A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
The ability to deal with the driver shortage is being hampered by the Brexit strategy the government has chosen to pursue. Brexit is an abstract concept. What is not abstract is how it has been implemented.
Overnight Australia has reported ~950 cases and NZ 62. In New Zealand's case they are saying that the growth is "not exponential". Chart from Our World in Data below which doesn't yet include today's data:
NSW is very deliberately saying that Zero Covid is now impossible. NZ is still aiming for that and we will know in the next 2 weeks if it is possible for them in the medium term. In the long term it is impossible unless they want to permanently cut themselves off from the world.
I terms of per capita cases Australia is now roughly where we were in May.
But with fewer vaccinations and far less acquired immunity.
And trying to make up for it with lockdowns.
Well both nations need to remain broadly locked down till they've vaccinated their over 50s. They're not there yet.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
What the hell do people think they are doing asking the government to prioritise animals over people? Even the Taliban aren't going to execute donkeys for collaboration.
Wasn't the government also refusing passage for the staff as well until the u-turn?
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
Bullshit. The driver shortage is absolutely being caused by Brexit! And Covid. And IR35. It is all of them. To say "not Brexit" as you just have is absolute delusion.
I have already given two examples which are Brexit and nothing else: 1 EU drivers who have gone home (along with EU factory workers) - a big shortage in available labour despite the higher than expected numbers staying (ergo the official numbers of EU residents in the UK was a big under-read) 2 EU drivers not bringing goods across the border then doing cabotage pick up / drop off jobs up and down the country
If we didn't have Brexit then IR35 would have briefly priced some drivers out (already reversed by rapid pay rises) and we would have a small shortage of drivers where people have retired / left and there hasn't been training of new due to Covid. Like the rest of Europe. Our massive problem is unique, and its massive because of Brexit.
If there is a 100,000 shortfall of something, and it would have been 86,000 without Brexit, then Brexit isn’t the cause of the shortfall. Unless you don’t think 86,000 is a shortfall
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
*If* that happens, then people will notice. But it may not happen: and if it does, the current furore about it may make it easier to ignore. The little-boy-who-cried-wolf effect.
It's not made easier by people (not on here) posting fake/untrue images of empty shelves.
Easier for who? the brexiter deniers? I think the brexiters perfer the phrase "out of sight - out of mind".
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Agreed- about 10-15% of my usuals coming up as out of stock, and 5% or so substitutions on the day. Far from the end of the world, but not the sign of a system running healthily.
And something like this was fairly predictable. In the SM, the invisible hand can act over the whole continent, balance out peaks and troughs and get things and people to where it's best for them to be. Post SM, the British invisible hand is in a much smaller box. Of course it can't do as much.
(Trouble is that once you accept that being in the SM means following the rules, I'm not sure that a big proud country like the UK is up for pay/obey/not much say. For a small proud country like Norway or Switzerland, it's different, because they didn't have much say to give up.)
Au contraire, when we were in the EU we had a lot of say, one of the big 4, if we didn't want it to happen it usually meant it didn't, if we did, it usually did.
Agreed. As an EU member, we did have quite a lot of say. As a tagalong, we wouldn't to anything like the same degree.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
They should make Pen Farthing choose his dogs over an actual group of Afghan women and children at the gate.
I used a similar example on here last time i waded into the debate and even after breaking it down some people still thought it showed my hyptohetical Grammar school setup where less children got to go to University was better for getting kids to Uni.
You can but try.
The fraction of Welsh students going to Oxbridge has steadily declined since the 1950s.
In fact, Wales now does worse than any area of England.
Now, there may well be other factors that influence this, but certainly the decline and abolition of the Welsh grammars schools is one. What replaced them in Wales was not as good.
And in fact, it is this that inspired the founder of the Sutton Trust, Peter Lampl to set it up.
"I went to dinner at my old college, Corpus Christi, which used to have lots of ordinary Welsh kids, many of them my best friends. I was told they weren't coming through any more."
Yes quite true, there used to be lots of Welsh grammar pupils at Oxford, Jesus College being a fine example now that number has declined significantly now there is not a single grammar school left in Wales.
Of course the trend is clear across the top jobs, 65% of senior Judges, 57% of the Cabinet, 52% of diplomats and junior ministers, 55% of top solicitors, 67% of British Oscar winners (Anthony Hopkins was a Welsh grammar school boy of course as was Richard Burton) and 61% of top doctors went to private school.
However never mind. I am sure kjh will be along soon with another 'stat' of impeccable 'logic' to show how brilliantly our comprehensives are doing at getting state educated pupils into the top jobs now most of the grammar schools have been scrapped
Overnight Australia has reported ~950 cases and NZ 62. In New Zealand's case they are saying that the growth is "not exponential". Chart from Our World in Data below which doesn't yet include today's data:
NSW is very deliberately saying that Zero Covid is now impossible. NZ is still aiming for that and we will know in the next 2 weeks if it is possible for them in the medium term. In the long term it is impossible unless they want to permanently cut themselves off from the world.
