AT THE height of the fuel crisis this week, Downing Street moved Tony Blair's cars from outside No 10 to the back of the building.

The Prime Minister still had access to petrol from emergency police supplies and his advisers, always with a sharp eye for presentation details, did not want the cameras catching him driving off in a convoy while Britain ran dry.

Not that he was planning to go very far: after making the mistake of beginning a regional tour on Monday, he fled back to London when he witnessed for himself the chaos caused by protesters in Hull.

Government insiders acknowledged that they had been slow to spot the crisis coming, with ministers distracted last weekend by the situation in Sierra Leone.

When Mr Blair got back to his desk at Downing Street, however, the machine was on full alert with aides describing the atmosphere as "grim - almost like working out of a bunker".

At meetings and in telephone calls with oil company executives, the Prime Minister was repeatedly assured that he would have their co-operation in getting the tankers moving. But after telling the nation on Tuesday that supplies would be getting back to normal within 24 hours, Mr Blair was exasperated by Wednesday when it became clear that the tanker drivers were still refusing to leave their depots because of intimidation. "This whole thing needs stepping up," he told officials.

source:
http://www.the-times.co.uk

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