Chris Bryant MP decided to put a copy of a tweet on his Facebook page.
Here, then, is my response. I post it here in case it is deleted or I am banned from commenting as I am guilty of hate speech or something. That said, I could have been more harsh than I was…
Every statement but the last is objectively false. The last applies to the author as much as it does the government. This appalling tribal behaviour and hard-of-thinking approach to debate is why I despise politicians of whatever stripe. That you people are in charge of our legislative process is a terrifying prospect. A sixth form debating society would blush at such a risible attempt at argument. Are you being deliberately disingenuous or are you just lacking in intelligence? Being a politician, I would accept both as a possible answer, frankly. You sicken me. All of you. You are nothing but parasites.
They are scum. They infest our lives with no good purpose. I am not the only one giving him a pasting, so there is hope.
Not so sure the ‘No Fuel’ one is false as you suggest. I live in Gloucester just 35 miles up the road from you. Have just spent 3 hours driving round (Saturday afternoon) looking for Diesel – Nothing ! Except for a mile long queue outside an Esso station on Gloucester bypass and a Tescos which said ‘Petrol Only’. I know Gloucester very well and must have driven past 30-40 stations all with the same result except the two I mentioned. Had to give up as I didnt want to use what little I have left. Maybe things are different in Hambrook ?
There is fuel coming into the country and being distributed. Morons panic buying and causing localised shortages does not equal “no fuel.”
I had to fill up the school bikes this morning. Yes, by the afternoon, garages had run out but not because there is no fuel. But because of panic mongering by cretins like Bryant.
Whatever the reason(s). If a filling station puts up a sign saying ‘No fuel’ I cant argue with them. I’m sure its not because they dont want to sell me any. If you havent experienced this phenomena yet then lucky you. As far as I can see Gloucester is currently dry. Maybe it will be different tomorrow – I hope so.
My point being that “no fuel” is not the same as some localised shortages. Bryant’s statement is a lie.
It’s rather like pulling at a loose thread until your jumper unravels completely, then blaming Boris because you are cold – though admittedly ‘No fuel (temporarily at 20 petrol stations out of 8,500)’ was never going to catch on as rabble-rousing rhetoric.
My mother, ever the cynic, suggests that, in these days of constant rolling news, a few dozen activists primed and ready to form an instant queue for the cameras at strategically placed locations could virtually guarantee a rush on the pumps even among people who, with time to mull it over, might well have appreciated the futility of the exercise and acted with more intelligence and restraint.
Personally I think the fuel “crisis”* is a demonstration of how little faith people have in government and civil service.
There are some minor issues in the supply, but if everyone carried on as usual, they would be compensated for by other parts of the system.
Instead the government ministers say “don’t panic buy, there isn’t a problem” resulting in mad panic buying.
Why?
Because nobody trusts what they say. If they say there isn’t a problem, there is.
If they say there’s a big problem that needs a solution (usually more government/more government per), them there in all likelihood isn’t one.
*I suspect this will all die down. The fuel stations will gradually fill up, and people will have full tanks, it’ll even out again, especially as people go back and there aren’t any issues.
Tanker drivers carrying out deliveries have been telling people that there is plenty to go around. This shortage is entirely artificial.
Yes, I distrust the government, but I have enough common sense to realise that panic buying creates the problem rather than resolving it.
I dont understand your obtuse argument to my original point. It matters not if the reason is shortage of tanker drivers, panic buyers or because Mrs Brown is pregnant again. I would like to put some diesel in my car. I cant because I cannot find a garage willing or able to supply me with said diesel, Simples !
I’m not the one being obtuse here. The statement “no fuel” is a generalism and is therefore untrue. There is fuel and plenty to go around. That there is currently a localised shortage in your area because of panic buying is not the same thing. If he said that currently, there is no fuel to be had in Gloucester, then fair enough, but at the time of the tweet, that was not the case.
Again, my comment is objectively true and his objectively false. There is fuel and plenty of it. Bryant is lying and deliberately stoking the problem that you faced today. I expect politicians and journalists to be accurate with their use of language. It’s not much to ask
No fuel.
Therefore nothing at all moving.
Police, buses, trains, ships.
MP’s cars? Wonder if ammount claimed will magically decrease? Maybe pollies will continue to claim for virtual miles.
Mind you, driving aimlessly about for 3 hours while collecting 75 of your English pennies for every mile makes a nice break from looking after your grateful constituents.