I terms of per capita cases Australia is now roughly where we were in May.
The big cities in Australia have been in lockdown for weeks, does this graph show that lockdown is working?
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
the weather's pretty similar as well....
Nope. The climate in Scotland and Sweden is surprisingly different. (Scotland and southern Sweden, where most people live, are at the same latitude.)
Sweden has longer, hotter, drier summers and longer, colder, drier winters. Springs and autumns in Sweden are incredibly short: it almost just flips over from winter to summer some years.
I prefer Swedish summers and winters, although ‘vargavintrar’ - wolf-winters - get a bit trying the final two months.
I prefer Scottish springs and autumns.
In my experience - and this is from some years ago now - Scotland is at its best in April/May and September/October.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
By the same token when people are constantly banging on about shortages in the shops and people’s lived experience is that this just isn’t the case, and that is certainly my experience, then it all comes over a bit ‘boy who cried wolf’.
That’s not to say there will not be an issue but when you keep hearing about it being a major problem and it just doesn’t seem to be what do you expect. Once again diehard FBPE remain are overplaying their hand.
As I said above, it’s terrible politics, terrible expectation management. A series of annoyances. The other week Sainsbury’s near me hadn’t had a milk delivery. So I walked over the car park to M&S food and got some there. Annoying. Really annoying. Not the apocalypse. Yet the FBPE clowns are suggesting we are dying in the streets. And we wonder why we lost?
And it continues on here unabated and frankly not helping their cause.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Several things could feed into this: 1. Best way to manage uncontrolled shortages is to try and manage them - control what you short.Suppliers may have consolidated production down to fewer products 2. When you order online, you are reliant on the minimum wage spod going round the store picking from whatever is available at that time. It doesn't matter if you order in advance, they can only pick what is there to pick just as you can if you shop in person.
I have a weekly Asda delivery averaging £70 and it arrives at 9.00am every Thursday and I genuinely have not experienced any shortages
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
Who claims that 14,000 is Brexit and 86,000 is not Brexit? it isn't a number used by the Road Haulage Association. Their own survey of hauliers and drivers had Brexit given as the reason for driver shortages more like 60% than your 14%...
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
I don’t read em Nige
Reading a bit of a problem for UKIP candidates I am sure.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
By the same token when people are constantly banging on about shortages in the shops and people’s lived experience is that this just isn’t the case, and that is certainly my experience, then it all comes over a bit ‘boy who cried wolf’.
That’s not to say there will not be an issue but when you keep hearing about it being a major problem and it just doesn’t seem to be what do you expect. Once again diehard FBPE remain are overplaying their hand.
As I said above, it’s terrible politics, terrible expectation management. A series of annoyances. The other week Sainsbury’s near me hadn’t had a milk delivery. So I walked over the car park to M&S food and got some there. Annoying. Really annoying. Not the apocalypse. Yet the FBPE clowns are suggesting we are dying in the streets. And we wonder why we lost?
I think the point is it's more that it shouldn't even be happening at all. And if the system is stressed much more, other things will give quite quickly.
It could be an echo of the government's attitudes to Covid last autumn. From memory, the conversation went roughly like this;
Boffins: Cases are beginning to rise and in a few weeks' time, we expect it will get a lot worse. We ought to do something now.
Government: Cases are low so there's no way that we're putting in any control measures now.
Navigating by the situation now rather than the anticipated problems down the line is probably excellent popular democratic politics. After all, to respond to problems is to admit to problems and who knows- we might get lucky. But when you systematically over-discount what might go wrong, it stops you making the best decisions.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
Who claims that 14,000 is Brexit and 86,000 is not Brexit? it isn't a number used by the Road Haulage Association. Their own survey of hauliers and drivers had Brexit given as the reason for driver shortages more like 60% than your 14%...
Yes. There are two Brexit-related shortages currently - a shortage of drivers that is notably worse than in neighbouring countries with the same covid issues, and a shortage of people to pick fruit and vegetables.
Overnight Australia has reported ~950 cases and NZ 62. In New Zealand's case they are saying that the growth is "not exponential". Chart from Our World in Data below which doesn't yet include today's data:
NSW is very deliberately saying that Zero Covid is now impossible. NZ is still aiming for that and we will know in the next 2 weeks if it is possible for them in the medium term. In the long term it is impossible unless they want to permanently cut themselves off from the world.
I terms of per capita cases Australia is now roughly where we were in May.
The big cities in Australia have been in lockdown for weeks, does this graph show that lockdown is working?
It would suggest that lockdowns can only slow Delta in a country with only partial vaccination and minimal acquired immunity.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Agreed- about 10-15% of my usuals coming up as out of stock, and 5% or so substitutions on the day. Far from the end of the world, but not the sign of a system running healthily.
And something like this was fairly predictable. In the SM, the invisible hand can act over the whole continent, balance out peaks and troughs and get things and people to where it's best for them to be. Post SM, the British invisible hand is in a much smaller box. Of course it can't do as much.
