Panic buying is contagious so bring in armed forces

It doesn’t matter how many MPs of how many political hues call for people to stop panic buying, their pleas will always fall on deaf ears. Why? Because it goes against human nature or instinct to stand out from the crowd, to resist the herd mentality and plough your own, let’s face it absolutely rational, furrow.

And so we go back 18 months to The Last Great Panic-Buying Sensation. Then it was food, fruit and veg and dry goods, today it’s petrol.

We’ve been here before of course, 20-odd years ago during those protests over rocketing fuel prices, when protesters blockaded refineries and stopped tanker drivers getting on the road.

Then, as now, there was plenty of petrol. The difference: people today are terrified of running out, even running low and in this pandemic world the last thing most people want is a lockdown forced by a lack of petrol and men and women to move it around.

Don’t forget, while you’re sitting in the queue waiting to hit the forecourt, the number of empty shelves in the supermarkets is racking up. Get your petrol (if you’re lucky) and move on to do it all again at the store.

The cause? That perfect storm of Brexit, Covid-19, an ageing workforce and the bad karma enveloping the job of a lorry driver.

None of us needs more panic in our lives. If there’s one thing on which we can all agree it is that panicky behaviour is contagious. Every time we’re told not to be selfish and ransack supermarkets or filling stations, it triggers the thought that food or petrol is running out and we must get to the nearest Tesco or Sainsbury’s and buy five packets of pasta and as many tins of tomatoes as we can carry.

It’s obvious what should happen. The government must agree a post-Brexit U-turn on foreign workers visas, and the armed forces used to fill as many lorry drivers’ jobs as possible.