Between 1968 and 1977 the BBC produced a TV comedy called Dad’s Army. It concerned a platoon of the ‘Home Guard,’ a rag-tag band of men who, being too old, infirm or ‘essential’ to fight the Second World War proper, stayed in the UK as a last line of defence against invasion. The show depicts the flawed group trying their best to prepare with minimal equipment and know-how. They fall into mud and become tangled in parachutes on exercise, run over important dignitaries, blow things up too early, eat prized carrier pigeons and otherwise partake in classic slap-stick.
Among the Dad’s Army platoon is the aging Lance Corporal Jones, a butcher by trade and veteran of colonial wars where ‘only one of the sides had guns.’ Third in command, he is ill-equipped and prone to panic, possibly as a result of shell-shock from his younger days. As he panics, often about something of little consequence, he loudly shouts ‘Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic!’ This then prompts the rest of the platoon to start panicing...with hilarious consequences.
I have been thinking about ‘old-Jonesy’ lately, as the UK became gripped by a spate of intensely disruptive and totally unnecessary panic buying. What began as a few missed deliveries of vehicle fuel to a handful of filling stations during the week of 20 September 2021, has now degenerated into an ongoing lack of fuel everywhere. By the close of 26 September 2021, the Petrol Retailers Association estimated that around 50 - 90% of the 5500 independent filling stations that it represents had run dry. The uncertainty of this estimate is due to the fact that, once restocked, filling stations are once again under attack from drivers eager to fill up.
So... what’s occuring? There are three elements at play. The first has been brewing for a long time. There is an ongoing and increasingly severe lack of available truck drivers across Europe. Unfortunately for the UK, this has been exacerbated by the twin barriers of Brexit and Covid-19, which have increased the cost and complexity of bringing hauliers into the country. EU-licensed drivers, who previously propped up the UK’s workforce, are finding it uneconomic to visit.
The lack of available drivers may well have led to the initial missed fuel deliveries, but it was not enough to cause the subsequent disruption. This happened due to the second and third elements. The second was entirely over-the-top media coverage of the missed deliveries. At first most people shrugged and went about their business. The third element was when the government got involved. On 23 September 2021, Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng stated that there was no reason to worry about fuel and supplies that everything was under control.
This statement was counter-productive. It was effectively a neon-lit Corporal Jones style ‘Don’t Panic!’ that drew attention to the issue, immediately leading to a self-fuel-filling prophecy across the land. Drivers everywhere, even some with hundreds of miles left in their tanks, headed down to their nearest filling station. Huge queues formed, often disrupting other road users. Some unscrupulous station owners increased prices to make a quick buck and there have even been reports of fist-fights on the forecourts.
Thankfully for this author, it not just the British that are prone to displays of mass purchasing panic. It frequently happens when there is a perceived or actual threat. Each individual believes that the threat will either result in a lack of ‘Product X’ or increase its price and then purchases it in large quantities. This may or may not be a rational response. Others then feel forced to also buy ‘Product X’ because there’s a lack of it and the supplier cannot say when it will be back in stock.
Recent examples include the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to empty shelves across world in 2020. Face-masks, hand sanitiser, tinned food and - most famously - toilet paper were purchased in huge quantities. Previously, there was mass purchasing of tinned foods and other ‘survivor supplies’ in the run up to the much-hyped Millennium Bug, runs on ammunition in the US (driven by the perception that Obama was going to ‘take your guns’) in 2008-2016, panic purchasing of precious metals after 9/11, the oil crises of the 1970s and even the hoarding of original Coke in 1985 due to the launch of ‘New Coke.’
But the UK fuel crisis is not yet over. As I write, Kwasi Kwarteng has now said that the British Army will shortly be draughted in to drive fuel tankers to reassure the public and usher in a return to normal fuel buying behaviour. I fear that this will take time time to filter through and, given that Kwarteng talked down the the Army being involved just two days earlier, there is the risk of another ‘Don’t Panic!’ moment.
So, as the situation develops, we can only hope that the real Army makes a better job of delivering fuel than the platoon in Dad’s Army would have done. Of course, what it could do with - ironically - is reinforcements... from the Continent!
