of the warehouse where they store the toilet paper here. He was laughing as he drove by hundreds of meters high stacks of toilet paper.

If that was any indication at least, it will last for a few days and then return to normal if supply can resume for normal demand (assuming it can for normal demand)

ta988• 5 years ago

For non UK-english aware, a lorry is a truck.

wp381640• 5 years ago

You can have one ass and buy a thousand rolls of toilet paper. You can't have one car and buy a thousand liters of fuel.

This is pure supply shock

WJW2• 5 years ago

A sister comment on this article mentions that Halfords have seen jerrycan sales multiply 17-fold compared to last week. Perhaps a thousand liters is a bit much, but you can definitely get more than a carfull.

thrwyoilarticle• 5 years ago

Like the great toilet paper shortage.

I'm drawn to die on this hill every time. The toilet paper shortage made sense.

At the start of the first lockdown in the UK, we were told to minimise contact with others. This meant that it made sense for a daily shopper to become a weekly shopper & a weekly shopper to become a biweekly shopper. And if you're shopping less frequently but consuming at the same rate, you'll be buying more volume each time. Shops don't have the means to react to an overnight doubling of demand, so the shelves became empty.

To be efficient is to stop being resilient. The world runs on JIT. And if you buck that trend and make things resilient, you can't compete on price. So it's a race to the bottom where all it takes is one off-white swan event for things to fall apart. Does your country have food security? Does your country have energy security? If it does, what would it take for that to stop being true?

pasabagi• 5 years ago

The annoying thing was, my position on first lockdown was:

1. Covid doesn't generally disable young and healthy people, so there will be no supply shortage.

2. It will be nice to have a reason to go out if I'm cooped up inside all day, and buying groceries is a good one.

Then of course, I ended up using napkins as toilet paper for a week, because everybody else thought different.

thinkingemote4• 5 years ago

We were also told to prepare to self isolate a family for 2 weeks. That's a bunch of toilet roll for a normal sized family needed to stock up on. When internet deliveries were restricted to just the vulnerable too.

Almost all "panic buying" is calm and rational.

InitialLastName• 5 years ago

Additionally, everyone moved home and offices emptied out, so the daily/weekly/monthly demand for toilet paper went from 50/50 consumer/industrial to 100% consumer overnight. Those are two very different supply chains, with distinct, roughly (if you'll pardon the pun) incimpatible products, packaging and distribution networks.

yabatopia• 5 years ago

"Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out".

I believe it's more serious than just a mediagenic phenomenon, with only a few stations affected. From The Guardian: "Ministers are considering a range of options after BP said a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted the rest would soon follow." (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-dr...)

makomk2• 5 years ago

It's still a mediagenic phenomenon. The driver shortage itself only caused a handful of petrol stations to run out - it was panic buying due to frenzied news headlines about petrol shortages that caused all the rest to run out of fuel.

hardlianotion2• 5 years ago

A larger contribution to the driver shortage was the change in self employment status caused by IR35 off payroll legislation.

https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuellin...

Lorry driver shortage is a fairly common phenom in Europe atm.

rbanffy2• 5 years ago

It’s incredibly sad it’s come to this, but it’s an entirely self inflicted pain. Voters were lied to and this is the result.

w_t_payne• 5 years ago

Entirely deliberate Bullingdon-style class warfare.

callamdelaney5• 5 years ago

I'm sure we'll all shed a tear because 'brenda #fbpeu' had to queue up for some petrol she didn't need.

rbanffy2• 5 years ago

The reason more tears haven't been shed is probably because the consequences are so terrible nobody on either side had the will to enforce the original terms and timelines and Tories will try to kick this can down the road for as long as politically possible, perhaps much longer.

qzw• 5 years ago

"The free movement of labour is part of the European Union, and we tried very hard to convince the British not to leave the Union," said Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor. "They decided differently. I hope they will manage the problems coming from that," Scholz said.

Man, I can smell the schadenfreude from all the way over here.

brightball2• 5 years ago

You definitely get the impression that the other EU members intend to punish the UK for leaving.

Swizec2• 5 years ago

Or just treat them as they do any other non-EU country? The special deals and preferential treatment come with being in the EU. When you leave, they stop. Fair’s fair.

rich_sasha4• 5 years ago

Brexit did come with a healthy dose of "F-u" to the rest of the EU. Hard to keep back the smile I suppose.

bayesian_horse16• 5 years ago

What would they need to do to convince you they don't intend to punish the UK?

