Talk:2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis

Title change

I think putting “Panic Buying” in the title of this article is a mistake.

While that seems to be the current consensus the event is very much ongoing and various media outlets have speculated on the cause, proposing reasons other than panic buying for the shortages. This article makes mention of that. In all likihood the reasons for the fuel crisis are complex and titling the article as “panic buying” is misleading or not painting the full picture

I recommend this article be moved to somewhere like “2021 UK Fuel Shortages” or “ 2021 UK Fuel Crisis” as much of the media seem to be calling it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.183.58 (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The manifestation of the situation was the panic buying, so the name is appropriate. There is no shortage of fuel; the problem is keeping up with the increased demand due to the panic buying. That problem of keeping up with the demand may have been exacerbated by the long-term and ongoing driver shortage in most of Europe, and that driver shortage may have Brexit and Covid as contributory factors. And the panic might have been triggered by irresponsible news headlines, or deliberate mischief-making by some organisation or political opportunism, or whatever. But, all-in-all, the only objective facts we have are that there was panic buying and that the supply logistics had problems delivering fuel to meet that vastly inflated demand. Everything else is a contributory factor and many are very subjective and with many possible ulterior motives, of a political nature, or whatever. -- DeFacto (talk). 11:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes I agree there is a difficulty with the "shortage" name, as mentioned by DeFacto: that technically there is not a fuel shortage (fuel is stored and available in the refineries) but there is a problem with distribution (not enough HGV drivers, petrol stations empty). However, the "panic buying" aspect may inadvertently draw a conclusion (had there been no panic buying, there would have been no problems). For that reason I would support a more general "crisis" moniker, as it is undeniably a crisis, however you may view the cause. I vote for 2021 UK Fuel Crisis. Cnbrb (talk) 21:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

A change to a broader title as suggested by Cnbrb would be worth considering and has my support. Richard Nevell (talk) 10:19, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Actually I'll correct that suggestion to the longer 2021 United Kingdom fuel crisis. Cnbrb (talk) 10:47, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Is it really a "crisis" though? What are we going to call events that actually are one? David (talk) 13:23, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

There are plenty of reliable sources describing it as such: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Richard Nevell (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I support moving to the "2021 United Kingdom fuel crisis" title, as proposed by Cnbrb. –Bangalamania (talk) 14:42, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree, though it might make sense to cover the wider lorry shortage than has been on going since the summer. --Kathy262 (talk) 18:00, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I support this proposed change, although I would prefer 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis. Supply clarifies it relates to the issues of supply, but is broader, more concise and clearer than the current 'panic buying' title. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 15:06, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Good idea. I support this change. It's neutral and accurate. Cnbrb (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree. It's the supply crisis that lead to the panic buying. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:42, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

There seem to be wider issues than panic buying and shortage of HGV drivers : Acute shortage of abattoir workers, but I didn't find a suitable article. Feel free to consider inclusion somewhere. TGCP (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

That's true but, correct me if I'm wrong, this doesn't seem to link to the supply chain issues covered in this article. There's talk of a possible CO2 shortage as well which does relate to a supply chain issue though and could warrant inclusion. Maybe the scope of this article could be 2021 United Kingdom supply chain crisis? Arcahaeoindris (talk) 09:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

The CO2 shortage was due to a main producer of it, a fertiliser factory (CO2 is a by-product), temporarily closing their plant because of the rise in the cost of natural gas on the European wholesale market. This has a dedicated article at 2021 United Kingdom natural gas supplier crisis. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:22, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Maybe - there's a lot going on at the moment. I think as events develop we'll have a clearer historical perspective to put all these things together. There doesn't seem to be any sort of article covering the empty supermarket shelves, another important issue. Cnbrb (talk) 09:49, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Something like "2021 United Kingdom fuel crisis" is now clearly a better title: it's been a week and a half and it's clear it's not just panic buying that's the problem but actual delivery problems. (The article could in the long run possibly be merged or expanded into an article titled something like "2021 UK supply chain crisis", but that would require more of a rewrite, whereas I think a title change could be done now.) Blythwood (talk) 21:54, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

An article for all the post-Brexit shortages, problems, and hiccups would be more coherent than individual articles. --Kathy262 (talk) 05:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 5 October 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis to reflect consensus about article scope. (non-admin closure) Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 01:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

---

2021 United Kingdom fuel panic buying → 2021 United Kingdom fuel crisis – Growing talk page consensus. Many reasons for the crisis, onus should not be on "panic buying". The other article at the latter (which is now a disambiguation link) can be mentioned in hatnote. Bangalamania (talk) 22:38, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:45, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

