UK fuel shortage worsens as industry chief warns ‘people will go without’

It's a variant of "trust me", and that works if and only if the audience considers you trustworthy. So it wasn't terribly likely to work for someone like Boris Johnson, whose recent history chiefly consists of using bonmots to deflect blame for a series of failures. But it worked for Angela Merkel six years ago, when she said "wir schaffen das" about an impending crisis, and the great majority trusted her judgment.

In at least some states in the US it is only legal to store it in approved containers, although I don't know if the gas stations would stop you if you tried to fill up a bucket or plastic bag.

This thing is simple. You build trust by being right, or you can use it (and perhaps wear it down) by relying on that trust. Sometimes when you use people's trust in you, you can resolve the problem using that trust as a tool, but if the problem happens anyway, you wear down your trust.

A particular kind of organisation suggested that there'd be problems due to lack of fruit pickers, government said no, the organisation turned out to be right and it could be seen in the shops. A similar kind of organisation suggested that there'd be problems with haulage and transport, government said the problems would be manageable and managed, the organisation turned out to be right and it could be seen in the shops. Now a third organisation is saying the same kind of thing, this time about fuel.

I think it's the government... but a reasonably functional supply chain won't let this happen. Most people do not panic by news; but they'll panic buy when they find out that some stations have run out of fuel.

This is the UK we're talking about and it's nearly October. You'd struggle to power a flashlight from solar power at this time of year.