(Trouble is that once you accept that being in the SM means following the rules, I'm not sure that a big proud country like the UK is up for pay/obey/not much say. For a small proud country like Norway or Switzerland, it's different, because they didn't have much say to give up.)
Au contraire, when we were in the EU we had a lot of say, one of the big 4, if we didn't want it to happen it usually meant it didn't, if we did, it usually did.
Agreed. As an EU member, we did have quite a lot of say. As a tagalong, we wouldn't to anything like the same degree.
The reality was that successive British governments didn't want to admit that they were happily going along with most of it as part of negotiations for things we wanted, particularly the single market, which was largely the brainchild of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson.
My dad pointed this out to me when I lived in the student accommodation there back in '91. Since then, I've seen it everywhere: pleasant architecture hidden by awful shopfronts.
Yep. Shows you how few people ever do just look up, I think -- if more people looked up at the second and third stories more often then the shopfront design people would find it worthwhile extending their branding up to roof level, and we wouldn't see anything of the original building...
My god, even the Grauniad is against Brexit! Who’d of thunk it. How many readers left now, three, four?
Like a scratched record. Starts off with the flawed premise the shelves are empty and has a picture of an empty shelf surrounded by full ones.
When there is no milk or bread thats shortages.. when the little darlings can't get their favourite brand of cereal they cry out in pain....
They should think about the people like those that our charity 'Horsham matters' supports with basic items that most of these whiners would turn their noses up at.
Scott n paste needs a reality check. He is like a broken record
There was always going to be short term problems. Most have been caused by covid..eg Drivers unable to take HGV tests...
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
The ability to deal with the driver shortage is being hampered by the Brexit strategy the government has chosen to pursue. Brexit is an abstract concept. What is not abstract is how it has been implemented.
I am sorry you did not understand what I wrote!
I understood. You wrote "Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue"
What you wrote is untrue, the Brexit absolutism I referred to in my first post this morning. You're as bonkers as the people who insist that crap summer weather is because of Brexit.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
the weather's pretty similar as well....
Nope. The climate in Scotland and Sweden is surprisingly different. (Scotland and southern Sweden, where most people live, are at the same latitude.)
Sweden has longer, hotter, drier summers and longer, colder, drier winters. Springs and autumns in Sweden are incredibly short: it almost just flips over from winter to summer some years.
I prefer Swedish summers and winters, although ‘vargavintrar’ - wolf-winters - get a bit trying the final two months.
I prefer Scottish springs and autumns.
In my experience - and this is from some years ago now - Scotland is at its best in April/May and September/October.
I hope you are right. I am going up to highlands next week!
And it continues on here unabated and frankly not helping their cause.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
What 'they' (if by 'they' you mean sensible people wanting the best for the country) want is a sensible set of measures to make Brexit work without so much gratuitous, self-inflicted damage. These measures to include things like:
- Negotiating a cabotage deal with the EU - Providing visas for much-needed staff - Negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU - Abandonment of the lunatic ideologically-driven refusal to recognise CE marks - Cooperation with our EU friends and avoidance of petty insults such as the (now-reversed) refusal to grant full diplomatic status to the EU ambassador
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Several things could feed into this: 1. Best way to manage uncontrolled shortages is to try and manage them - control what you short.Suppliers may have consolidated production down to fewer products 2. When you order online, you are reliant on the minimum wage spod going round the store picking from whatever is available at that time. It doesn't matter if you order in advance, they can only pick what is there to pick just as you can if you shop in person.
I have a weekly Asda delivery averaging £70 and it arrives at 9.00am every Thursday and I genuinely have not experienced any shortages
And you won't be alone in that. Again, it is uncontrolled shortages. And even if you did get shortages one time that could be down to the pingdemic wiping out the store's pick team when they need to pick your order.
Mr. Foremain, the strange lack of a case by UK politicians for the EU over many years is quite interesting. I wonder if it was due to the general pro-EU consensus, and if that, in turn, misled the EU into thinking the UK was more for it than it really was.
The lack of practice actually persuading people didn't help come the referendum.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
Who claims that 14,000 is Brexit and 86,000 is not Brexit? it isn't a number used by the Road Haulage Association. Their own survey of hauliers and drivers had Brexit given as the reason for driver shortages more like 60% than your 14%...
“The shortfall of as many as 100,000 drivers has begun to take its toll across industries from retail to construction as firms struggle to secure lorries to transport goods from ports, factories, suppliers and warehouses to their intended destination.
Several factors have contributed to the crisis – Covid-19 caused a backlog in tests and license applications, and the industry, which is primarily comprised of older workers, is losing drivers faster than it can recruit them – but Brexit played a major role, with thousands of EU nationals departing the UK.
Some 14,000 EU HGV drivers left employment in the UK in the 12 months to June 2020, and only 600 have returned in the past year, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics labour force data commissioned by Logistics UK. “
Sometimes you just have to juxtapose two news stories to realise how mad the world can be...
On the one hand the Australians are going round shooting dogs apparently to prevent people getting Covid, whilst elsewhere in the world people are trying to use the force of the British army to evacuate 200 cats and dogs away from the reach of the Taliban....!
