Panic-buying is the inevitable result of this government’s failures

People are unlikely to listen to warnings from No 10 because of its record of dishonesty. The result is an awful mess with dire economic consequences, writes James Moore

Running on empty: petrol supplies have been dwindling as people scramble to fuel up (AP)

The past few years have been punctuated by repeated episodes of panic-buying, of which the fuel crisis is just the latest, but almost certainly not the last given the politicians Britain has cursed itself with.

Those politicians have told people not to do it. They’ve railed against it. It’s not necessary, they’ve said. We’re not short of fuel. We just need to find a few more drivers to get it to the pumps.

And yet, since Friday we have seen queues outside petrol stations the likes of which haven’t been seen in this country since the fuel price protests and oil refinery blockades of 2000, and before that the oil price shock of the early 1970s.

Those queues created long tailbacks, wasting fuel and mucking up urban and suburban air quality as cars, vans and the occasional lorry inched forward at the pace of a herd of weary sloths.

Petrol stations were drained. Disturbingly, the emergency services were left short of fuel and found themselves struggling to get through to people in need of their help. The pandemic is far from over and it is far from the only cause of people getting sick.

What a mess. What an awful, terrible mess. And all so unnecessary.

Here’s the problem; Yes, panic buying is extremely selfish and a clear example of socially unacceptable behaviour, but no it is not irrational especially when you consider the situation Britain faces.

Shortages have started to become regular occurrences. It is not unusual to visit the supermarket only to be greeted by threadbare, even empty shelves if you happen to turn up at the wrong time.

Their leaders have been issuing increasingly dire warnings about the situation they face, as have the leaders of other industries. In the longer term, there will be an economic price to be paid for all this and it could be quite steep. It sends out a terrible message to potential investors.

The reasons for all this have been much discussed: Britain is short of roughly 100,000 lorry drivers. Presented with better opportunities on the continent, where government ministers don’t snarl at them, they left in their droves after Brexit.

A mean-spirited temporary visa scheme, ending on Christmas Eve, isn’t going to tempt them back. Would it tempt you?

So, when the oil companies said they were going to temporarily shut some petrol stations because of their inability to get the fuel to the pumps, the result was entirely predictable.

People asked themselves how they were going to get into work if they couldn’t fill up. They wondered whether they’d be able to get their shopping delivered. They wondered how they were going to get the kids to school and what their elderly relatives were going to do without help. These and other, similar questions ate at them.

They heard the ministers saying it’ll be OK, there’s no reason to worry, but they didn’t believe them because ministers’ past conduct gave them no reason to. You can no more expect an honest answer from the current government than you can expect to get sound advice on the subject of vaccines from Nicki “my cousin's mate’s balls swelled up” Minaj.

So they joined the queues.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps huffed and puffed and blew a raspberry at “one of the road haulage associations” for supposedly leaking details of driver shortages at the fuel companies.

The latter was swiftly and emphatically denied. Of course it was. Trying to blame it on haulage companies was risible.

It stands to reason that if the supermarkets were short of drivers the oil companies would probably be in the same boat and if supermarkets started running short then so would petrol stations. When they started closing forecourts, because they had no choice, it gave a green light to the panic.

Boris Johnson’s administration is in the same boat as the boy who cried wolf. It really needs people to listen. It needs them to understand that snaffling every last jerry can of available fuel is making a bad, but just about manageable, situation into a crisis. Trouble is, its past form gives them no reason to listen.

So they have chosen to look after number one. Just as Boris Johnson always has. Horribly anti-social, yes. Irrational, no.