Which is all very fine and well, but if the supermarkets around there are having supply issues anything like the ones around here, you'll have trouble finding any of those either.

It'll be okay provided the haulage companies switch back to horse-drawn carts for delivering the carrots from the farms.

At least Findus won't run out of "meat" to put in their Lasagne.

Surely you mean Tesco and burgers?

No I meant Findus and Lasagne.

He's not in Belgium, you know.

And, they don't. They run on hay and vet bills.

I was a student and working in a supermarket during the fuel protests years ago, and it was much the same then. We very quickly had to restrict items becuase idiots were buying (for example) 6-8 loaves of bread at a time, despite admitting that they wouldn't use it before it went stale and didn't have space to freeze it.

Unsurprisingly the reaction from the continent appears to be "I'm not moving back there for 6 months just to bail them out of the shit then get kicked out again"

Your points are, er, on point.

Upvoted

Re : "I cannot fathom the downvotes"

Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

I guess the two downvoters don't understand that European HGV drivers aren't waiting day after day by the phone for it to ring and them to get their chance to get called up and save Blighty, until the 25th of December when they become illegal immigrants and they'll be put on a flight to Jamaica.

It's a continual argument around the internet. The "we stopped them coming over here and taking our jobs" brigade will of course not be taking jobs like HGV driving, meat processing or fruit picking, and instead of admitting that Brexit is one of the factors in this shortage (there are of course others, HGV driving has been losing people for years due to the conditions, and the pandemic and IR35 reform have also been factors) these people are instead celebrating the clear victory of the crown symbol returning to British pint glasses.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/16/brexit-triumph-crown-stamp-returns-pint-glasses-bonfire-eu-rules/

Pretty sure we could have printed those anyway...

The downvotes?

They weren't "kicked out" in the first place.

"I'm not moving back there for 6 months just to bail them out of the shit then get kicked out again"

3 months, and kicked out on Chirstmas Eve.

To be honest, knowing what I know about upcoming troubles, keeping the xenophobia dial turned up to 11 will be the least of Priti Patel's problems soon. Let's just say it looks like certain public sector unions will be (rightly) rejecting a 1% pay offer, and we'll see where that leads.

The fuel shortage in 2000 coincidentally happened when IR35 was first introduced... oh...

Can you imagine what would have happened if he had done this in a Liverpool? It wouldn't be easy riding a horse away when all four legs had been nicked.

Hmm, Thames Ditton may in theory be in Greater London, but in reality it's in an affluent part of Surrey. People not only recognise what a horse is, a few probably own one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8

Came here to make exactly that comment :-)

Someone shouts fire in a crowded room and people knock each other over to get out. Much the same for the loo roll and petrol. Yet we still wait for the world to end.

Can someone reasonably explain to me why this "petrol shortage" is happening now and not 6 or 9 months ago?

Was it caused by a Guardian reader by any chance?

There was a minor shortage from one firm that wouldn't have caused any problems for anybody.

The press reported on it with glee, so everybody rushed out an bought petrol.

Then the press reported on the panic buying with glee in order to elongate the panic buying.

The Times ran a story yesterday on the *front page* that Christiano Ronaldo's *driver* was queueing for petrol. Absolutely pathetic from the press. They should be shot.

Everything is fine. There is plenty of petrol. It's just people are buying (literally) 5 times more than normal.

Once everybody has a full tank, this will be over.

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that the furore is deliberate, never let a crises go to waste....

Wanting to bounce the government into allowing them to bring in cheap drivers from Eastern Europe so as to pad their profits, BP and the Road Haulage Association thought they were being oh-so-clever "leaking" that some BP forecourts were (allegedly) having difficulty getting their supplies delivered.

Of course, these strategic geniuses failed to take into account:

1) there's a shortage of truck drivers all across Europe (~100,000 less than needed in Poland alone, from what I read last week), so it's not like there's a vast number of drivers who are queuing to come and work in the UK,

2) after 18 months of lockdown etc, people are twitchy and more nervous than usual, so it's even easier to spark panic - you don't even need to shout "fire", you just have to start sniffing and muttering "do I smell smoke?"

A large part of the problem is that the DVLA has sat on their collective arses for the last 18 months, "working from home". Which means that vital stuff like passing on drivers' details promptly to dob them in to private parking enforcement has been maintained and has met all SLAs, but the unimportant irrelevant trivial stuff like renewing HGV licences, car licences, etc, has been allowed to go hang.

So, 18 months of drivers retiring (average age of the UK's HGV driver fleet is 55+) and of no new drivers becoming qualified, and this is the result.

A proper fix would be for a) the industry to see common sense and start paying drivers a decent package (and to Boris' credit, this is pretty much what his administration is saying; they've recognized that relying on endless cheap labour from Eastern Europe to subsidize industry is NOT a good long-term strategy), and b) the seat-polishers at the DVLA to actually start working again.

I am not optimistic on (b).

The Road Haulage Association [1]had nothing to do with it , rather was a political hit job by their trained newspaper (if you can call it that).

[1] https://twitter.com/RHANews/status/1442055583327297542

I look forward to your suggested fix for seasonal work such as picking fruit / veg and preparing all the lucky turkeys for Xmas.

There do appear to be a lot of jobs that us Brits don't really want to do and have been fortunate enough that people from "Eastern Europe" would do for us over the past decade or so. Did you realise we used to have eat turkeys from France at Xmas!