Would they try to force migrant workers to work in the UK, even against applicable UK law?

Other EU politicians have been quite diplomatic and friendly during the whole thing. A lot unlike a certain Prime Minister from a former EU member I could name.

NovemberWhiskey3• 5 years ago

When you cut off your foot with an axe, the bystanders are not punishing you when they observe that you're having trouble putting on your pants afterwards.

s_dev• 5 years ago

You also get the impression the UK wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Some of the Brexit political promises are pure delusion. I think a few over zealous Brexiteers might be conflating not getting rewarded with punishment.

BitwiseFool2• 5 years ago

I definitely sense a smug air of "this is all your fault and you deserve every ounce of pain for leaving. Let that be a lesson to you!"

snarf21• 5 years ago

Not helping them solve their problems is different than actively punishing them.

teorema• 5 years ago

... except there's also news reports everywhere of an energy crisis in Europe too? Also maybe Asia as well.

I've been trying to read into the causes and dont feel like I've come to understand it any better. I'm tempted to see it as part of the broader supply chain crisis but I get the impression its a little different.

Then again I'm not sure I understand why the broader supply chain disruption is as pervasive as it is at this point in time.

rich_sasha4• 5 years ago

Apparently, petrol (gas for Americans) is plentiful at the refineries, but there aren't truck drivers who can drive it to the petrol station. For some weeks now, supermarkets have been somewhat sparsely stacked (no shortage of food in general, but definitely limited ranges etc.).

There is no direct link to the spikes in energy prices.

albertopv• 5 years ago

In Italy I can buy gas everywhere as much as I want/can. There are anticipations of truck drivers shortage in Italy too, but guess, there's a whole EU labor market to try to fix that.

photochemsyn• 5 years ago

The issue with free movement of labor is that it only works out well across a region with standardized pay rates. Otherwise corporations will import labor from the low-cost zones and fire their high-cost local workers. This causes a lot of anger, see Brexit.

notatoad• 5 years ago

Yeah, that's what people keep saying. But if it were true, the staff shortages post-brexit would be easily resolved by simply paying a bit more.

The continued staff shortages would seem to mean that it's not simply an issue of pay, and there aren't enough Brits willing to do those jobs.

shmatt• 5 years ago

And yet the truck driver openings, now that the low cost workers are gone, have yet to see a significant pay rise to bring in locals that have never considered the job until now

And if, lets say, the corporations will now have to pay double for UK citizens to drive the gas delivery trucks. Wouldn't that raise the gas prices quite considerably?

The world outside the UK is working pretty well with labor import. Even a certain US ex-president was speaking about how bad it was, while he was requesting hundreds of low cost work visas for his vineyards (got to keep costs low...)

madaxe_again• 5 years ago

An outcome of free movement is flattening of income distribution across geography. Nowhere stays cheap, as wage inflation hits, and nowhere stays expensive, as employers move to cheaper places.

Sure, cities will be wealthier than the regions, but ultimately a city in Romania and a city in sweden, infrastructure and education being also equalised through structural funds, should present equal opportunities.

hogFeast3• 5 years ago

Not really. The ones who are angry about this are lobbyists representing haulers.

Most people in the UK are very supportive of HGV drivers finally being paid a fair wage. It is unfortunate that political leaders side so quickly with large corporations (although not surprising in Germany, it isn't usual in the UK, the public won't take it).

simonswords822• 5 years ago

Not suggesting that there are not other factors (Brexit, Covid etc) but the media have to shoulder the "panic" element of this.

E.g. stop publishing photos of queueing cars and cordoned off pumps and report purely on the statistics of the matter. Too many media outlets are entirely hell bent on getting clicks without a care for the furore they induce in the general public as a result.

Social media does of course amplify the messages and images the media put out, so they compound the issue.

mkohlmyr• 5 years ago

It's not unlike the panic buying at the start of the pandemic. The media is driving this hysteria because a) it fits their narrative around brexit, and b) fear & outrage sells.

yifanl2• 5 years ago

The media may have made the problem appear a little faster, but they can't be the actual cause of the shortage, the supply strain existed well before the first headline was ever pushed.