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry – accused of embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations – has had her trial moved to next year.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Agreed- about 10-15% of my usuals coming up as out of stock, and 5% or so substitutions on the day. Far from the end of the world, but not the sign of a system running healthily.
And something like this was fairly predictable. In the SM, the invisible hand can act over the whole continent, balance out peaks and troughs and get things and people to where it's best for them to be. Post SM, the British invisible hand is in a much smaller box. Of course it can't do as much.
(Trouble is that once you accept that being in the SM means following the rules, I'm not sure that a big proud country like the UK is up for pay/obey/not much say. For a small proud country like Norway or Switzerland, it's different, because they didn't have much say to give up.)
Au contraire, when we were in the EU we had a lot of say, one of the big 4, if we didn't want it to happen it usually meant it didn't, if we did, it usually did.
Agreed. As an EU member, we did have quite a lot of say. As a tagalong, we wouldn't to anything like the same degree.
The reality was that successive British governments didn't want to admit that they were happily going along with most of it as part of negotiations for things we wanted, particularly the single market, which was largely the brainchild of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson.
Terrible as the current exponent of cakeism is, he's not the first and won't be the last. Pretending that we can have what we want with no downsides has always been an excellent strategy in marketing and electoral politics.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
the weather's pretty similar as well....
Nope. The climate in Scotland and Sweden is surprisingly different. (Scotland and southern Sweden, where most people live, are at the same latitude.)
Sweden has longer, hotter, drier summers and longer, colder, drier winters. Springs and autumns in Sweden are incredibly short: it almost just flips over from winter to summer some years.
I prefer Swedish summers and winters, although ‘vargavintrar’ - wolf-winters - get a bit trying the final two months.
I prefer Scottish springs and autumns.
In my experience - and this is from some years ago now - Scotland is at its best in April/May and September/October.
I concur. November can be surprisingly good some years.
“ European road transport firms are racing towards a driver shortage crisis of 150,000 unfilled jobs, according to new research from Transport Intelligence. In a report released this week, European Road Freight Transport 2018, the supply chain analyst shows that in just six countries – the UK, Germany, France, Denmark Sweden and Norway – the shortage of drivers adds up to 127,500.
The UK leads the way with a shortage of 52,000 drivers, but is closely followed by Germany at 45,000 vacancies – with predictions that this could increase by a staggering 28,000 each year.
The report says: “In Germany, the DSLV transport union reports that in the next 15 years, two-thirds of drivers will retire. Germany is facing a shortage of 45,000 truck drivers, with around 30,000 leaving the profession every year. This compares with only 2,000 people receiving truck-driving qualifications each year.”
Here is something from my memory of moving to the Grammar school and the various speech days I attended and says something about making decisions at 11:
About 10 - 15 of us moved to the Grammar school to do our A levels. Myself and another on the Arts side were fast streamed because we performed at the very top of the Grammar school boys, but also all those who transferred were in the top quartile of the Grammar school. Now clearly although there will changes in academic ability as one gets older (and that is one of the reasons I object to Grammar schools) it will not be to that extent, which appears ridiculous. The explanation is simple. Actually the numbers who were capable of moving across was not 10 - 15 but more like 30. Only the very best moved across. Social engineering was taking place already because of decisions made at 11. At speech day it was clear that there were a huge number of boys in the Grammar school getting 1 - 4 O levels which would put them at about the 50% point at the Secondary school. They should have been learning with people of their own ability and on subjects they could thrive on rather than struggling.
The overlap in ability at 11 (one assumes if the 11 plus is accurate and I see no reason why it should not be broadly accurate) is minimal. The overlap at 16 based on a test at 11 appears to be massive.
And clearly just to answer @HYUFD point, although it has been covered by many before, even with this overlap the selection process at 11 will still ensure the Grammar school has most of the most able students and the Secondary will have a lot less plus the secondary school will have all of those that are academically challenged. So the grammar school will always perform better but it doesn't make them better schools. Only if they started with the same pupils could you judge which is the better school.
That's very interesting.
And one of the things that I think is so difficult about the grammar schools debate is that people on both sides each say things that are absolutely correct.
My personal bugbear with the grammar school system is the fact that a September baby was more than twice as likely to pass the Eleven Plus than an August one. And the fact that people mature at different ages: there are plenty of people who burn brightly at eleven, and are dullards at sixteen; and there are plenty who bloom academically only in their mid-teens.
You therefore need to have annual promotion and relegation from grammar schools, to ensure that people are with the most appropriate educational cohort. At which point the question becomes... hang on, isn't it easier to just stream?
And then there's the geography question. In low population density areas, the nearest grammar could be a long, long way away from the average kid. Whereas in large towns with public transport, that simply isn't an issue.
You need don't need promotion and relegation, most grammars have entries at 13 and 16 already.
If you want to get into Oxbridge or a top Russell Group university you are statistically far more likely to do so from a grammar than the average comp, hence for sixth form in particular many bright late developers will move to grammars
The maths of why this is both true and meaningless just goes over your head doesn't it?
