Gas Prices, Supply Issues and Collapsing Suppliers

[smalex]

More logs! Good point.

[Margo]

I’m massively shocked at the size of your bills! I’m £36 per month for both gas and electric, with Bulb. Yes, it’s just me in a new and presumably well-insulated house but even so!

This is all so worrying. I did a bit of a raid yesterday and bought extra tinned and dry goods, just in case. I know the advice is not to panic buy but that’s almost like saying there’s a reason to

[smalex]

Lets not compare- Comparing actual bills is so futile, Modern houses are going to be miles better, people spend different amounts of time at home.

Bulb is struggling I think.

[Beena]

I dread to think what the poor sods living in our old rental will be paying now. Our electricity bills were over £300 a month last winter as there was a single storage heater in the living area and electric wall heaters in the bedrooms. £300 was the cost of running the wall heaters for a short time either side of bed.

Our food bills are creeping up too. We're buying less and it's costing more. I do genuinely worry how some people are coping. Wages are so low here, in comparison to the rest of the country. It's a bloody mess.

[Ella77]

Lets not compare- Comparing actual bills is so futile

Agreed. The relative increases are the important bit, I think.

[Pippedydeadeye]

This whole thing is actually terrifying me. I remember the panic buying of fuel in 2000/01.

How anyone can suggest the lorry driver issue is anything other than Brexit is pure magical thinking.

[smalex]

Oh god yes, that's 100% clear.
The petrol shortage was just before I went to university. I sort of hoped it would delay me needing to leave

[Edith Bacon]

I’m now questioning my plan to visit my dad because the tank and a half of petrol it will take to get there and back might not be easy to come by.

I’m still going but it’s an added layer of stress I could do without. And I thought twice before I put the heating on earlier today.

What has this country come to?

[smalex]

I just dapped to our local garage to drop off a parcel and its chaos. Honest to God. A woman said she'd been to sainsbury's petrol station and it was even worse

[Kleio]

This whole thing is actually terrifying me. I remember the panic buying of fuel in 2000/01.

I remember that too. There were half an hour queues outside our local petrol stations this morning.

[Epponnee Rae]

I read about winter 2000 just now in the Graun. I think I’d forgotten it or it wasn’t really something I was aware of as I was at uni and oblivious. But the situation now sounds much worse in terms of prevailing conditions and how long this might last.

This is quite scary though and I don’t know how this fucking govt is getting away with not having people in the streets marching for revolution.

[Princess Morripov]

A went and got diesel at 7am and it wasn’t that busy (he drove straight in and didn’t have to queue) but was filling up as he left. He’s gone in my car to work and is filling mine on the way back (what timing for both of us to be on the red ) but I imagine he won’t be so luck at this time!

[mojojojo]

I don’t know how this fucking govt is getting away with not having people in the streets marching for revolution.

I said very similar to J this morning

We just passed a fairly chaotic queue at a tiny garage on our way to the shops.

[Morganna]

This is quite scary though and I don’t know how this fucking govt is getting away with not having people in the streets marching for revolution.

David Lammy was good on Question Time last night, but we need more people joining the dots and not letting them get away with blaming everything on Covid. My mum is still convinced that 'Boris' is doing the best he can in the face of a series of unfortunate events .

[Mountain Goat]

I fear that for a lot of people, support for Johnson/Brexit is visceral and tribal now and rationality plays no part. It's a fealty, it's like a football team allegiance in that the unwavering loyalty through hard times becomes part of the supporter's identity. You can't undo that with your clever facts.

[smalex]

I think we've got to leave room for people to change their opinions eventually though. As much as I want to scream in their faces all it does is entrench their position for even longer.

[Lily]

I drove past another mental Texaco on my way to the t rain station. Why is everyone going crazy about petrol all of a sudden? There won't be a shortage unless people start going crazy to get petrol and that's what will cause the shortage!

I don't know how much the government to blame. That's not me excusing them, that's me saying: I genuinely don't know. They're shit but they can't stop us getting less wind than we need.

[smalex]

No, there's a shortage because there's a chronic shortage of lorry drivers because, brexit. Like with food, a lot of people have the same reaction, to do a tiny action differently (top up when they're a a quarter full rather than on the red or top up today rather than tomorrow because they know they need to do X important thing tomorrow) which is probably pretty reasonable really. It obviously doesn't help the situation but people are people, and it's not the root cause.

[purple_dress]

The newspapers have definitely encouraged the panic buying: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-58673167

[Mountain Goat]

They were supposed to consider the obvious issue that wind power supply can fluctuate and build that into their plans. They upped usage of alternatives such as wind power but in nowhere near enough volume to offset the decline of natural gas and coal and instead left us reliant on imports for fuel. They needed to therefore protect our fuel supplies by ensuring we had sufficient gas storage for the inevitable shortfalls, and they ignored advice on that and allowed our biggest gas storage facility to be closed. This is absolutely their fault.