Given the "deal" that our government did with the EU, I'm not surprised that foreign truckers (and the companies they work for) are less keen to come over with deliveries when they've got all the paperwork each way (apparently they're happy to leave the UK empty as it saves paperwork, but that means they've got to charge more on the outbound journey as there is no return leg cargo/revenue).

Oh well, at least I learnt a new word from all this - cabotage.

Pretty much everything you've written is wrong.

Firstly Poland doesn't have a shortage of drivers, it has vacancies in its very successful pan European haulage businesses, all countries have vacancies, only 1 has cut off the freedom of movement of goods (food, fuel), Services (Haulage), Capital (Paying the bills) and people (delivering the first three!).

So you can have loads of vacancies but still have a functioning cross border supply chain which can cope with demand, thats the benefit of the single market.

As for fuel shortages, we had got to a critical point where forecourt reserves had been significantly diminshed as delivery cycles had got longer and longer for the stations.Then add in the news breaking and boom, queues and closures.

The UK actually delivered more HGV tests in 2020 than it did in 2019, the DVLA hit job going on at the moment is as laughable as blaming the RHA for the structural problems with Brexit

I saw an interview with someone from the petrol retailers' association (I think it was) during the week.

8,500 petrol stations in the UK. Last week, a few tens had closed (temporarily) due to supply problems in one particular area, which were known about and being addressed.

Media publish that there are supply shortages, and tell everyone DO (not) PANIC!

Demand for petrol nationwide increased by 500% on the weekend. I'm not sure any supply chain would survive that sort of surge in demand.

Media companies saw a way to create a panic and sell more papers / get more clicks.

Media still saying there are problems - my local neighbourhood social media group was full of 'no petrol' stories Monday / Tuesday, but is now saying everything is fine (in my area).

This was the media walking into a crowded theatre and shouting FIRE because someone was having a fag outside.

Being the only Brit petrol truck driver delivering 'guzzoline' and having the scoot trash from Mad Max queuing up behind your truck to syphon off your cargo!

How many guns can I fit in one coat??

Ireland has "an imminent national emergency" according to the Irish Road Haulage Association.

They actually have guns. That could be interesting.

They need between 3000-4000 drivers and are saying the "imminent national emergency" will be the supply chain shortages seen in the UK. [1]source

I guess the imminent national emergency that Ireland fears is known as normality in the UK. Nothing to see here.

Ireland has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in Europe and there are fewer guns per capita than in the UK.

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/lorry-driver-shortage-an-imminent-national-emergency-in-ireland-1.4686883

Ireland has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in Europe and there are fewer guns per capita than in the UK.

As long as you don't count all those hidden caches in the Wicklow Mountains that have been there since the early '90s. Allegedly.

Being serious for a moment, I think the issue here may not be with the number of registered guns in Ireland, but with the number of unregistered ones, both in Ireland, and the North. Nobody actually knows the number of those, and nobody in their right mind wants to find out. Unfortunately, the situation in NI is not entirely under the control of those in their right mind right now, and with sabre-rattling from the likes of Frosty the Negotiator, it could deteriorate if not handled sensitively.

It's not only the presence of unlicensed guns in Ireland that could be a problem, it's the fact that there are a lot of people trained in their use and with an inclination to use them.

When I was lucky enough to live there each time the bank down the road got a delivery of cash the place was swamped with soldiers with guns. Don't tell me that that was done for show. Someone, somewhere,was aware that illegal arms were a problem and were taking steps to counter any threat.

Good job energy prices haven't gone through the roof recently, hey?

Or cigarettes. Fireworks could also do with being panic bought.

Some of the fuckers here had Christmas stuff up 2 weeks ago. No Halloween, no Thanksgiving, do not collect $200.

I need to exercise my gun rights.

The whole of Europe is laughing at the UK right now. Not because of the situation you're in, but because it is precisely what you voted for, and every publication in the UK seems to be avoiding mentioning Brexit. I'm surprised that the Register is not calling it out, it's purely down to Brexit. No other country is going through this.

"combined with the perfect storm of Brexit and IR35, has left the UK short on HGV drivers"

And Thumbs up to Gus the Horseman

Apologies for a twitter link, but it's relevant:

https://twitter.com/James7Holland/status/1443877723026477077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1443877723026477077%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Forder-order.com%2F

Supply shortages in Brussels today, due to logistics problems.

So no, it is manifestly not "purely down to Brexit", and other countries most certainty are experiencing problems due to shortages of HGV drivers

Two seconds on that twitter thread and you find its a strike by Carrefour workers in a warehouse rather than a structural failure in supply chain.....

https://twitter.com/biscuitsgod/status/1443921901022232584

@Mossess

"because it is precisely what you voted for, and every publication in the UK seems to be avoiding mentioning Brexit"

Really? They seem determined to mention brexit even though its got nothing to do with the petrol situation.

"I'm surprised that the Register is not calling it out, it's purely down to Brexit"

What is? People panic buying which pushes demand far beyond normal for no reason? Something which could not be handled at the best of times never mind after the covid disruption. Amazing how there is a shortage of drivers in the UK, US and growing issues in Europe yet only for the UK is brexit the reason.

"The whole of Europe is laughing at the UK right now."

Why? They have a growing shortage of drivers as they open back up. Just because they are behind the curve doesnt mean they wont have the problem as they slowly recover.

It is not "panic buying". It is precautionary purchasing. (When I do it, that is.)