Fuel crisis: Susanna Reid says 'don't blame us' to Jason Manford
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Comedian and Presenter Jason Manford was a guest on yesterday’s episode of Good Morning Britain where he was asked for his opinion about the nationwide fuel crisis. The 40-year-old was there promoting his upcoming tour where he revealed the news cycle was responsible for the panic, to which host Susanna Reid hit back and told him not to blame them.
Alistair Campbell asked the comedian how he would’ve handled the fuel crisis to which he responded: “I don’t know if I’d be getting the military out.”
Jason added: “You’ve already said don’t panic and then the army are on the street, hang on a minute what’s going on here.
It had been revealed Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered the British army to be on standby to ease the panic buying by helping fuel reach the petrol stations.
Alister began role play and told the comedian: “So you’re now minister, why are you talking about getting the military on the street, minister?
Jason joked: “We’ll I’m going to ring her when I get in actually and say it’s a bad idea, now you’ve said it – a terrible idea.”
As the Good Morning Britain presenters laughed, Jason remarked: “It’ll sort itself out these things always do.”
“And also the news cycle and you guys talking about it every morning it fuels,” as Susanna interjected, “Oh don’t blame us, don’t blame us.”
He explained: “I’m not saying you are to blame but it’s part of the cycle, isn’t it and it’s part of the panic in people, everything fuels ironically, each other.”
The fuel crisis began late last week when oil firm BP warned consumers they would temporarily have to close down a number of petrol stations due to a shortage of lorry drivers.
With this announcement, long queues began to form across the many people across the country feared petrol could run out.
A main reason for the supply chain issues has been attributed to the lack of lorry drivers available.
The petrol industry was hit after there was an estimated shortage of more than 100,000 HGV drivers.
The shortage of drivers has also affected other industries such as supermarkets and fast-food chains.
The situation proved more difficult to sort as fuel tank drivers were required to have an additional safety qualification as well as their HGV licence to legally and safely transport chemicals such as petrol.
Although other countries in Europe were hit with shortages of drivers, some experts have pointed the finger at Brexit as a cause.
As a majority of the drivers were of Eastern European origin, many of them returned to their countries of origin or moved elsewhere after Brexit.
This was because the new laws put in place would impact their income as working in the UK now involved additional border bureaucracy.
The Covid-19 pandemic also greatly affected the industry as many of the drivers chose to spend the pandemic in their home country.
There has also been a major delay in HGV driver tests which has resulted in a huge backlog, forcing Boris Johnosn to make an urgent appeal for those in retirement to step up.
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