[Ed: There won’t be a News Review today because Debbie has problems with her computer.]

Aaand – they’re back, the ‘Fear Porn’ merchants. But, you might ask, isn’t it a fact that gas prices have skyrocketed, that energy firms have gone bust? Isn’t it a fact that there are fewer HGV drivers? Shouldn’t we expect this situation to have an impact on businesses? On food prices? 

Indeed we should – but here’s the point: in order to keep us all frightened, the usual suspects, especially in our MSM, have gone down the same route they did when covid and lockdown struck 18 months ago. They plaster their articles with photos of empty supermarket shelves, warning of shortages. It’s as if they had already forgotten what happened in 2020, with people panic-buying toilet paper and any food staples, from tins to pasta in reaction to then ‘warnings’.

Then it was the fear of lockdown and no deliveries – now it’s the fear of ‘no deliveries because of no HGV drivers’. This is now exacerbated by announcements of petrol shortages, with BP making the start by reporting the closure of some of their stations already. A warning to motorists by the Petrol Retailers Association, to “keep a quarter of a tank’ of fuel in their vehicles in preparation for potential closures of local petrol stations.” (link) is of course not going to produce a run on petrol stations, is it!

Note that these warning come from ‘bosses’, but not yet the government. Ministers are meanwhile trying to deflect criticism of their ‘just-in-time’ attitude to e.g. gas storage (link), as if this ‘just-in-time’ concept wasn’t the accepted way of operating the economy for years. Now ‘bosses’ moan as if they expected No 10 to insist on some sort of strategic storage, not just of gas but of other items such as oil and petrol, as if all this isn’t their fault and was totally unforeseeable.

In a perfect example of helping to increase fear, something which usually turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, ‘ministers’ are now murmuring about a “Winter of Discontent”, about a ‘perfect storm’ coming, to hit us by Christmas. First here’s a somewhat poetic description of the situation:

“A chill wind beckons, with fuel shortages and runaway inflation added to a list of woes that already included empty supermarket shelves, spiralling energy bills, a tax rise in the spring and an extraordinarily badly timed cut to Universal Credit for the poorest families. Economists predicted a hike in interest rates, and with it the prospect of higher mortgage repayments.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, the outlook is terrible – chilling even, especially because ‘senior ministers’ are warning – anonymously, of course. I never understand why minsters are so scared of raising their heads above the parapet. Is it not their duty to warn us, who have elected them (more’s the pity!) rather than keep such important findings secret? See this:

“On Thursday, senior ministers, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned of the “collision of a Winter of Discontent'”. Paul Scully, the minister in charge of small businesses, admitted the Government was “preparing for the worst” as firms face the triple whammy of soaring fuel bills, wage inflation and a rise in National Insurance payments. The economy – and life in general – is about to get very ugly.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, life is indeed going to get tough, especially for those whose household income is just about the median of £29,000pa – on which taxes have to be paid. But these are the ‘little people’, outside the charmed circle of the Westminster Village. That is of course not a problem.

The first opinion piece – by a lady writer, of course – has already appeared in the DT, claiming that “we” survived perfectly in the 1970s with just one fire lit in the whole house. So now “we” are counselled to turn down the thermostat and put a jumper on. Thank you, dear, we wouldn’t have been aware of that! Shades of Edwina Curry telling pensioners to wear a woolly hat indoors? Nah – “we” are not that coarse: now we ought to ‘invest’ in cashmere loungewear – perfect, innit!

Meanwhile in the ‘real world’ there’s another item showing that not just our government but indeed all those industry, petrol, gas and food ‘bosses’ have been sitting on their hands. It’s not just the lack of a strategic gas storage which is going to fuel shortages and inflation. Here’s another example of how the ‘just-in-time’ mentality is driving this ‘winter of discontent’ of which government is now warning:

“Trade figures released by the Office for National Statistics shows that 23pc of retailers and wholesalers  in the UK report lower stock levels than expected, with over 10pc unable to get some key goods entirely. September flash eurozone PMI data suggest the inflation that initially hit manufacturing costs is now feeding into higher prices for services too.” (paywalled link)

Never mind that those higher prices for services will help increase inflation – it’s the ‘lower stocks’ kept by wholesalers and retailers across the board which means shortages and thus higher prices. Keeping stocks means ‘dead income’ and thus is anathema to modern economists who’ve preached the advantages of ‘just in time’. The UN provided another ‘warning’ of things to come:

“The United Nations’ Food Price Index, which includes key items such as cereals, vegetable oils, meat, dairy products and sugar, has shot up by 33pc over the past 12 months – the fastest rate since 2011.” (paywalled link)

It’s difficult not to see a method behind this panic. Just as gas prices on the international market were rising for some weeks before “we” were hit with the bills and the outcry, so food prices have increased. This clearly didn’t happen overnight. I’ve asked once already: do these huge industries, from gas to oil to food, not have in-house modellers who ought to have produced warning graphs before now, at least for their bosses?

Worse – does our own government, the various Whitehall departments, not have some Ferguson-acolytes capable of producing models predicting these price rises? Were they all farmed out to the NHS and to the DHSC to create the covid scare graphs with which we’re so familiar? 

I can come up with some ugly explanations for this. One is that we’re being prepared for the government’s the perfect solution on how to deal with these shortages: lock us down again! The advantages are evident: food retailers can ration food staples thus alleviating those shortages; trains won’t need to run thus saving on electricity and diesel: cars are off the roads thus saving petrol – and with WFH only the homes need to be heated, all offices, schools and government buildings can be kept cold, thus saving energy supplies. Perfect, innit!

The other is that all those bosses, from BP to Tesco – remainers one and all – are using this situation to get us somehow back into the EU clutches. They all demand that government should “introduce temporary visa rules to allow drivers from the European Union to return to the UK more easily” (link, paywalled) and never mind that countries across the EU also have a shortage of HGV drivers. After all, to combat inflation “we” need cheap workers from the EU, don’t we! Industry bosses crying for government to hold their hands, to make up for the egregious errors they themselves have committed? Say it ain’t so!

Some pundits might say that another lockdown will have a terrible effect on our economy. Will these shortages, the rising prices for everything, from energy and food to the service industry, not also have a terrible effect on our economy? But then again, “we” are now trained in how to live in lockdown. Surely the covid lemmings would welcome another one – and just think of how nicely this would save our sacred cow from those dreadful images of sick people lying in corridors!

And wouldn’t another lockdown be so much better than a real ‘winter of discontent’ some ministers are now anonymously warning about? We peasants, our memories going back further than last Tuesday, remember what it was like. Must we now look forward to overflowing wheelie bins, three-day weeks, gas and electricity rationed for households to make up for the failures of government and industries?

Ah well – perhaps the post-boomer generations themselves need to undergo those ‘experiences’. It’s a foretaste of what their ‘green dream’ will look like in real life. Perhaps Labour should demand government to hand out blankets to every household – cashmere ones fo course for the Westminster Village denizens …

KBO