“Petrol: we’re running out”

Two of Britain’s tabloid newspapers lead with the current “fuel crisis”, reporting that petrol is running out, leading to panic buying at the pumps.

The Daily Express headline above is run in caps on the front page and is doing its best to fuel the crisis. The story beneath the headline, of course, is all about how we’re not running out of petrol but slams a government minister who said he couldn’t guarantee every petrol station in the UK will have limitless supplies of go-go juice.

No doubt the energy minister made the comment when pressed by a journalist to make such an (impossible) guarantee.

The Daily Express accused Malcolm Wicks of starting a panic.

PETROL stations began running dry yesterday after the Government tried to reassure drivers about supplies – and instead started a panic.

The Lib Dems accused him of talking the country into a crisis. And the Countryside Alliance said he had inflamed an already intolerable situation, with drivers in rural areas at risk of being stranded.

The AA urged motorists to cut down their number of journeys, try walking to the office and even work one day a week from home to conserve supplies.”

A motoring organisation urging motorists to use shanks’ pony for short journeys? To the Daily Express that’s eschatological talk, the beginning of the End Times.

The Daily Mail’s front cover poured biofuel on troubled waters by screaming “Petrol price to break through £5 a gallon as forecourts sell out amid fuel panic.”

Ten bucks a gallon. Sweat on that, America!

And the cause for all this pump panic? A Scottish oil refinery is closing down for the weekend because of industrial action. This refinery produces ten percent of the UK’s petrol. The government has assured us that the petrol won’t dry up overnight but the merest hint of petrol shortages puts the willies up the masses.

The Scots Gaelic term for whisky is uisege beatha. It means ‘water of life’. To motorists, there’s a more important ‘water of life’: they can’t imagine life without limitless access to petrol. If the past is a different country, the future is Mad Max.