Well The Panic Buying has Started

Ridiculous isn’t it, and over petrol. What on earth would it be like if it was food!

The link below shows some of the fighting that broke out:

Edited as original link did not play

Thanks for posting the vid Baz.

:023: That’s OK, no problem.
:grinning:

This is what happens when folks get “Pumped Up” :grinning:

Remember the fighting over TV’s in 2014?

There are crazies in Oz too as last year’s loo roll fights make clear:

And in France with this last year:

The whole world is crazy.

The DT, this morning, is saying the the panic has been traced to a leak, by the big Road Haulage Association.

Apparently, the Union & their members, are fed up with the terms and conditions of being a driver.

Haulage body with anti-Brexit drive was behind fuel crisis leak, claim No 10 sources (telegraph.co.uk)

Well if Number 10 sources have claimed it to be true it must be. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

It is not possible to read the news item on the link given unless willing to subscribe to that publication, which I am not. The link below is to another publication not requiring readers to subscribe but as far as I can make out, giving the exact opposite view.

Could it be that the government is trying to cause confusion to avoid any blame for what they have been advised of for years – the haulage industry has appalling terms and conditions of work?

Just who should we believe?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/leak-allegations-e2-80-98nonsense-e2-80-99-says-haulage-association-executive/ar-AAOPVfq

What are you saying that our government is trying to divert attention away from themselves, how dare you, our politicians are the epitome of honesty and integrity. :smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley:

As if anyone would dare to suggest such a thing!
:grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning:

Plus an extra one for luck!
:grinning:

@Ted c,. Are we to believe the petrol “shortage” is due to a LEAK ??
BTW, The remainer BBC is having a field day today ??
Luckily most callers seem to have more sense !!
Donkeyman! :thinking::thinking:

This is what the DT article said:-

"Sometimes, when sensitive details of a government meeting are leaked to the media, it can take months and a full-scale inquiry to identify the mole.

No such inquiry has been launched into the leak that prompted the fuel crisis on Thursday, because the shortlist of suspects, according to Whitehall insiders, has only ever consisted of one name.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA), which attended a Zoom call hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss driver shortages, has been accused of prompting the weekend’s panic-buying in order to further its own political agenda.

The RHA has been campaigning for months for cheap foreign labour to be allowed back into the country to make up a shortfall of lorry drivers which it has “massively exaggerated”, sources say.

One senior Government source said that the RHA “owes an apology to the British people” for the weekend chaos."

Take your pick in what you want to believe!

The government knew there was a shortfall of HGV drivers a long time ago, they should have been planning to do something about this way before any of this affected the country in the way it now has. How many months / years has it been since Brexit started and was followed by the pandemic? Food and many other necessities were not being delivered way before those panic buying caused what we now see at petrol garages.

The same happened with the shortage nursing staff, they have been in short supply for years too. That was known about and the government seems to have done nothing about that, other than to exacerbate the problem with restrictions on nurses from abroad being employed. They also did nothing other than to make trainee nurses pay for their training. What they should have done before that, I believe, was to ensure that all nurses trained in the NHS had in their terms that they, in return for the training, had to work for the NHS for a certain time. What happened in reality was that the NHS training, reputed to be the best there is, was taken up and then those trained nurses promptly left to work in the private sector, where they were better paid and terms and conditions of work were far better.

I know what I believe and that is based on hearing from those involved how it really is for them in their daily working lives. Lorry drivers not having anywhere to park up with adequate facilities so having to risk parking in insecure lay-bys. Nurses having so many patients to look after overnight that if anything serious happened there were problems. Two nurses looking after two wards with a total of 24 adult patients, how can that be right and that was years ago?

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Baz, I’ve been saying the very same thing for years but about Doctors. Why should they get all the training then get to bugger off without giving anything back.
Down in Perth there is an AirTraining Base for pilots, lots of them are from abroad, their training is paid for by their countries government and when they go back they have to work so many years for their country before they are free to go and work where they want.

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The one major problem I have with that statement is that the government do not employ HGV drivers.
Hauliers and assorted other companies do which means that they are responsible.
That’s why it’s a problem across Europe and it’s affecting the USA too - “The total European shortfall of HGV drivers is now more than 400,000. For example, even in Poland it’s 124,000 drivers, in the UK it’s 60,000, and in Germany it’s about the same as the UK but forecast to rise to 185,000 drivers by 2027.” said IDS in yesterday’s Telegraph.

As for nurses & other medical staff, that is different because the NHS is a nationalised industry.
We as a country have in effect pillaged other countries of their staff for decades which has not only been detrimental to those countries, but it has also both artificially restrained UK wages in those sectors and also decreased the desirability for prospective home-grown staff.
Why choose nursing when you can earn the same money stacking shelves and have far less hassle?

Now the haulage industry just wants to keep on using the same tactics with HGV drivers.
It’s alright talking about poor facilities for drivers, but if the RHA are really as concerned about their drivers as they suggest then why haven’t they done anything about it?
I do hope that you can read this, although I know that some can’t because it is paywalled.

"I recall before Brexit, when as Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions I questioned why hauliers did so little to invest in their industry by training drivers, particularly when the shortages were already becoming known, the hauliers responded that British people wouldn’t do the job. In response, my department bought a number of places on courses to test their theory, and found that they were filled by applicants in days, and well over three-quarters subsequently passed. The hauliers’ theory was wrong: there were plenty of people with drivers licences who would have loved to train but couldn’t afford the cost of the course. The reality was that cheaper drivers from overseas led to short-term decisions."

It’s getting ridiculous,I’m in Newbury and there is chaos at Sainsbury’s petrol station, never seen anything like it, thank God I caught the bus this morning.

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My wife has just returned from Tesco and told me that Sainsbury’s forecourt opposite was was coned off. She did okay with Tesco petrol after shopping and put her usual £30 in the tank, but did mention some Chelsea tractor driver was being told in no uncertain terms that there was a maximum for all customers no matter how large their vehicle of a flat £40 and the pumps have been set to shut of at that sum …he was not amused, but my wife couldn’t stop laughing as security moved the driver off from the pump-line … I’d have loved to witnessed that :grin::+1:

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This was just after 10 am, LD, I’m not surprised there are cones there now, it was absolutely ridiculous when I was walking up from the wharf once getting off the bus, that one way system was chock a block with cars, how far that stretched back I have no idea.

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Hi

I have diesel, only 3 cars in the queue and no limit on amounts.

I am a happy womble.

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