JKCalhoun• 5 years ago

fear & outrage sells

Or put another way, fear & outrage buy.

louthy2• 5 years ago

it fits their narrative around brexit

What narrative around Brexit? I see a lack of narrative around Brexit. We are always told about “supply chain issues” with barely any reflection on the cause.

Yes, other nations in Europe have supply chain issues, but they’re not seeing the problems we’re seeing in the uk.

This is a Brexit issue, but no major media outfit seems to be holding the government (who are the architects of the exit and the deal) accountable. Especially the serial liar at the top.

invalidusernam3• 5 years ago

I would be less inclined to try find a pump if I saw photos of long queues and closed forecourts

furyg3• 5 years ago

If this is true, this should only inconvenience people for a week or two. Unlike toilet paper, average citizens don't really have a way to store 100x more than their normal weekly consumption of petrol. So if there are no supply issues and only some distribution challenges, demand will slump off once everyone has had a chance to fill their tank and the 1-2 jerrycans they may have lying around.

jjgreen2• 5 years ago

Panic buy Jerry-cans!

krona• 5 years ago

It's worth noting, you can only store up to 30 litres of petrol at home or at non-workplace premises without informing your local Petroleum Enforcement Authority (PEA). https://www.hse.gov.uk/fireandexplosion/petrol-storage-club-...

silisili• 5 years ago

This is exactly what happened during the Colonial pipeline fiasco. They themselves said if things went normally, there'd be no shortage. Of course the media had a field day with that one nationwide. Florida, who doesn't even get gas from it, saw outages and long lines for gas. I wish there were more controls for prosecuting media companies.

Bud• 5 years ago

This is all actually due to the initial phases of the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire, as foreseen by Hari Seldon.

sgt2• 5 years ago

How can we counteract this. Should perhaps one or two settlements be created at the opposite ends of the Earth be established? In order to make ready for the new empire?

bayesian_horse16• 5 years ago

One in Cornwall and one on the Orkneys should be enough.

It's more of a local British problem...

_1tan• 5 years ago

Any blueprints for these settlements we can use?

ben_w7• 5 years ago

Land’s End and Marshall Meadows Bay should suffice.

Although at this rate, Northumberland will be accidentally seceded to a newly independent Scotland, and the entity of Cornwall will become part of an independent Wales.

binbag2• 5 years ago

The British did this a while back when their Empire still looked strong - the Foundation was North America. The silent sleeper cell second foundation is probably New Zealand. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson a.k.a the Mule came along.

TomGullen• 5 years ago

Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more.

What concerns me is government planning to address this looks a lot more forward looking than a few days/a week, so I can see it getting worse.

Interesting how the government say it’s not a shortage, if the refineries were running low you wouldn’t say there’s no shortage as there’s plenty of crude lying under the sea bed. If I can’t buy petrol at the pump then for all intents and purposes it is a shortage.

I feel like there’s a chance here there is a systemic issue and “panic buyers” are a convenient scape goat as I think most people are just filling up to the top instead of half way, or going a little earlier than they would otherwise. No actors doing this would class themselves as panic buyers, but there’s a lot of vitriol and anger towards the concept of a panic buyer which is a convenient diversion away from other causes.

HPsquared4• 5 years ago

"Nothing to see here, please disperse"

jack_riminton4• 5 years ago

Refusal to send the army in reeks of BoJo not making a decision until the crisis couldn't get any worse and so he's forced to

bayesian_horse16• 5 years ago

I think it was unclear as to why there is no gas. Is it because there are no drivers to drive the gas to the stations or because the general energy supply for GB currently sucks?

jack_riminton4• 5 years ago

The official line is that there is a lack of truck drivers, which is mostly true because Brexit has prevented a lot of the foreign drivers from working

dazc• 5 years ago

Currently tanker drivers need extra certification but are still treated badly by employers. There is currently high demand for HGV drivers generally with big incentives to move employers. Therefore, some fuel tanker drivers have left to work elsewhere and can not be so easily replaced.

Lots of truck drivers have left the industry after suffering years of poor pay and conditions. The licencing scheme is not so simple that they can return on a whim either.

gertrunde• 5 years ago

Originally, there were a handful (like 3-6 or so) stations that ran out of fuel due to a BP driver shortage.

