What’s the difference between me, and David Cameron? David Cameron can kiss my arse…
I’m grateful never to have owned a car, as it keeps two utter evils out of my life: the need to converse with Traffic Wardens and the need to buy petrol. David “the kettle black” Cameron has had rather a sticky week, what with news of his exclusive dining club and pasty tax flooding the media. It seems our poor, hard-working and honest leader was feeling the stress a little. Did he take it like a man? Did his broad, atlas-like shoulders bare the weight of his duty to serve us?
Nope. He instigated a fuel crisis.
As the shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls (such a shame he didn’t become a professional footballer), claimed in the Independent today: "I do think that political games were played. I think the Prime Minister woke up on Monday morning and thought, 'I've got the worst weekend I've had in government, [so] why don't I try to divert attention? Then suddenly, out of the blue, we had government ministers talking up a strike which wasn't even called.”
Motorists were queuing for hours as a direct result of Cameron’s manipulative words to “be sensible”, and other Ministers mis-information for the public to keep their tanks two-thirds full after disputes sparked within Unite. Some 90% of UK forecourts are supplied by Unite's approximately 2,000 members involved in the dispute, their drivers deliver fuel to Shell and Esso garages and supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's.
A Downing Street official privately admitted to the Independent that its message on the shortage threat got "out of control".
“We wanted the public to be aware of the strike but not be panicked. That got confused with the political messaging about the irresponsibility of Unite. Things got out of control and it became a feeding frenzy."
I should coco! Demand for petrol rose 172% on Thursday and diesel by 77% according to independent retailers' group RMI Petrol.
And then Cameron had the sheer nerve to call Unite irresponsible.
A government that deliberately ignites a fuel shortage threat, Francis Maude calling for us to “fill up our jerry cans”, to divert public attention from their own misdoings is more than irresponsible, its outright dangerous. One woman set herself on fire, suffering 40 percent burns decanting fuel in her kitchen. Although we can’t blame the government entirely for people not taking health and safety precautions in their homes, why on Earth would a responsible government fuel such panic and fear in the first place?
Answer: A responsible government wouldn’t! Even senior Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin agrees; "Really there should not have been any move to encourage people to buy more than they normally buy without consulting the industry first, and I think that was the mistake."
Again, I should coco!
It has now become very clear that, if there was ever going to be a strike, it’s not going to be happening over Easter, Ministers now completely u-turning by saying that there is no urgent need to top up your tanks. However, according to the BBC website: “The rules on fuel tanker drivers' hours have been temporarily relaxed to help the transport of supplies to filling stations. Under EU rules, drivers are limited to nine hours on the road each day, but this has now been raised to 11 hours. The new rules will apply until Thursday and have been introduced after requests from the fuel supply industry.”
Cameron went so far as to say he was pleased by the decision. Of course he was, but not as pleased as those who run the oil companies who will be making millions out of this crisis, I’m sure.
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