40% burns is enough to ensure that she could be actually dead in a short time - will you be so flippant with your comments then ?

It's not nice at all, but there is nobody to blame for this but herself. Trying to put it at the door of the Government is a tad silly. Having the petrol in container is another utterly stupid thing to do, whether a Government minister told her to or not, people can use their own common sense.

This whole mess shows how badly this country would react in a situation of genuine crisis. If the oil supply stopped for a month for example, it would be bedlem. People would panic buy, fight and create a whole heap of trouble for everyone. Can't drive? Does it REALLY matter? My kids could walk to school, I could log in via VPN rather than going into the office. This week rather than waste time on the annual Easter Egg competition I've asked if they can devise a contingency plan for if people can't get into work. We've now got a policy that if there are shortages, anyone who drives can work from home thanks to a core staff who live locally who will answer phones and deal with the post. I'd suggest a good 50% of the population are in the same situation, they don't actually 'need' to physically attend work or drive anywhere in this day and age.

Anyway, no strike over Easter, can we all go back to normality now?

Somehow I doubt it, I'll need to put some fuel in my car before monday but I don't do queues, if there are shortages and queues its back on the bike on monday morning which will do me more good than harm particularly if there are fewer cars around

Not so easy for those who have no choice but to drive though and I include our dozen or so service engineers in that, they'll have a nice easy time but I'm not sure I will when I try and explain why they haven't turned up on a site.

Its fairly plain for all to note now that with even a rumour of disruption to fuel supplies, this country and in the main its government (whoever that is), has only hours to respond and just a couple of days reserve to play with, and the government (whoever that is) is absolutely helpless to do anything to improve on that other than make it illegal to strike.

A good number of people on the same chemistry degree course I did weren't aware of that with similar volatile, highly flammable substances. It was a chore being the student representative on the school H&S committee, having to relate the bleedin' obvious to people who should have known better.

Chemists were always the most dangerous people I knew, they basically spend their lives performing reactions that only just don't blow up or only just don't release fatal levels of toxic gas. I can't even imagine them having H&S committees.

I set my chemistry teachers arm on fire at school and he barely even made a comment.

On the petrol "crisis" , I actually need to fill my car up now and I can't find any petrol station with any. Can you imagine this government with an actual crisis? If they had been in charge when the banks went t!t$ up we would all think we were in a Mad Max film by now.

There's a reason I ended up in software....

And one of my chemistry teachers taught us how to make contact explosives. Pure, innocent, pre-11/9 times.

rlDrivers can now spend 11 hours a day on the roadrl rather than 9. Huzzah for us all...

Where are you based? Deliveries should be happening as normal and there is no problem with supply in most areas I've been through today (Warrington, Stockport, Bredbury, Bramhall).

About six months ago I actually ran out of petrol one sunday night (macho thing involving me stating "theres loads left when the light comes on"icon_wink.gif and I had to walk to a Morrisons petrol station, buy a petrol container etc etc - they won't let you bring the filled up petrol container into the garage to pay for it, you have to leave it outside, they were very strict about that and I heard another petrol station attendant say that to someone else just a couple of weeks ago - and thats just for one gallon of fuel, I'd imagine that its because the inside of the payment office is not a spark-free zone unlike the pump area outside and it would only take one idiot to kick a canister over in a queue to create all sorts of mayhem.

People are blaming Francis Maude because they want him to appear out of touch with ordinary people. The truth is, he didn't intend for people to keep petrol close to the house. When he said 'garage', he meant the one over at the far end of the stable block where, should a fire occur, the only likely damage would be a bit of scorching to the orangery.

See? Not so out of touch is he?

There they go getting more money again.

It's hillarious that the strike action is being blamed on H&S issues including hours worked and then the Government deals with the panic buying it helped to create by extending said working hours.

All the while the oil companies sit back rubbing their thighs as their sales & profits graphs go through the top of their screens.

I live in "Royal" Wootton Bassett. We have 3 petrol stations and they are all dry (one never has any petrol anyway).

It's the government's fault because they needed something to divert attention away from the 'granny tax' and 'dinners for donations'. Fanning the flames (sorry) of a non existent fuel shortage seems to be the best they could come up with.

Isn't this what the dispute is about? Too many hours and too many deliveries leading to potentially exhausted tanker drivers with 25,000 litres of explosive liquid in tow?