Those people are not panic buying.

They are following Government Minister guidelines.

A lowering of the tax rate for the highest earners (Who STILL pay SIGNIFICANTLY more of their income in taxes than everyone else) is a GOVERNMENT move. These workers having changes made to their employment conditions is a move by a PRIVATE COMPANY.

So anyone linking the two is either stupid or very bitter about the current political situation.

Quite, they were stupid in their recommendations. However, the few people amongst the masses that can actually read have noticed that the strike has to have 7 days notice and they aren't even discussing the issue further until Monday. So we're 11 days away from a possible strike.

The winners in this? HMRC and the petrol companies. Both laughing heartily at the foolish behaviour.

The easiest way for the fuel delivery companies to improve their efficiency is to have a smaller delivery window and reduce the time allowed for the journey.

I wonder how many people know that it only takes the small difference of 3 mph in the speed of a laden fuel tanker, which is critical in it negotiating a roundabout safely, or rolling over on top of you?

A fact, I suspect many motorists are blissfully unaware of.....

The oil companies used to control fuel supplies from well to tank. Then someone looked at the margins of each of the separate operations and decided that they were too low in refining and distribution. These elements of the operation were hived off to contractors and now we see the results.

Lowering of safety standards led directly to the Buncefield refinery disaster.

The low margins in refining led to Petroplus going bankrupt and the potential loss of the Coryton refinery from the UK capacity

The distribution element is under similar pressure to squeeze ever more from less and could lead to similar results, albeit on a smaller scale.

And all the right-wing can do is condemn the unions.

QT last night was farcical, Sarah Tether could have done worse than don a Girl Guides outfit, so clueless was she about what was happening. Coupled to Anna Soubry's fawning defence of all things Cameron and Douglas Alexander's failure to press home any meaningful points, I was glad that Alexei Sayle and Simon Jenkins were on the panel, they were the only ones speaking any sense.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-17560534She was only following Francis Maude's suggestion[/url

I'm sure even the most staunch anti-Conservative like yourself can see that she is to blame for this. Why on earth was she 'decanting' it in the kitchen with the hob on? What an absolute fool.

How had her daughter ran out of fuel despite the pumps not being dry and despite there not being a petrol crisis yet is another good question.

But still, as with so many in the compensation culture we live in, she'll no doubt try to blame her stupidity on Maude and she'll no doubt be able to wrap her 40% burns in cash from her payout.

Sounds like a stupid thing to do but how many people know that its not the liquid that burns but the fumes, not many I'd suggest.

When I worked in the electrical contracting industry, even back in the olden days, installations within the area covered by the petrol station canopy was highly specialised work and your normal bog-standard electrical contractor (like the company I worked for) was only allowed to take the power supply up to the switchgear outside of the canopy area.

Its probably the most volatile substance that "normal" people will ever handle and yet we do it so blithely without questioning what could go wrong.

Cobblers. There is a shortage of affordable housing. Supply and demand is basic economics. And those communist paradises of France and Germany manage to have regulation of private landlords, along with pretty much every other European nation. God, how they' all suffering as a result.



Ah yes. The rich just get richer and the poor get poorer. Have you practised your own grovelling yet or are you hoping it won't affect you much, so you can get away with talking about how others should suffer - just as long as it isn't you?

So effectively you think it's okay for, say, situations of people unable to afford housing - three families living in a the-bed house, for instance? Anything more - 'oh, we had it too good'. Although I'll bet you don't speak from anything like such a position but are only happy for it to happen to others.



Nobody has claimed that we make nothing.

The reality, however, is that approximately 75% of our economy is based on the service sector. Shopping is now so important that quarterly retail figures are headline news.

Napoleon must be spinning in his grave with sheer laughter.

We have to be careful when we compare how many people are employed in manufacturing now against years gone by.
For example, back then, if you worked in the canteen or security or payroll etc in an engineering works, you were counted as being in manufacturing.
That and the subsequent outsourcing of non-core skills skews the comparison.