I think the solution to the grammar/comprehensive debate is perhaps having more large and better funded 6th form colleges. There are way too many schools (including a number of grammars) with inadequate 6th form provision, and the advantages in offering a full range of subjects, and specialist subject teachers at A Level are undeniable. And they provide a great escape option for those who are academically inclined and might otherwise be stuck in a poor comprehensive.
One problem with that is schools without sixth-forms find it harder to recruit teachers (as we tend to enjoy teaching A-levels more than GCSE, particularly in those subjects which are compulsory up to the end of Y11). Sixth-form colleges tend to have worse terms for teachers than schools and so are not that popular either. I suspect the net result of your proposal would be to make teachers even harder to come by, and an exodus of those that could into the private sector.
A better solution, used in some areas already on an ad hoc basis, is for small groups of neighbouring schools to pool their sixth form provision, allowing pupils from one school to do one or more subjects at a nearby school. There are some logistic challenges, but it can be made to work.
That sixth-form pooling has been done here (Abingdon), and it works very well indeed. My middle daughter had an excellent experience there and got results considerably beyond what had been previously expected.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
Brexit? It got Johnson into 10 Downing Street. So mission accomplished!
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
Who claims that 14,000 is Brexit and 86,000 is not Brexit? it isn't a number used by the Road Haulage Association. Their own survey of hauliers and drivers had Brexit given as the reason for driver shortages more like 60% than your 14%...
“The shortfall of as many as 100,000 drivers has begun to take its toll across industries from retail to construction as firms struggle to secure lorries to transport goods from ports, factories, suppliers and warehouses to their intended destination.
Several factors have contributed to the crisis – Covid-19 caused a backlog in tests and license applications, and the industry, which is primarily comprised of older workers, is losing drivers faster than it can recruit them – but Brexit played a major role, with thousands of EU nationals departing the UK.
Some 14,000 EU HGV drivers left employment in the UK in the 12 months to June 2020, and only 600 have returned in the past year, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics labour force data commissioned by Logistics UK. “
Great! As I have now repeatedly pointed out, the lack of EU drivers is not remotely just the ones employed in the UK. That just shows your ignorance of how things work.
Try again luv. Or, just a thought, drop your absurd absolutism.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
the weather's pretty similar as well....
Nope. The climate in Scotland and Sweden is surprisingly different. (Scotland and southern Sweden, where most people live, are at the same latitude.)
Sweden has longer, hotter, drier summers and longer, colder, drier winters. Springs and autumns in Sweden are incredibly short: it almost just flips over from winter to summer some years.
I prefer Swedish summers and winters, although ‘vargavintrar’ - wolf-winters - get a bit trying the final two months.
I prefer Scottish springs and autumns.
In my experience - and this is from some years ago now - Scotland is at its best in April/May and September/October.
many years ago now but when we went on our annual walking holidays in Scotland it was nearly always in May, occasionally June. Usually got lucky with the weather being dry and never any issues with midges.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Even if there is capacity, what message is it going to send to Afghanis and the rest of the world that we got animals out but left behind desperate people?
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
The ability to deal with the driver shortage is being hampered by the Brexit strategy the government has chosen to pursue. Brexit is an abstract concept. What is not abstract is how it has been implemented.
I am sorry you did not understand what I wrote!
I understood. You wrote "Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue"
What you wrote is untrue, the Brexit absolutism I referred to in my first post this morning. You're as bonkers as the people who insist that crap summer weather is because of Brexit.
What I wrote was not untrue. The shortage of of drivers has been a problem across the world, for years. Yes Brexit has not helped, but it isn’t the cause of the shortfall.
Your insults fall on deaf ears, continue if you like but it doesn’t bother me either way.
I used a similar example on here last time i waded into the debate and even after breaking it down some people still thought it showed my hyptohetical Grammar school setup where less children got to go to University was better for getting kids to Uni.
You can but try.
The fraction of Welsh students going to Oxbridge has steadily declined since the 1950s.
In fact, Wales now does worse than any area of England.
Now, there may well be other factors that influence this, but certainly the decline and abolition of the Welsh grammars schools is one. What replaced them in Wales was not as good.
And in fact, it is this that inspired the founder of the Sutton Trust, Peter Lampl to set it up.
"I went to dinner at my old college, Corpus Christi, which used to have lots of ordinary Welsh kids, many of them my best friends. I was told they weren't coming through any more."
Yes quite true, there used to be lots of Welsh grammar pupils at Oxford, Jesus College being a fine example now that number has declined significantly now there is not a single grammar school left in Wales.
Of course the trend is clear across the top jobs, 65% of senior Judges, 57% of the Cabinet, 52% of diplomats and junior ministers, 55% of top solicitors, 67% of British Oscar winners (Anthony Hopkins was a Welsh grammar school boy of course as was Richard Burton) and 61% of top doctors went to private school.