What we are seeing is the effect that lockdowns have in the medium to long term. The economy consists of billions of human actions and interactions, many of which are driven as much by habit as rational decision making. People continue working jobs they dislike because they lack the drive to make a change. People continue to run businesses out of loyalty to staff and customers. People shop in certain way, socialise in certain ways, holiday in certain ways because thats what they’ve always done. Lockdowns ended all that habitual activity. It enforced a hard reset on millions of lives. And now we are seeing the consequences of that – old patterns have been destroyed, because people have realised they were stuck in ruts, and lockdown provided a degree of distance from their lives and allowed them to see the wood for the trees. People have realised they can live on less money, and have prioritised quality of life over maximising income. People close to retirement have realised that they can get by with perhaps a part time simple job instead of their full time stressful one. People whose businesses have been forced to close have perhaps realised they don’t need to continue working like they used to, and closed up shop or reduced their workload. We have effectively pulled a tree up roots and all, stuck it in stasis for 6 months and then replanted it and expected it to take off growing again. Its not going to happen. Instead bits of it will die, and maybe the whole thing will not survive the experience. The economy is a very complex system, imagining you could just press a pause button on a significant proportion of it, and then release it and everything would go back to normal was insanity.
Its noticeable that the same issues are all over Europe and North America, so the idea this is Brexit related is just political opportunism. The one thing that unites the Western world is their reaction to covid, which almost universally involved lockdowns of varying severity. We are now seeing the consequences of those decision lockdown decisions.
Two thumbs up. You got it.
Jim: “its noticeable that the same issues are all over Europe and North America, so the idea this is Brexit related is just political opportunism”. Well there you have the left in a nutshell. They are not interested in the truth, just power.
And I for one hope that all those people who are pushing for ‘Net Zero’ are happy with this little vision of the future without or with less fossil fuels.
As much as I do not want anyone to suffer, how would this situation have been handled if it had occurred in a cold December?
I haven’t had any difficulty getting fuel. When I went to tank up on my regular shopping trip to Asda the filling station was a bit busier than usual but I didn’t even have to queue for a pump.
I agree with what Chernyy Drakon said too. The politicians and the media have been so consistently dishonest for so long now that whatever they say it would make sense to believe the opposite is true.
This was largely driven by the media claiming that shortages were much worse than reality.
Around 11 BP stations had to close due to late delivery. Had the media not poked their noses in, nearby stations would have absorbed the slack until deliveries arrived.
Fuel is arriving in this country normally. Storage facilities have plenty and there are trucks going around delivering it normally. It only changed due to irresponsible scaremongering by the media in the middle of the week and current stocks couldn’t cope with the artificial spike in demand.
However, in 24 to 48 hours, deliveries will have started reversing the temporary shortfall and folk like Clive will be able to fill up.
None of this was caused by “no fuel.” It was caused by arseholes like Chris Bryant engaging in puerile tribal politics. There is not a situation where we have no fuel. We have plenty. There is a dearth of reason, logic and common sense though.
Jim is making some interesting points about the whole Covid circus having caused a shake up among the workers. I retired just before the whole thing kicked off. Had I not been retiring, being furloughed would have changed my outlook somewhat. I don’t think that I would have stayed for long after returning to work.
I changed too. I found that I could manage on less, so have reduced my workload significantly.
I think absolutely this is the creation of an irresponsible MSM. I did my normal Saturday morning fill up (half a tank) and there was a queue. It took me about 20 minutes rather than the normal 2 or 3. Many people didn’t need to but were just topping up as a precaution. I understand, but these things do have a tendency to snowball.
Where I live on the south coast, the town has a disproportionate number of large supermarkets as it has quite a large catchment area, and many people get there petrol at the same time as it’s a few pence cheaper than the petrol stations a few miles outside the town.
A bit later, going past the big Tesco, there was a somewhat longer than normal queue. Stuck in it was a tanker! I shit you not.
I understand that sperm banks are running out of contributions because all the wankers are queueing up outside petrol stations.
Government says “don’t panic buy petrol”.
That makes me want to panic buy petrol – and I don’t drive. 🙂
Actually, on this occasion, I’m with the government – stopped clocks and all that. Don’t panic is always a good piece of advice. People do stupid things when they panic and I am not prone to it anyway. So, yeah, Grant Shapps has called it correctly and I am able to see that. Hence, when I filled up the two school bikes yesterday, I didn’t bother topping mine up because I had plenty in the tank.
On the plus side, I took the tube into London yesterday. In spite of the mask up announcements and posters, I’d say 80 to 90% of passengers were not wearing anything. Quite a big change.