The resulting media-fuelled spate of panic buying overloaded normal delivery cycles.

There is plenty of product stored at the ports/refineries themselves.

ed_elliott_asc• 5 years ago

The government really mis managed this - they keep saying there is no shortage yet all the stations have run out - they can’t spin this and ignore it until the next disaster distracts from this disaster.

CodeGlitch• 5 years ago

I'm sorry but when you have selfish (and idiotic) people like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kkRX2p9wH4

..how is the government supposed to manage this? The messages have been "just buy fuel normally" - but people are ignoring it. It's the same problem as happened with toilet paper, people will start hording whatever is now limited.

joeberon8• 5 years ago

when people don’t have capacity to buy any more.

I'm confused, can't they just fill up jerry cans, or if garages aren't allowing this, just siphon the fuel out of the car at home?

rspeele• 5 years ago

Sure, but anecdotally, most people don't have gas cans of significant capacity and many don't have any cans at all.

I live in the American south and we had a gas shortage like this in the spring due to a ransomware attack. There were pictures on social media of people trying to fill up all sorts of nonstandard containers ranging from buckets to grocery bags (yep). But I think the people who would buy gas cans for this, or try such silly alternative storage methods, are a minority and most won't expend the effort to pursue additional storage capacity beyond their vehicle's tank.

teeray• 5 years ago

You’re technically limited to storing a certain quantity of fuel on your property without a license. Whether a regulator could detect this is another question.

rhino369• 5 years ago

Jerrycans are about 5 gallons and people tend to have only 1-3 of them. The nationwide capacity to store gas (in reasonable contentions) is probably pretty low compared to average sales.

bb123• 5 years ago

Most modern cars have anti-siphon traps preventing this.

caeril• 5 years ago

Most people don't even possess jerry cans, let alone keep them filled and stabilized. Allocating time and resources to common-sense supply chain shock preparedness gets in the way of important things like football, porn, and social media.

Daddy Government will always provide, of course.

josephcsible• 5 years ago

Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more.

Didn't the Colonial Pipeline attack have people filling up plastic bags with gas?

nmeofthestate• 5 years ago

I think the photo you reference that was going round at the time was an old one from Brazil or Mexico or somewhere.

oxfordmale• 5 years ago

There is pictures in the Daily Mail of people emptying water bottles and filling them with petrol.

throwawayboise2• 5 years ago

Have you ever tried doing that? It works for about 5 minutes until the bag disolves.

sgt1016• 5 years ago

the best one I heard of was the people using domestic wheel bins as attempted fuel depots.

Cue fire brigade level intervention!

humps4• 5 years ago

As Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, explained on BBC Breakfast this morning. This happened because a BP document was leaked to the media, which unsurprisingly got them excited about a possible shortage and led to the panic buying. Madderson also said the industry is used to dealing with about 2 million liters of fuel being required a week, but that's with typical weekly fill-ups. He suggested that's effectively doubled now as people fill their tanks to the brim, which you can't keep up with under any circumstances. So there's no shortage in the industry, only a shortage created by consumers changing their behaviour overnight.

listless• 5 years ago

So the trucker shortage is a false conclusion? Cause this article states that’s the definitive cause. It reads to me like an axe to grind with Brexit and trying to tie this crisis to that political football.

enkid• 5 years ago

But over the long term, filling to the brim will not change the overall demand, it just changed the storage location. Once the system catches up to that fact, there shouldn't be a shortage anymore.

kristjansson2• 5 years ago

which you can't keep up with under any circumstances

What? This is a stocks and flows problem. If everyone filled up to the brim every time, but followed the same pattern of use otherwise, the weekly fuel consumed is exactly the same (modulo some tiny loss of efficiency due to cars being marginally heavier).

Of course a nation of half-full cars suddenly filling them to the brim demands much more fuel during the (short) period of time over which they make that transition, but that shouldn't create an expectation of drastically increased future _consumption_ of fuel.

Pick-A-Hill2019• 5 years ago

There is also a shortage of tanker delivery drivers which means that it is impossible to increase the number of deliveries which leads to outages which are then amplified via social media and news outlets (anything that gets clicks/engagements wins the race for Top Post/Ad Views/Headlines).

The biggest problem imo is that any time just about any government official in any country in any continent anywhere on the planet says trust us there is no need to panic people cast their minds back to the previous times they have heard that and (rather naturally) go 'Yeah, right!' and so think to themselves 'better safe than sorry'.