However never mind. I am sure kjh will be along soon with another 'stat' to say how brilliantly our comprehensives are doing at getting state educated pupils into the top jobs now most of the grammar schools have been scrapped
Sweden doesn’t have grammar schools, yet funnily enough we manage to find good people to fill top jobs, judicial posts, diplomatic posts, solicitors, universities, doctors and winners of daft showbiz gongs. We even manage to find incorrupt and competent cabinet ministers.
How do we manage without grammar schools? It’s a mystery.
Germany does have grammar schools called gymnasiums and also manages to find all of the above.
However neither have British, Anglosphere style public schools, so without grammar school competition the public schools are back on top again in terms of the top jobs
What Stuart has conveniently omitted is that Sweden has a growing independent sector where the state pays the fees. Sounds an ideal model to me. Perhaps similar to "free schools". I would have been quite happy for the state to pay my kids independent school fees. Sadly it was a choice between the bog standard comprehensive with the heavy influence of trade unions, or forking out an eye watering amount of money to ensure they got a trade union free education. I chose the latter. Best money I ever spent.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
This is the issue with anecdotes. When it comes to the 'health' of an area wrt footfall, much depends on when you go - or for that matter, where you go.
I've often got to know new places by walking through them. However, I freely admit that I've got the wrong impression of them by taking the 'wrong' streets through them. returning later, going down another street gives a vastly different impression.
As for High Streets: their 'health' in terms of shops has been generally decreasing for a decade or more. As a country, we need to reevaluate the purpose of our town centres, and consider changing more retail into livable residential.
plans have been submitted to redevelop the old Debenhams in the centre of Leeds with student residential on all the upper floors. better than empty retail but there has been so much new student accommodation built here with more in the pipeline.
My granddaughter takes up hers next week in Leeds complete with en suite bedroom
very nice. All this new student accommodation i'm sure must free up other housing stock for non-students so that is a positive.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
Who claims that 14,000 is Brexit and 86,000 is not Brexit? it isn't a number used by the Road Haulage Association. Their own survey of hauliers and drivers had Brexit given as the reason for driver shortages more like 60% than your 14%...
“The shortfall of as many as 100,000 drivers has begun to take its toll across industries from retail to construction as firms struggle to secure lorries to transport goods from ports, factories, suppliers and warehouses to their intended destination.
Several factors have contributed to the crisis – Covid-19 caused a backlog in tests and license applications, and the industry, which is primarily comprised of older workers, is losing drivers faster than it can recruit them – but Brexit played a major role, with thousands of EU nationals departing the UK.
Some 14,000 EU HGV drivers left employment in the UK in the 12 months to June 2020, and only 600 have returned in the past year, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics labour force data commissioned by Logistics UK. “
Great! As I have now repeatedly pointed out, the lack of EU drivers is not remotely just the ones employed in the UK. That just shows your ignorance of how things work.
Try again luv. Or, just a thought, drop your absurd absolutism.
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
Brexit? It got Johnson into 10 Downing Street. So mission accomplished!
One of the few people who got a genuine benefit, along with a load of hedge funds
@HYUFD Don't want to fall out with you HYUFD because I like you a lot and without getting back into the Comprehensive/Grammar argument I would just like to know whether you understood @rcs1000 hypothetical example he gave last night to demonstrate the fallacy of the stats you were using?
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Even if there is capacity, what message is it going to send to Afghanis and the rest of the world that we got animals out but left behind desperate people?
It is a private venture, not a government one.
Indeed an entrepreneur with a plane could do the same surely, and sell tickets.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry – accused of embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations – has had her trial moved to next year.
And it continues on here unabated and frankly not helping their cause.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
There is no "case". Nobody is trying to persuade anybody of anything. Rejoin is not happening.
We just want leavers to suffer.
Also, save those dogs ahead of people.
Amusing post. I don't really want leavers to suffer, but when you hear the denial that it has caused any problems I begin to change my mind. They are not going to change theirs on anything though, because 90% of them are as thick as the thickest pig shit.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Even if there is capacity, what message is it going to send to Afghanis and the rest of the world that we got animals out but left behind desperate people?
Interesting, it was implied there was no spare capacity listening to the Gov't. "Working non stop to evacuate" or words to that effect.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
The ability to deal with the driver shortage is being hampered by the Brexit strategy the government has chosen to pursue. Brexit is an abstract concept. What is not abstract is how it has been implemented.
I am sorry you did not understand what I wrote!
I understood. You wrote "Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue"
What you wrote is untrue, the Brexit absolutism I referred to in my first post this morning. You're as bonkers as the people who insist that crap summer weather is because of Brexit.
What I wrote was not untrue. The shortage of of drivers has been a problem across the world, for years. Yes Brexit has not helped, but it isn’t the cause of the shortfall.
Your insults fall on deaf ears, continue if you like but it doesn’t bother me either way.
This has been known about as an issue and flagged up for several years now. I have to ask what did the industry do to recruit and retain new drivers ? Brexit is a small part of it only and IR35 really is not solved at all according to contractor groups.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
Brexit? It got Johnson into 10 Downing Street. So mission accomplished!
