In 2000 (or thereabouts), when fuel was at the record price of 79.9p / litre, we saw mass protests by road haulage companies blocking the fuel being transported from the oil refineries, we saw mototrists queuing on the garage forecorts for fear that their motor vehicles might go without. The net result of the blockades and panic buying was that fuel did run out at the pumps.
8 years later and again we see panic buying, people (a few anyway) fighting on forecorts and again reports of pumps running dry. Of course the reasons are different now.
Grangemouth is Scotland’s only oil refinery and it services all of Scotland and the North of England, as Ineos lay into their [future] employees pension scheme it’s hardly surprising that the union has reacted angrily. Having listened to both parties this morning i can’t say that I’m surprised that they’ve reached an impass given their beligerent, arrogant and generally disrespectful behaviour towards one another.
While these ‘alpha-males’ beat their collective chests and bang their collective heads the rest of us are left to wonder whether or not we maybe should be beginning to panic, afterall, fuel is the life blood of most of our daily lives. It’s a feeling that’s fueled by the “no need to PANIC!” reportage i nthe media, it’s a self-perpetuating thing, the more you’re told not to panic the more you wonder if maybe you should be … rationale goes oot the windae, so to speak.
Whilst I’m amused that the first reports of panic buying were in urban areas where there is a sound public transport infrastructure and most amenieties can be reached with a short walk, it doesn’t help that people living in rural communities don’t generally have the luxury of a short walk to anywhere.
It’s a fact of life that the more remote you are the more dependent you are on your car. In the absence of fuel life will become very difficult, in our case the mrs won’t be able to get to work - a 90 mile round trip for which there is no viable alternative public transport. Even basic messages become an issue, yes we have a local shop, but even under normal circumstances they’re apt to run out of essentials and deliveries are unreliable at best. I suppose that if we’re lucky we might be able to catch one of the buses which pass through the village every couple of hours (assuming they have fuel) and go over to the nearest small town and it’s not entirely satisfactory high street. What their is is typically more expensive than it’s urban counterpart, but then imagine our fuel savings!
Diesal currently costs us 123.9p / litre, the lions share of which goes straight into the government’s coffers, and in the end that’ what it boils down to.
Over the last 30 years our successive governments have taken short-sighted decisions to sell off and privatise our strategic assets, oil and energy being just a couple of e