The UK gov has done a U-Turn and said that they will grant 5000 temporary work visas to EU HGV drivers .... that expire on Christmas Eve. Quelle surprise the take up rate has been rather low.

chrononaut• 5 years ago

..as I think most people are just filling up to the top instead of half way..

Perhaps I am missing something here, but are you referring to vehicles in this context? Is it not common to always fill your tank to the top?

lpapez2• 5 years ago

Depends a lot on the social status I think. Growing up in a poor household, we never worried about gas prices. When the salary came, we would buy 200HRK worth of petrol and use the car as long as it had petrol. After that, you walk. It was never a full tank and these days its not even half a tank.

tialaramex2• 5 years ago

No. It's a waste of money. Britain is a small country, you're not going to run out of fuel (ordinarily) on a trip and so it makes sense to keep the money in your pocket instead of turning it into fuel that's sat there doing nothing useful.

Also, it's very common to buy round amounts of value e.g. £30 of petrol, periodically, rather than just fill it up for however much that costs, for some people this makes it easier to think about from a budget point of view.

petercooper2• 5 years ago

I always fill up myself because I hate filling up any more than I have to, but when it costs the equivalent of $70 to fill even a tiny car or $140 for a large car, no, it's pretty common to just buy "what you need" for the next few days or whatever.

xeromal• 5 years ago

It's not common for people who's budget doesn't allow for a full tank. My family usually just put in a certain amount. 10-20$. When I visit home, I make sure to fill up their tanks in secret and they look at me like I'm insane. "Who fills up a tank?!"

csomar2• 5 years ago

Most people fill in small increments usually relating to their pay point. This is especially so for the UK where weekly pay is popular. I suspect this is a worldwide thing.

rootusrootus• 5 years ago

I think for some folks living check to check, it's pretty common to not have enough money for a full fill. In the end it's the same amount of gas, so this seems like just another one of the myriad ways poor people end up spending more resources than wealthier people because they can't invest a bit more now for better returns later.

whatever12• 5 years ago

Tell me you are an American without telling me you are an American.

Jokes apart, in Europe the gasoline is so expensive that you need ~80€ to fill up a small car. For an SUV can be close to 100€.

So we just fill up to just what is absolutely necessary and then we live in anxiety :)

dan-robertson2• 5 years ago

I’ve seen some people keep the tank only partially full because it improves performance (the car will be more efficient if it is lighter and might eg handle better too, especially if it is a small car) though I don’t really buy that argument.

But if you supposed that everyone drove normally until their tank was 1/8 full then refuelled to the top, the average tank would be 7/16 full so if lots of people refuel all at once that is 9/16 times a lot of fuel tanks.

owenversteeg• 5 years ago

Keeping extra gas in the tank (aka filling up all the way) is like keeping a savings account - many people can't afford it. Depending on the country, the tank size and the price of gas, you can easily be looking at $100 for a tank vs. just keeping a bit in there to get around.

lelanthran• 5 years ago

Perhaps I am missing something here, but are you referring to vehicles in this context? Is it not common to always fill your tank to the top?

Depends. When I am in a hurry I buy fuel for an exact amount of cash, so that I can hand over cash and move on.

When I am not, I fill up to the first click[1], and then wait for the attendant to amble on over with a payment terminal so I can use my card.

If I was always paying cash, I would never fill up because I don't really want to hang about while they make change for whatever money I give them. [1] I had a 1986 BMW 525e that, if you filled up to the very top, will leak out excess fuel through an overfill pipe when on a slight (or not so slight) incline. Filling up to the top wasted that fuel.

fastaguy88• 5 years ago

When gas/petrol shortages occur, it is often because people fill up a 1/2 full tank, rather than waiting for it to be less than 1/4 full. This makes sense if you do not have confidence that you will be able to find gas. But it also means more trips to the station, and a net shift of fuel to automobile tanks.

015a• 5 years ago

This sounds like the classic establishment divert-and-divide playbook for managing public outrage. Come up with some reasonable story which explains the problem by redirecting outrage at average people. Make sure we stay mad at each other.

