BP, a company who have directors and a former CEO who have donated to both the Conservative Party and Johnson leadership campaign make an announcement of closed petrol stations and problems in the supply chain, this creates a trickle of press interest, soon after the Ministry of Transport make a statement about there being no fuel shortages and no need to panic buy which creates a massive upswell of media interest, especially in the traditional Conservative wings of the press, and leads to a situation where people alter their usual buying patterns and the prophecy becomes self fulfilled.
In the meantime, leading up to a a period of heavy temporary worker requirements, the Government, under the guise of easing a crisis that originated from their donors and was heightened by their Transport Ministry, announce measures to remove visa requirements for non-specific workers, we don’t know who emergency waiver applies to but we do know that it does include tanker drivers.
A concerted campaign to blame the press for reporting the situation, whilst ignoring the role of other organisations in fuelling (pardon the pun) the crisis, it also removes the focus from a massive policy U-Turn that was fundamental to their election goes unnoticed and by the previous attacks on the press neutralises any reportage as ‘fear mongering’ ‘irresponsible’ or ‘fanning the flames’.
It’s almost divisive governance by numbers, create a crisis, be seen to act to resolve crisis, then use situation to bring something else into the equation that on its own would be unpopular and a huge about turn.
Brexit, IR35, Covid etc are all bit part players in the back story of the crisis but the primary players are the government and their climb down on immigrant workers.
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