Sorry, is anybody in charge here?
Mutiny on the trains, punch-ups at the petrol pumps … who else feels things are starting to unravel, asks Judith Woods
Crisis? What effing crisis? That’s Effing, by the way, as in “Energy, Food and Fuel” shortages. But it also works as an acronym for just about every ramshackle area of British life you care to examine: fisticuffs on forecourts over effing petrol, flare-ups on public transport over effing masks, rodents feasting on effing supermarket croissants…
That’s also Effing as in Elected Fools Failing us, because we’ve lost all trust in the Government to fix the assorted ills currently besetting the country. With that loss of trust comes a growing sense that we are under siege – and with nobody looking out for us, we must look after ourselves.
I am surely not alone in a sense of growing unease that, long before we reach the Winter of Discontent, we must surely endure an Autumn of Incivility.
As our politicians dither in the face of warnings from virtually every sector of the economy, Insulate Britain is proving to be, at best, a bloodyminded annoyance and, at worst, a dangerous menace. After 13 days of disruption – which began gently enough, with one police officer telling the road-blockers who closed the M25: “If any of you are in any discomfort or need anything just let me know and we will try and sort you out in a nice way” – irate motorists have now taken to dragging protesters off the roads themselves.
Yesterday, even paramedics had had enough, with one crew helping fuming motorists on the Wandsworth Bridge in London to carry protestors off the tarmac to let an ambulance through. One driver reportedly beat the blockade at the Blackwall Tunnel by simply driving at protesters.
Meanwhile, the Army has been drafted in to drive petrol tankers. About time, too – but how long before there are boots on the ground, sharpshooter rifles cocked, on Norfolk turkey farms? Royal engineers deployed to help Santa’s workshops overcome looming toy shortages?
For all his hyperbolic railing against the unsustainability of Britain’s last-minute supply chains, the sorry truth is that we are at the mercy of a just-in-time Prime Minister.
Here is a man of straw who seems only to make decisions when they are forced upon him by circumstance or catastrophe. And he doesn’t even always make it under the wire.
In this Disunited Kingdom, tempers are fraying, nerves are stretched taut as cheesewire and hitherto stoical citizens are taking matters into their own fists.
To whit: on Sunday, a Great Western Railway train to Paddington failed to stop at Swindon. Cue the traditional muttering, discombobulation and perhaps even eye contact? No. The emergency alarm was pulled repeatedly as passengers on the “dangerously overcrowded” service from Penzance mutinied.
The train stopped for an hour outside Swindon before finally reversing. Although once those troublemakers – sorry, travellers – had alighted, all other filthy collaborators – I mean, the rest of the passengers – were punished by getting turfed off the “service” at Reading.
This was two hours after they should have arrived in Paddington. Maybe GWR thought it was teaching them a lesson, but history will record the Swindon Rout as a victory by the people for the people.
Unfortunately, such grassroots uprisings can be a little hit or miss. As our respect for authority starts to ebb, it doesn’t take beloved-agitator-turned-reviled-enemy Robespierre to note that “the people” aren’t always the most reliable arbiters of natural justice. And in times of uncertainty, individuals can react badly to even the mildest provocation or approach.
I have witnessed argy bargy between mask-wearers and facecovering refuseniks on the London Underground that would make a sailor blush. Three months after face coverings were made a condition of carriage on the London Underground, bus and rail network, the latest official figures confirmed that tens of thousands of passengers had abandoned the practice – only to be told last week by Health Secretary Sajid Javid to put them back, as “the pandemic has not ended”. But I’ve still never seen an official enforce this rule, so the mask-less get away with doing as they please.
I have also seen shop assistants scolded for wearing a mask: “You’re treating your customers like we are infectious!” one young male shopper said, failing to grasp that although they serve as a psychological prop, masks are primarily for the protection of others.
Then again, those who work in shops are also being castigated for failing to wear masks themselves, and even for having grubby Perspex screens.
Unfortunately, hitting out at those blamelessly serving us is becoming shockingly commonplace. A survey of the UK’S top 100 retailers, carried out by law firm TLT, found that a third (31 per cent) of retailers employed shop workers who had experienced abuse at the hands of customers.
Another report, by the Usdaw union, suggested that abusive incidents toward shop workers had doubled since the outbreak of Covid-19. Respondents to their survey recounted being spat at, coughed at, and sneezed at when asking customers to practise social distancing. Some stated that they had been pushed and verbally abused when trying to enforce buying limits on in-demand products during lockdown.
That would account for the shouting at my local garage over jerry cans. God only knows what will happen as December nears, if we are already being urged to buy ingredients for Christmas lunch now and freeze them for later.
Last month, a government spokesperson assured us that our seasonal celebrations were safe; a fortnight later, Tesco warned that the supply crisis “could be 10 times worse by Christmas”.
Which one do you believe? I rest my case. But not in sorrow, very much in anger. Not least because if women like me start stocking up on toys, gifts and comestibles, we will be condemned by the Government for “panic buying” and letting the side down.
And if we don’t? If we hold back and wait for the shelves to echo emptier than a political promise? Then we let our families down.
Uncertainty has conjured up a febrile atmosphere of drivers following lorries from fuel depot to supplier, parking overnight for a tank of petrol as the Government dragged its feet. Last week, one tanker driver travelling along the A23 revealed how he had been tailed by around 20 drivers who believed the doublebellied transporter contained petrol – rather than a consignment of concrete for a building project. “The man at the front wound down his window and asked me which petrol station I was going to,” he said. “When I said I wasn’t, he asked me ‘Why not?’ and when I said I wasn’t carrying petrol, he actually said: ‘You could have stopped and told us you weren’t a petrol tanker!’”
Meanwhile, squaddies that are now on petrol manoeuvres should have been deployed a week ago. But anticipating problems is not in the skillset of our pathologically bumptious PM. Last time I looked, the queue outside my local service station still snaked back as far as Hallowe’en.
But this year who needs fright night when you can watch terrifying smartphone footage, that has since gone viral, taken by a shopper in a north London Sainsbury’s, in which a couple of rats scuttle around the pastry baskets? Store bosses have since apologised and drafted in pest control – but it’s a salutary visual reminder of the 1970s, when rubbish piled high in the streets and vermin multiplied in our unfinest hour.
With energy bills soaring, retro flares bang on trend and Abba making a comeback, we seem to be hurtling towards disaster again in a Delorean time machine. Except, this time, the public has already had enough.
In the face of mounting civil disturbances – “Crisis? WHICH crisis?”, to misparaphrase a 1970s prime minister – it seems we are ready to take back control.