Lately far too many of these playbooks have been focused on suppressing the systemic mistreatment of the working class. Fuel isn't running low because we can't find enough truck drivers due to systemic underpayment and overwork; its low because people are panic buying. Schools cant find enough teachers not because of underpayment and overwork; its because of right-wing pushback against mask mandates, people are scared to return to the classroom. Hospital ICUs aren't overflowing because of a critical care staff shortage due to systemic underpayment and overwork; its because of the unvaccinated.

The unfortunate reality is, these public relations control strategies work because there is some element of truth to Their explanation. Rarely do problems boil down to one solution; and if They can keep focus on the one, small element of the problem that encourages Us to stay mad at each-other, They don't have to worry about solving the systemic issues, built-up over decades, which anyone with half a brain could have seen coming.

sgt2• 5 years ago

TBH I still think Brexit is a good choice for Britain. The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization (but perhaps I am a bit biased, I've always been opposed to the EU because it's far too heavy weight).

Of course, they will suffer economically for a while, but that was part of the game with Brexit.

The voters however - were slightly lied to regarding the immediate downsides. It's probably important to keep the big picture in mind.

rich_sasha4• 5 years ago

The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization

Compared to what? Efficiency always scaled poorly with size. For what it's worth, bureaucracies of US Federal government, not to mention those of China, India, Russia etc. are far worse, it seems.

It's not about the EU's throughput of things, but things it enables. Things like efficient allocation of resources via a single economic area, for example.

ethnt• 5 years ago

It absolutely was not the right choice for the UK (not just Britain, don't forget about Northern Ireland). The EU has definitely shown itself to be quick when it needs to be, and in general has improved life for the average person. There are nothing but downsides in the immediate and long-term future for the UK without the EU — these economic consequences are not easily solvable, and the Tories have not shown themselves capable of actually solving these problems.

The UK had a very privileged place in the EU before, and was able to punch above their weight. When they inevitably rejoin they certainly won't be able to hold that special status again.

joeberon8• 5 years ago

As a Brit, I think "slightly lied to" is a huge under-exaggeration. Literally everyone I spoke to who voted for Brexit did so entirely on the lies, for example the NHS money thing, specific claims about removing "foreigners", and promises of rebuilding of British-only enterprises.

davzie2• 5 years ago

I'm sorry but you can't know that. The vast majority of people had probably made their decision before the messaging kicked in. Also you can claim the same the other way. The only reason people voted to remain is because of the scare of no drinking water, no medicines, fear of an instant market crash etc. Both sides can and were manipulated to some extent by false messaging that never came to be, but certainly not everyone voted the way they did as a result of that messaging.

callamdelaney5• 5 years ago

I seriously doubt this claim 'Literally everyone I spoke to who voted for Brexit did so entirely on the lies' - that seems to be a coping mechanism for anybody on the opposite side of a debate.

If I had voted remain you could say I had done so on lies if my motivation was to prevent house prices dropping by 18% [1] - where as actually they have moved about 18% higher [2]. There were no specific claims about removing foreigners, only the factually accurate statement that we could move to a points based immigration system if we wanted to.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/eu-referend... [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/housing-index

captaincaveman3• 5 years ago

I can't say this is true for everyone that voted, but can sadly confirm that I know for many this is true, certainly had a significant impact in my opinion.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

Well... looks like the UK are the next in line to discover that paying people in essential industries shit wages leads to said shit outcomes.

Over many decades, employees in easy-to-learn and especially easy-to-outsource jobs were treated as disposable cogs, and now after Corona and other crisis crunches the whole house of cards comes crushing down.

bayesian_horse16• 5 years ago

They would still be in the UK doing their shit jobs for shit wages, if they had a better visa situation...

callamdelaney5• 5 years ago

There is a massive shortage of HGV drivers across Europe and has been for years. 'It should be noted first and foremost that Britain’s driver shortage is not a new phenomenon. Even in the heady days before Covid or Brexit, the UK was already lacking around 76,000 drivers, according to Logistics UK.'[1]

[1] https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-...

bellyfullofbac• 5 years ago

Well, aren't we all in the West (if I may assume where you live) guilty of that? 55 inch TVs are $500 nowadays, mangoes flown from South America are less than $2 in my local supermarket, we like to fly to Thailand because vacationing is "dirt cheap" there...

jjgreen2• 5 years ago

The Mash nailed this last week

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/britain-facing-long-...

beardyw• 5 years ago

And NewsThump today:

Government unveils ‘guaranteed to work’ petrol track & trace app to beat fuel crisis

https://newsthump.com/2021/09/27/government-unveils-guarante...