• @Bangalamania and Polyamorph: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk)
• From that discussion it is not actually clear what the consensus is. Various titles have been mooted. The discussion needs a formal close. Polyamorph (talk) 13:18, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support either "fuel crisis" or "fuel supply crisis" would be fine. Blythwood (talk) 10:43, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support but I prefer 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support per discussion above. I would also support 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis if it is proposed. Cnbrb (talk) 17:26, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support TheFineTruthComb (talk) 17:29, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support the scope of the article seems to be wider than just the panic buying. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:43, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: I'd prefer the title of 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis. As mentioned in the lead section of the current article, the UK did not have a shortage of fuel. The panic buying of fuel combined with supply chain issues created the problems. Regards, Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 23:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support, also fine with 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis (no preference between the two). Elli (talk | contribs) 07:08, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Thejoebloggsblog (talk) 05:34, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fuel crisis is a better title for the page Thingofme (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support clearly superior in terms of scope and neutrality (given the disputed/unclear balance of causes). Also looks like a candidate for a WP:SNOWPRO close. Jr8825 • Talk 16:15, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Richard Nevell (talk) 21:21, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support. I wouldn't be opposed to "2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis" form either. The article is clearly about more than just panic buying. --Veikk0.ma 03:49, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
• Doesn't matter. Just maybe, this will become a problem again this year. If it does, thinking about the title then would be worth doing. For now, it's already almost forgotten, so redirecting, perhaps to 2021 in the United Kingdom, would be more appropriate. EddieHugh (talk) 17:13, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support 2021 United Kingdom fuel supply crisis as first choice, just "fuel crisis" is vague. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inclusion of irrelevant trivia

I'm not sure we need to include the facts that thieves continued to steal fuel during the panic buying or that an ambulance had a crash. Apart from WP:NOTNEWS these, despite appearing in reliable sources, have been given undue weight in the article - they were not significant in relation to the panic buying and were not reported as such, or even widely covered. I propose removing them and the other similar one-offs being added. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:05, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Naturally this article suffers from WP:recentism just now, and it's inevitable that some editors will want to chronicle every mishap or misdemeanour. With the perspective of history, I think the reporting of widespread fuel thefts during this crisis may merit a passing mention, but that's about it. The wider picture is what will endure encyclopaedically speaking. Cnbrb (talk) 10:36, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I also agree about the need to be mindful of RECENTISM/NOTNEWS. In particular the ambulance crash struck me as a one-off minor local news story that rose to prominence because of the context – that's not an indication it's relevant/due for inclusion in an encyclopedic overview of the crisis. I'm not so sure about the reports of fuel theft, I suppose it depends on whether the sources say they were particularly widespread/abnormal. Jr8825 • Talk 12:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I think there's a case to be made regarding WP:NOTNEWS, however when the content was removed it was not done with reference to policy (cf: edit summaries 1, 2). As for whether it does constitute excessive detail, or 'undue weight', I'd say that a single sentence on fuel thefts referencing three sources doesn't seem unreasonable. The ambulance crash is referenced to a national newspaper, but I agree that at the very least the amount of detail could be reduced. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell, if there is coverage in a cross-section of reliable sources specifically correlating fuel theft to the recent panic buying, then it might be a candidate for inclusion, but a random theft in a single source is probably not. The same for the crash - if there is reliable analysis showing an increase in ambulance down-time due to panic buying it might have a place. Remember WP:VNOT too, we don't include stuff just because it's in a reliable source. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

It's all trivia. I added a sourced sentence stating that the annual number of fuel thefts in the UK is 120,000. It was reverted, of course. So, 328 a day is average. If only we could find 329 reported thefts on one day during this 'crisis', it would be worth including! EddieHugh (talk) 17:10, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I've removed this again. It is trivia. Wikipedia is not a police blotter; certainly the daily list of crimes is in a newspaper but that does not make it appropriate for Wikipedia. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:18, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I removed it earlier and I agree. I don't see any consensus here to include it. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

It would seem there is a consensus to exclude this information on the basis that it is undue weight, rather than the spurious reasons given in the edit summaries. Fair enough then. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Only ADR qualified HGV drivers can drive fuel tankers.

The fact that only ADR qualified HGV drivers can drive fuel tankers seems to be completely absent from this article. Only a small percent of HGV drivers have this extra certification. It was stated on national media at the time by some experts that there was no signficant shortage of ADR qualified drivers in the UK, severely weakening the argument that Brexit was a cause to the fuel crisis. The overall shortage of HGV drivers in the UK, the vast majority of which could not drive fuel tankers, was likley not especially significant to the fuel crisis. 90.252.145.251 (talk) 17:03, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

If you feel this is an important omission, you can, of course add this claim to the article yourself, provided that you can cite reliable sources, and that the way it is phrased is neutral, in-line with WP:NOPV. Cnbrb (talk) 17:41, 26 February 2022 (UTC)