@HYUFD Don't want to fall out with you HYUFD because I like you a lot and without getting back into the Comprehensive/Grammar argument I would just like to know whether you understood @rcs1000 hypothetical example he gave last night to demonstrate the fallacy of the stats you were using?
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
Anyone can produce a hypothetical example to prove their point, I just gave actual facts of the dominance by the privately educated of the top jobs now.
I prefer to deal in actual facts not hypothetical ones
I used a similar example on here last time i waded into the debate and even after breaking it down some people still thought it showed my hyptohetical Grammar school setup where less children got to go to University was better for getting kids to Uni.
You can but try.
The fraction of Welsh students going to Oxbridge has steadily declined since the 1950s.
In fact, Wales now does worse than any area of England.
Now, there may well be other factors that influence this, but certainly the decline and abolition of the Welsh grammars schools is one. What replaced them in Wales was not as good.
And in fact, it is this that inspired the founder of the Sutton Trust, Peter Lampl to set it up.
"I went to dinner at my old college, Corpus Christi, which used to have lots of ordinary Welsh kids, many of them my best friends. I was told they weren't coming through any more."
Yes quite true, there used to be lots of Welsh grammar pupils at Oxford, Jesus College being a fine example now that number has declined significantly now there is not a single grammar school left in Wales.
Of course the trend is clear across the top jobs, 65% of senior Judges, 57% of the Cabinet, 52% of diplomats and junior ministers, 55% of top solicitors, 67% of British Oscar winners (Anthony Hopkins was a Welsh grammar school boy of course as was Richard Burton) and 61% of top doctors went to private school.
However never mind. I am sure kjh will be along soon with another 'stat' to say how brilliantly our comprehensives are doing at getting state educated pupils into the top jobs now most of the grammar schools have been scrapped
Sweden doesn’t have grammar schools, yet funnily enough we manage to find good people to fill top jobs, judicial posts, diplomatic posts, solicitors, universities, doctors and winners of daft showbiz gongs. We even manage to find incorrupt and competent cabinet ministers.
How do we manage without grammar schools? It’s a mystery.
Germany does have grammar schools called gymnasiums and also manages to find all of the above.
However neither have British, Anglosphere style public schools, so without grammar school competition the public schools are back on top again in terms of the top jobs
What Stuart has conveniently omitted is that Sweden has a growing independent sector where the state pays the fees. Sounds an ideal model to me. Perhaps similar to "free schools". I would have been quite happy for the state to pay my kids independent school fees. Sadly it was a choice between the bog standard comprehensive with the heavy influence of trade unions, or forking out an eye watering amount of money to ensure they got a trade union free education. I chose the latter. Best money I ever spent.
Yes the free school model Cameron's government introduced was based on Sweden's
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
This is the issue with anecdotes. When it comes to the 'health' of an area wrt footfall, much depends on when you go - or for that matter, where you go.
I've often got to know new places by walking through them. However, I freely admit that I've got the wrong impression of them by taking the 'wrong' streets through them. returning later, going down another street gives a vastly different impression.
As for High Streets: their 'health' in terms of shops has been generally decreasing for a decade or more. As a country, we need to reevaluate the purpose of our town centres, and consider changing more retail into livable residential.
plans have been submitted to redevelop the old Debenhams in the centre of Leeds with student residential on all the upper floors. better than empty retail but there has been so much new student accommodation built here with more in the pipeline.
My granddaughter takes up hers next week in Leeds complete with en suite bedroom
very nice. All this new student accommodation i'm sure must free up other housing stock for non-students so that is a positive.
There's a glut of it in Coventry, my Dad was in the business till recently - since he's got out the rents of his old block have roughly halved !
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
And it continues on here unabated and frankly not helping their cause.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
What 'they' (if by 'they' you mean sensible people wanting the best for the country) want is a sensible set of measures to make Brexit work without so much gratuitous, self-inflicted damage. These measures to include things like:
- Negotiating a cabotage deal with the EU - Providing visas for much-needed staff - Negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU - Abandonment of the lunatic ideologically-driven refusal to recognise CE marks - Cooperation with our EU friends and avoidance of petty insults such as the (now-reversed) refusal to grant full diplomatic status to the EU ambassador
Perhaps the biggest damage that Brexit has done is to our government, who cannot tolerate any view being expressed that some difficulties may be expected from Brexit. There has to be the pretence from both long term Brexiteers and careerist opportunistic converts that it is all a good thing with no downsides. Such stupidity spreads across all other areas of government too.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Even if there is capacity, what message is it going to send to Afghanis and the rest of the world that we got animals out but left behind desperate people?
Interesting, it was implied there was no spare capacity listening to the Gov't. "Working non stop to evacuate" or words to that effect.
Is the problem not people getting to the airport? The impression I am getting is that there are plenty of planes when you get there but getting there, especially for Afghan nationals, is extremely difficult to impossible.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
This is the issue with anecdotes. When it comes to the 'health' of an area wrt footfall, much depends on when you go - or for that matter, where you go.