"You put in your location and details, and then next Tuesday you’ll get an appointment to get precisely three litres of fuel from a pump in Sunderland"

HPsquared4• 5 years ago

People can only fill their tank, so it's self-limiting.

joeberon8• 5 years ago

What do you mean by that? They can fill jerry cans or siphon out fuel at home

HPsquared4• 5 years ago

More generally, people have limited capacity by how many fuel containers they own. I don't think there is a massive supply of unused jerry cans anywhere, and and in any case it would take several cans to equal a single car tank.

david_allison• 5 years ago

You can only store 30 litres of fuel at home.

You can store up to 30 litres of petrol at home or at non-workplace premises without informing your local Petroleum Enforcement Authority (PEA).

https://www.hse.gov.uk/fireandexplosion/petrol-storage-club-...

oneplane• 5 years ago

People tend to find creative ways around this. Jerrycans have been used to carry additional fuel for example.

JimmyAxod4• 5 years ago

The media need to be held accountable here.

Everyone in the industry is telling anyone who will listen that there is no shortage of petrol (gas), and there is no shortage of drivers. Yet the media are still whipping the story because it’s selling papers/views/clicks etc for them.

This is yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is no fire. There should be prosecutions for this sort of behaviour. Lives will be put at risk or lost because of this.

And seriously, the public need to stop listening and believing the media. They have no morals, and they certainly do not care about truth.

To those downvoting: If there is still a “crisis” next week, I will eat my hat. There is no crisis. You know this. The media will have moved onto the next “crisis” they can manufacture.

From the article:

Drivers queued for hours to fill their cars at petrol stations that were still selling fuel, albeit often rationed. There were also calls for National Health Service (NHS) workers to be given priority to keep hospitals open

That is just ridiculous. It’s so far removed from reality. Who queued for hours? Who in their right mind is suggesting hospitals might close? It’s just reckless reporting designed to make panic buying worse. And trying to link it to our decision to leave the EU years ago, is just utter desperation.

You all know this is BS, and that in a couple of days, once the story has peaked, and the media has moved onto something else, the “crisis” will be over.

prof-dr-ir• 5 years ago

Your claim that "there is no shortage of drivers" according to "everyone in the industry" is incorrect. From [0]:

BP blamed the restrictions on “delays in the supply change which has been impact by the industry-wide driver shortages across the UK”.

Tesco said it had “experienced temporary supply issues caused by driver absences in recent days”, adding: “We expect the situation to improve in the next week and apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.”

[0] https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-bp-to-start-rat...

JimmyAxod4• 5 years ago

I’d suggest you should listen to what the drivers, refinery, and actual garage staff say. I think you’ll get much closer to the truth.

Tesco aren’t rationing petrol due to the “driver crisis”. They are rationing it due to the media telling people to go and panic buy petrol.

As you can see in the article, the only one with driver issues is BP. Other petrol stations have plenty. Yet they are all affected because of the media whipping consumers into panic.

And as you can see in the article, BP reports that “between 50 and 100 stations affected”. Out of 1200!!! That’s not even newsworthy, yet the media are whipping and whipping.

Can you see the issue with the following…

Petrol stations operated by Morrisons, The Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Asda also said they had no current issues with their fuel supplies, the BBC reported.
LARGE FONT ALL BOLD! ‘Rapidly worsening crisis’
Jim McMahon, Shadow Transport Secretary, described the lorry driver shortage as a “rapidly worsening crisis” that required urgent Government attention.

So the petrol stations say it’s all fine, and the article shouts “RAPIDLY WORSENING CRISIS”. This, as I say, is disgraceful reporting, and is shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre where there is no fire.

BoiledCabbage• 5 years ago

Everyone in the industry is telling anyone who will listen that there is no shortage of petrol (gas), and there is no shortage of drivers.

If that were true, then there'd be no issue. But things were continuing to worsen before the media reported on it.

JimmyAxod4• 5 years ago

No they weren’t. Certainly around here, the order of events was exactly this: * Petrol stations all chugging along normally * Media start scaring people into panic buying * Petrol stations overwhelmed by idiotic buying

In a few days, it will all go away. The sky is not falling.

traveler01• 5 years ago

"British ministers have insisted that Brexit is nothing to do with the current trucker shortage."

