Whether you consider the petrol blockades of 2000 or this year’s anger over shortages, it’s clear that farmers and hauliers are genius protesters
I remember the last petrol crisis, in 2000, although when I say “remember” I mean I was there – I have very clear visuals of sitting on the top deck of a 52 bus, wondering why people minded so much when it was only petrol and they could, after all, get a bus.
It started with some disgruntled farmers and hauliers, angry not so much at the raw price of petrol as at the fuel duty. As vexing as they were, there was something quite magnificent about their success. All they had to do was blockade a refinery for a few hours. It didn’t even matter when the police moved them on. Copycat blockades sprung up all over the place. This was marginally harder then than it would be today, since the crossover between “people who own a tractor” and “people who know how to use Google” was nowhere near as large. It transpired that many hauliers could locate their local refinery using a map.