And as if by magic - [url=http://www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/tanker_driver_reveals_extent_o.aspxA tanker driver's view[/url

Some bullet points:

* Cut throat operators driving down pay - and cutting corners on training

* Agency workers being brought in with only two days' training

* One contract for a major retailer requiring only one day's training before a tanker can be taken out on the road

* Mistakes being made by under-trained drivers resulting in contaminated fuel in forecourts

* Vehicles repaired so often drivers liken them to `Meccano' sets

* Unmanned forecourts where drivers are told to unload dangerous fuel alone

* Drivers being told to risk their own safety by approaching the public if they present a danger to the fuel, with reports of assaults on drivers as a result

* Greater numbers of low-cost operators entering the market, pushing standards down still further and the industry further towards ‘chaos’

* Drivers on six month short-term contracts even though the fuel contract may be for three to five years.

I don't recall him suggesting you pop the cooker on then use a jug next to the cooker to decant petrol.

"The fuel she was decanting ignited as she was using the cooker at the time, he said. She was attempting to transfer the petrol from one container to another using a jug."

[urlhttp://news.uk.msn.com/uk/woman-burned-while-decanting-petrol-1[/url

...but without the government inspired fuel panic, her daughter wouldn't have been out of fuel, and she wouldn't have been decanting it in the first place.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17558294Well it's not happening over Easter[/url

I'll ask again - how many people realised before now that its the petrol vapour, the fumes, that are ignited and not just the liquid ?

And that they can be ignited with no sign of the liquid in the vicinity by just a spark, a spark of static or the spark from a light switch or bulb that you might not even see - you don't have to be dumb enough to stand around smoking over a bucket of petrol in order to turn into a human fireball.

How many now feel so happy to store petrol in a garage or a shed in a non-authorised container ?


And yet according to the report that Cod'ead linked to HGV drivers can take 30,000 litre tankers full of the stuff out onto the roads with just one days training, so far have standards slipped in the industry.

Irrelevent to the fact that somebody decides to decant fuel indoors. Do it outside, it has been lovely weather in York (Acomb)

Not the brain dead lady with 40% burns

40% burns is enough to ensure that she could be actually dead in a short time - will you be so flippant with your comments then ?

It's not nice at all, but there is nobody to blame for this but herself. Trying to put it at the door of the Government is a tad silly. Having the petrol in container is another utterly stupid thing to do, whether a Government minister told her to or not, people can use their own common sense.

This whole mess shows how badly this country would react in a situation of genuine crisis. If the oil supply stopped for a month for example, it would be bedlem. People would panic buy, fight and create a whole heap of trouble for everyone. Can't drive? Does it REALLY matter? My kids could walk to school, I could log in via VPN rather than going into the office. This week rather than waste time on the annual Easter Egg competition I've asked if they can devise a contingency plan for if people can't get into work. We've now got a policy that if there are shortages, anyone who drives can work from home thanks to a core staff who live locally who will answer phones and deal with the post. I'd suggest a good 50% of the population are in the same situation, they don't actually 'need' to physically attend work or drive anywhere in this day and age.

Anyway, no strike over Easter, can we all go back to normality now?

Somehow I doubt it, I'll need to put some fuel in my car before monday but I don't do queues, if there are shortages and queues its back on the bike on monday morning which will do me more good than harm particularly if there are fewer cars around



Not so easy for those who have no choice but to drive though and I include our dozen or so service engineers in that, they'll have a nice easy time but I'm not sure I will when I try and explain why they haven't turned up on a site.

Its fairly plain for all to note now that with even a rumour of disruption to fuel supplies, this country and in the main its government (whoever that is), has only hours to respond and just a couple of days reserve to play with, and the government (whoever that is) is absolutely helpless to do anything to improve on that other than make it illegal to strike.

A good number of people on the same chemistry degree course I did weren't aware of that with similar volatile, highly flammable substances. It was a chore being the student representative on the school H&S committee, having to relate the bleedin' obvious to people who should have known better.

Chemists were always the most dangerous people I knew, they basically spend their lives performing reactions that only just don't blow up or only just don't release fatal levels of toxic gas. I can't even imagine them having H&S committees.

I set my chemistry teachers arm on fire at school and he barely even made a comment.

On the petrol "crisis" , I actually need to fill my car up now and I can't find any petrol station with any. Can you imagine this government with an actual crisis? If they had been in charge when the banks went t!t$ up we would all think we were in a Mad Max film by now.

There's a reason I ended up in software....

And one of my chemistry teachers taught us how to make contact explosives. Pure, innocent, pre-11/9 times.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17564277Drivers can now spend 11 hours a day on the road[/url rather than 9. Huzzah for us all...