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Thread: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

  1. #1
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    September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    This month this year marks the 20th anniversary of the protests in the UK against the high fuel prices and the oil refineries being subjected to blockades by furious militant (and supposedly right-wing) truckers, which seemed to be a deliberate attempt to damage the Blair govt, especially ahead of the then-forthcoming GE that was to be held the following year (2001), and to inadvertently cause a second 'Winter of Discontent' like in 1978-79 which damaged the then-previous Labour govt.

    I wonder how people might respond today if Boris and Co attempted to reinstate the Fuel Duty Escalator, which was actually imposed by Major and Co in 1993, in which hardly anyone seemed to bat an eyelid over at the time, but continued into the first 3 years of Blair and Co and there then ended up being a big hoo-ha over it!

    The kind of double standards 'acceptable under the Tories, unacceptable under Labour' conundrum.

  2. #2
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    Lets wait and see what the reaction is to French blockages (and the French government looking elsewhere so as not to address it) in the New Year the way things are going.

    I don't think the Tories escape criticism, they get a lot of stick for it too. But perhaps Blair got it from both sides since he wasn't exactly Labour either? That era of Labour was also shedding it's traditional base as it was chasing minority group votes and now we have metropolitan Labour making the same mistakes not realising they lose support outside London this way.
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    I lived on a main road opposite a petrol station while this was happening. I was about 15 at the time. We decided to set up a table outside the house and sell books, games, and fizzy drinks (we poured them into plastic cups and sold them for 70p). I think people thought it was funny what we was doing because we got customers lol. It was cool seeing huge long lines of cars going on as far as the eye could see. Traffic was at a stand still completely.

    Funny how people protested back then, but today the prices are higher than what they protested over in 2000.

    I don't recall 9/11 happening so soon after the protests though. I thought it was some time later.
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    Quote Originally Posted by WiredIncorrectly View Post
    I lived on a main road opposite a petrol station while this was happening. I was about 15 at the time. We decided to set up a table outside the house and sell books, games, and fizzy drinks (we poured them into plastic cups and sold them for 70p). I think people thought it was funny what we was doing because we got customers lol. It was cool seeing huge long lines of cars going on as far as the eye could see. Traffic was at a stand still completely.

    Funny how people protested back then, but today the prices are higher than what they protested over in 2000.

    I don't recall 9/11 happening so soon after the protests though. I thought it was some time later.
    Damn, if I'd known about you I would have set up a portaloo block 50 yards up the road and given you commission for bigger glasses!
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    Quote Originally Posted by MyNameIsTerry View Post
    Damn, if I'd known about you I would have set up a portaloo block 50 yards up the road and given you commission for bigger glasses!
    That's a great upsell Terry!
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    Quote Originally Posted by WiredIncorrectly View Post
    I lived on a main road opposite a petrol station while this was happening. I was about 15 at the time. We decided to set up a table outside the house and sell books, games, and fizzy drinks (we poured them into plastic cups and sold them for 70p). I think people thought it was funny what we was doing because we got customers lol. It was cool seeing huge long lines of cars going on as far as the eye could see. Traffic was at a stand still completely.

    Funny how people protested back then, but today the prices are higher than what they protested over in 2000.

    I don't recall 9/11 happening so soon after the protests though. I thought it was some time later.
    9/11 was exactly a year later (September 2001), but there did seem to be a succession of horrible events that took place between September 2000 and September 2001.

    In the November of 2000 there were a spate of floods (IIRC), followed by a bad flu season throughout December (I was almost crippled by over Christmas that year, and it felt almost like Coronavirus at times, but 20 years ahead of its time!). Then towards the end of February 2001 there was the onset of the Foot-and-Mouth crisis, which crippled the British countryside and inadvertently the rural economy, and over the summer of that year there was a bout of race riots in some English cities (mostly in the north of England), coupled with the gun crime epidemic of the early 2000s starting to spiral out of control in many of our big cities, especially London, Nottingham and Birmingham.

    And yes it's most ironic that fuel prices are far higher now than this time 20 years ago, yet most people just seem blasé about it ATM.

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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    I feel like an absolute prat for thinking 9/11 was in 2000. But you make a good point the UK did have a lot of problems. I remember foot and mouth where they were burning heaps of cows in fields. I'd be sat infront of the TV eating my breakfast before school watching the madness unfold. I take it you've seen the BBC documentary on gun number 6. I remember the shooting in Aston too, I lived a few miles from where it happened at the time. That gun got about and it's still out there somewhere. I spotted your country lines comment in the other thread. You're in tune with the streets I see
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    I remember it very well - I was 16 and I'd just started college for my A Levels. I remember worrying about how I'd get to my lessons if there was a fuel shortage and the buses could no longer run. I also remember there being panic-buying of food (albeit not as bad as it was in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic), so I was worried about whether I'd go hungry if the blockades carried on for a long while. Thankfully it didn't come to that! I recall the government ended up bringing in emergency powers to ensure fuel supplies could get through, and then the protests started to fizzle out. Then the protesters gave the government a 60 day deadline to meet their demands. So I was worried that the blockades would start up again in November, but in the end not a lot really came of it.
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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    Quote Originally Posted by WiredIncorrectly View Post
    I feel like an absolute prat for thinking 9/11 was in 2000. But you make a good point the UK did have a lot of problems. I remember foot and mouth where they were burning heaps of cows in fields. I'd be sat infront of the TV eating my breakfast before school watching the madness unfold. I take it you've seen the BBC documentary on gun number 6. I remember the shooting in Aston too, I lived a few miles from where it happened at the time. That gun got about and it's still out there somewhere. I spotted your country lines comment in the other thread. You're in tune with the streets I see
    Yes 2000-01 was a pretty dire time in this country especially, despite the ongoing economic boom and relative prosperity of the time. Obviously a walk in the park compared to 2020, or even 2008-09, which was the last truly horrible period we had, due to the GFC and the Swine Flu pandemic, but of course, even that seems like a walk in the park now.

    I'm not quite sure as to whether I'm really in tune with the streets, as I tend to mainly go by what's in the news at the time, though I do try to analyse each situation in depth before jumping to conclusions. Where I live went through a very bad patch during the early 2000s, which was mainly fuelled by the binge drinking and ASB epidemics of the time, but unlike in the major cities, extreme violence, such as shootings, stabbings and gang warfare, virtually unheard of in my town (and still are, touch wood). I'm sure County Lines (or an equivalent) was already a thing back in the early 2000s, but was mostly swept under the carpet at the time, just like the scandals concerning the child grooming gangs, which only really started to come out in the wash post-2012.

    Strange how many people who were teenagers at that time are now looking back on that era with rose-tinted specs, but I suppose the ordeals we went through back in the early 2000s would now, with the benefit of hindsight, be regarded as relatively minor inconveniences compared to what many of us had to go through during the first half of this year, even though they all seemed like a big deal at the time.
    Last edited by Lencoboy; 08-09-20 at 13:15.

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    Re: September 2000 Fuel Protests, 20 Years On.

    With the current escalation in fuel prices, I was wondering today how long it might be before anyone starts any September 2000-style oil refinery blockades, but this time of course with Boris and Co getting it in the neck like Blair and Co did back then?

    I also wonder how long it will be before we end up seeing 'Poll Tax'-like disturbances in response to the COL crisis?

    Or have we generally become less militant as a society over the past 20-30 years or so?

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