Here’s the thing. Oil prices are global. When things go boom in the Middle East, the price of crude oil does a little jig. And because we Brits love our cars (and our heating oil), we feel that jig in our wallets. Rumours of shortages spread faster than gossip at a village fete.
One minute, you’re casually topping up. The next, you see a queue of panicked parents in people-carriers, and your brain whispers: “Better fill up now, or you’ll be walking to Lidl.” It’s fear, not logic, driving this.
The queue is real. And it’s weirdly polite.
I drove past my local Shell station yesterday. I’m not kidding—there was a 30-minute wait. And everyone was grimly jolly about it. “Just getting a bit of extra, you know,” said a man in a flat cap, as if he was buying potatoes for a siege. We’re all pretending we’re being sensible, but we’re really just fuel-zombies.
And the prices? Through the roof. Some stations are already hovering near £1.60 a litre for petrol. That’s practically a mortgage payment for a full tank. But people don’t care. They’re throwing cash at the pump like it’s monopoly money.
