The petrol panic
The UK’s 8,000 petrol stations came under siege last week as motorists, panicked by rumours of petrol shortages, rushed to fill up their cars causing lengthy tailbacks. The panic was sparked by a small-scale disruption to fuel deliveries resulting from a shortage of HGV drivers, which morphed into a crisis when motorists rushed to fill their tanks. The Petrol Retailers Association estimated that between 50% and 90% of its members were out of fuel on Sunday and Monday. The shortages led to ugly clashes on forecourts, and to calls for NHS staff and other key workers to get priority at the pumps.
The Government put the Army on standby to help with deliveries if necessary. It also issued 5,000 visas to allow more foreign HGV drivers to work here between now and Christmas, and waived aspects of competition law to enable fuel suppliers to cooperate and share data. Boris Johnson assured the public on Tuesday that the situation was “stabilising”, but conceded that the Government was still concerned that pressure on supply chains might cause shortages of other goods in the coming months.
What the editorials said
Queues at the pumps, gaps on supermarket shelves, soaring gas bills – “welcome to Britain in 2021”, said The Observer. The pandemic has caused disruption across the world, but our Government has handled the fallout particularly ineptly. Johnson and his team have seemed “constantly behind the curve”, said the FT, coming up with solutions that are too little, too late. The new 5,000 three-month visas for foreign lorry drivers are a classic example. Even if all these visas are taken up – doubtful, given all the bureaucratic hurdles that drivers, who already have plenty of work in Europe, would have to overcome – it won’t do much to fill the estimated 100,000 shortfall of HGV drivers in the UK.
The Government should have acted sooner, said The Daily Telegraph, “not least by getting a grip on the DVLA, which has presided over a backlog of 50,000 HGV licence applications”. The crisis on the forecourts may now be easing, said The Times, but the PM needs a viable plan to deal with ongoing supply-chain challenges. Crises like this can destroy confidence in governments, as Tony Blair learnt to his cost during the fuel protests of 2000. “There is nothing more visceral than the fear that one might not be able to get one’s hands on the necessities of life.”