Source: Daily Mail 28 March 2012
Well, Cameron and his Cabinet minister Maude, have done a great job of handling an imminent strike by Tanker drivers. This smacks of the year 2000, when I remember queuing up twice over to fill our cars with fuel. Unfortunately now, as everyone turns to diesel as a fuel that supposedly has better miles to the gallon, this is the fuel that runs out first on the pumps. Today, even the Police cars were filling at the pumps, along with all the tradesmen’s vans, and taxi’s.
Yesterday, everything was reassuringly normal at the pumps, which I greeted with a degree of optimism, a good sign that queues had not instantly formed at the first whiff of a fuel distribution problem. However, all change today.
As Cameron announced that he thought a Strike would be ’irresponsible’, I am inclined to agree. Like our economy needs a bit more bashing. As fuel prices reach an all-time high, and now commonly exceeding 1.44 GBP a litre, that is getting towards twice the price it was back in 2000. Everyone knows that fuel duty is a nice little earner for the government (even though they strenuously deny this despite the post-budget realisation that customers will be paying another 3p more per litre after the summer….). In Switzerland, prices were pretty low considering the cost of living as the fuel duty was quite low. Now, instead of 85CHF (60GBP) a fill up, it’s costing me about 90 GBP (130CHF) a fill here in the UK for diesel. In Switzerland, if you really had to, you could depend on public transport to get you anywhere. It would take a bit of planning, but it can be done. Regular interconnected affordable mass transit. Here, the investment has been woeful, and the bus network remains skeletal at best. What few buses run run empty just because they are so infrequent they are not worth the effort. It’s not that cheap either. I have to use fuel every day for a 10 minute drive to school because there were no Year 3 places in Wokingham town centre together with Year 6 vacancy in the same school. I have a school run to do every day. I must admit, I am looking forward to the time when both girls are in the same town, and our fuel bill will go down by about 45 GBP a week!
Thankfully, we are pretty close to the town centre, so we will be able walk and shop locally for a while, and this will blow over. Today, I genuinely needed to fill up, and I was queuing with the panicking masses in the search for diesel. One Shell station in Wokingham has already run dry today. Luckily, just down the road, BP still had some this afternoon. Even there, people’s tempers were fraying, as some cars were trying to barge in and jump the queues. I suppose there is still a degree of English queuing etiquette despite panic buying conditions!
The Army are now being called upon for contingency measures to supply emergency services with fuel, so that really gives us confidence that the government believe that the strike will be averted through the use of the ACAS conciliation service... I am not sure that everyone is completely crystal clear as to why a strike is completely necessary.
The government were not only advising a top up, but extra storage in Jerry cans, so you can guess what will be the next thing to run out in the shops….
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