BUT...

"The government on Sunday announced a plan to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers."

The politicians think that everyone's dumb. If you need to pass temporary visas, a thing that truckers didn't needed when UK was in the EU, clearly Brexit caused this issue.

kwhitefoot2• 5 years ago

Brexit didn't cause it, it just made it more obvious. The problem is not a shortage of drivers, it is the poor pay and conditions.

tim3332• 5 years ago

There were multiple factors of which brexit was maybe number two. People stopping working due to covid was no 1. Also the diver license folk knocking off.

mcot2• 5 years ago

Solar + Battery + EV - No need for a pump, just sayin…

addingnumbers• 5 years ago

How much panel surface would you need to drive an EV, say, 100 miles a week?

jillesvangurp• 5 years ago

A Tesla does about 4 miles per kw, give or take. So 100 miles would use about 25 KWH. Typical solar panel setups for domestic usage are around 3-4 KW. So depending on the season, you could get to 25KWH in a single day in the summer and you might struggle to get there in a week in the winter. All depends on you latitude, cloud coverage, etc. If you are in the north of Scottland, probably not a great plan in the winter but fantastic yields in the summer due to the long days.

vel0city3• 5 years ago

This will need to make some assumptions based on how many good hours of solar generation you get. This will vary quite a bit based on latitude and season. Assuming you get ~6 hours of good generation a day on average, charging 7 days a week means you'll get 42 hours of good solar power output.

Depending on your EV car, your driving habits, etc you might get ~4mi/kWh. So for 100mi, you're looking at 25kWh to get your 100mi weekly range.

So over the course of 42 weekly hours, you'll need to come up with 25kWh. 25,000Wh / 42 hours converts to ~595.24W. So you'll want about 600W of generation capacity.

Modern PV cells usually get ~150W per square meter, so 600 W / 150 W/m^2 = 4 m^2.

You'll probably want to add a bit of additional overhead to deal with the weeks where you don't get quite a much sun and also with some of the losses in the system. As an additional note, this is only really thinking about the "peak" hours in the system. You'll get a few more hours a day charging at a lot of latitudes. This can also vary a decent bit based on the layout of your solar array.

sgt1016• 5 years ago

I've got a tesla and a plug, there's no need for a pump with that setup either...

mikestew• 5 years ago

In ten years of Nissan Leaf ownership, I've needed neither solar panels nor a gas/petrol station to power it.

hardlianotion2• 5 years ago

They are petrol stations.

binbag2• 5 years ago

It's OK everyone, the government says there is no shortage, so there isn't one. That's how it works in the New Sovereign UK.

plutonorm• 5 years ago

Seems strange that this has nothing at all to do with the rapidly rising prices of petrol in the UK. Russia has been reducing the flow of petrol into Europe due to conflict over a new pipeline. The UK has a had a terrible windy season, meaning more demand for fossil fuels. And economic recovery after the pandemic, all these things have pushed prices really high.

This shortage of drivers thing is likely a convenient side story to distract from the fundamental issue of high prices.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-pric...

WJW2• 5 years ago

How would a windy season lead to more demand for fossil fuels? You'd think all the wind turbines going full swing would mean less electricity has to be generated with non-renewable means, thereby reducing demand for fossil fuels.

nicktelford• 5 years ago

By "terrible windy season", he means that a season that is usually expected to be very windy has instead been quite still.

regularfry• 5 years ago

A terrible windy season is one in which there is less wind. This would be different to a terribly windy season, in which there is too much.

We've just had a low-wind summer, increasing the demand for gas.

gpderetta• 5 years ago

Well it didn't take long after the apocalypse to go full Mad Max

Hopefully it is just another toilet roll craze.

newbamboo• 5 years ago

Diesel too?

tim3332• 5 years ago

Yup. Apparently there's been a 20x increase in people putting the wrong fuel in their vehicle - diesel in petrol or visa versa which is rather dumb.

animal531• 5 years ago

Here is South Africa during our last Covid lockdown there were also a shortage going on. But then the government banned the selling of petrol to people who were bringing random containers, which apparently made up a big portion of the total sales.

Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

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