In the February 1978 petrol tanker drivers' dispute, the Labour home secretary Merlyn Rees approved a secret plan, "Operation Raglan, authorising the requisitioning of vehicles and the use of 3,000 troops to move fuel if the drivers' overtime ban became a full-blown strike. On that occasion it was the government's view that public knowledge of the plan could only inflame the dispute and possibly prove self-defeating, but its intentions were embarrassingly frustrated when the plan was leaked on the pages of the Socialist Worker. Our current government, by contrast, appears to have opted for maximum publicity in its plans for the possible strike of tanker drivers. This seems to have resulted in even greater embarrassment, what with the "jerry can" blunder and the precipitation of panic-buying at petrol stations (Report, 30 March). History repeats itself, first as farce, second as even greater farce.
Professor Sam Davies
Liverpool John Moores University
• Where was Sir Humphrey when papers were prepared for Cobra on the looming fuel drivers' strike? I was a private secretary in Whitehall in the late 1960s and mid 1970s and in each period we had our normal share or major or minor "emergencies". From every emergency that happened, civil servants had learned and committed to the files that a key risk was panic-buying. So, when each emergency occurred, ministers were warned to do nothing to provoke it. Has the collective memory of civil servants disappeared, or do ministers no longer consult them?
David Roberts
London
• The news is awful for the government: the budget, dinners at No 10 for big backers of the Tory party. So what to do? Create a phoney petrol crisis round a strike that may or may not happen. Brilliant! All other bad news dropped by the media.
Anne Lynn
London
• Grab as much as you can and don't worry if it means others will have to go without. Surely the only surprise is that some people are surprised at this advice.
Hugh Gemson
Taunton, Somerset
• Surely tanker drivers owe the government a vote of thanks for producing the effects of a tanker drivers' strike, without putting them to the trouble of striking.
Rosemary Gill
Shrewton, Wiltshire
• Will the Speaker be misheard as shouting "Hoarder! Hoarder!" to control the house while Francis Maude is speaking?
Bob Dear
Croydon, Surrey
• How many jerry cans of petrol may one store in one's duckhouse?
Dick Elms
Barnet, Hertfordshire
• How I wish I had a garage to keep an illegal jerry can in. I have a car, like most of the 400 householders in this rural village with a poor bus service, recently cut. We have about 20 garages between us. Just another way it's been revealed that our government doesn't know how ordinary people live.
Frances Padfield
Harbertonford, Devon
• Looking forward to a candle-light pasty supper in Francis Maude's garage.
Arthur Newton
Stockport
• Seeing the queues at petrol stations yesterday I realised that in searching for links to our ancestors among the great apes we have going down a blind alley. We should be looking for links to sheep.
Glyn Evans
Crowborough, East Sussex
• I read that the government think they will increase the total volume of petrol available by encouraging a degree of panic buying. Are they, however, securing extra deliveries to garages before any strike? If not, they are not so much out of touch as off their heads.
Bob Dowdeswell
Caversham
• While government "advice" has been a contributory factor in the panic-buying of fuel, a greater influence must be the media, who have been sensationalising the issue through dramatic pictures of snaking queues, lurid accounts of fuel fights and blow-by-blow accounts of agitated motorists whose tanks are only half full.
Clarence Barrett
Upminster, Essex
• What the tanker drivers need to hear is just one politician express some understanding of their situation and more importantly how it knocks onto the general public. Ed Miliband should be that politician, but not because Unite gives the Labour party funding. The prime minister should stop playing politics and make sure there is a fair settlement of this dispute. People need to realise that a poorly trained, overworked petrol tanker driver working for a cowboy operator can be nothing less than an unguided missile in heavy traffic. There is no worse sight on the roads than a multi-vehicle tanker crash, with vehicles and their occupants consumed by flame. Tanker drivers should be properly trained to agreed minimum safety standards and not have to work so much overtime to get a decent living. They used to have decent conditions. I know because I used to be one in the UK.
Dave Feickert
Whanganui, New Zealand