I've often got to know new places by walking through them. However, I freely admit that I've got the wrong impression of them by taking the 'wrong' streets through them. returning later, going down another street gives a vastly different impression.
As for High Streets: their 'health' in terms of shops has been generally decreasing for a decade or more. As a country, we need to reevaluate the purpose of our town centres, and consider changing more retail into livable residential.
plans have been submitted to redevelop the old Debenhams in the centre of Leeds with student residential on all the upper floors. better than empty retail but there has been so much new student accommodation built here with more in the pipeline.
My granddaughter takes up hers next week in Leeds complete with en suite bedroom
very nice. All this new student accommodation i'm sure must free up other housing stock for non-students so that is a positive.
There's a glut of it in Coventry, my Dad was in the business till recently - since he's got out the rents of his old block have roughly halved !
There is a glut of them in Newcastle and Durham too. I don’t know what has happened to the rents but a fair few were advertised as wonderful ‘investment’ opportunities.
Mr. Foremain, the strange lack of a case by UK politicians for the EU over many years is quite interesting. I wonder if it was due to the general pro-EU consensus, and if that, in turn, misled the EU into thinking the UK was more for it than it really was.
The lack of practice actually persuading people didn't help come the referendum.
I completely agree. It was also not helped by a hostile press that rarely said anything positive, and politicians jumped on the bandwagon. One of the wider challenges is that most continental Europeans largely accept that the EU is generally a "good thing". They are also mainly completely comfortable with being, say, Dutch and a citizen of EU without any contradiction. That made it difficult for non-British politicians to understand their might be a case to be made against it.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
Brexit? It got Johnson into 10 Downing Street. So mission accomplished!
Suck it up....
I am cool with Brexit. Just stating what I consider to be a fact, from Johnson's perspective, at least.
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry – accused of embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations – has had her trial moved to next year.
That's what being married to a Tory does to you..
God knows what being in wedlock to an English-hating-chip-on-shoulder-angry-SNP-nutjob must do to one.
I wonder what it would be like to be married to the man described by a QC as a "bully and a sex pest"?
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Which is what Isam said !
His inference was clear. "not caused by Brexit". This is cobblers. Brexit is causing significant problems. Its just not exclusively Brexit. If we were still in the EEA and CU then the impacts would be significantly less. The "its not Brexit" experts (cf @Alanbrooke attacking supermarket CEOs for not "securing their supply chain" of goods made by thousands of suppliers who in turn buy from tens of thousands of suppliers) are indignant that Brexit is not a problem and that its just shit management or remoaner lies.
This is not true...
It’s not caused by Brexit. The shortfall is 100,000 and Brexit is blamed for 14,000. How can providing the numbers be inferring one thing or another? Crazy
And what is your expertise in supply chain management? The reality is Brexit is causing problems. You, particularly you as a self professed candidate for the neo-fascist UKIP would have a little more credibility if you said "yes there are problems but this is all worth it", or "fuck business" or "people who have lost their jobs or businesses fuck you" because we know this is what you think as you can bask in your "victory".
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
Brexit? It got Johnson into 10 Downing Street. So mission accomplished!
LONDON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Wednesday that almost all British citizens without dual nationality had been evacuated from Afghanistan.
On staff shortages, the issue isn't whether these are caused by Brexit. It is that the government can choose to make visas available for EU citizens to take these jobs. They choose not to do so.
The general Brexiteer view is to simultaneously deny shortages exist and say they are a good thing because they drive up wages. None of this stacks up.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
“ Which is caused by Brexit.”
Simply untrue. There is a 100,00 shortfall of which 14,000 is claimed to be due to Brexit
It is simply untrue that it is simply untrue. Brexit means a lack of EU trucks coming acxross with stuff. That truck and that drivers would pick up and drop off in both directions between the channel and their final destination. Not being there means a UK truck and driver has to be found for the pick up and drop off work and we have a shortage of vehicles and drivers.
Its not ALL down to Brexit. But its not all NOT down to Brexit.
Yes, that’s what I said. Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue
The ability to deal with the driver shortage is being hampered by the Brexit strategy the government has chosen to pursue. Brexit is an abstract concept. What is not abstract is how it has been implemented.
I am sorry you did not understand what I wrote!
I understood. You wrote "Saying the driver shortage is being caused by Brexit is untrue"
What you wrote is untrue, the Brexit absolutism I referred to in my first post this morning. You're as bonkers as the people who insist that crap summer weather is because of Brexit.
What I wrote was not untrue. The shortage of of drivers has been a problem across the world, for years. Yes Brexit has not helped, but it isn’t the cause of the shortfall.
Your insults fall on deaf ears, continue if you like but it doesn’t bother me either way.
This has been known about as an issue and flagged up for several years now. I have to ask what did the industry do to recruit and retain new drivers ? Brexit is a small part of it only and IR35 really is not solved at all according to contractor groups.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
Yesterday was my first visit to a Scottish city since autumn 2019. (Although I’ve been here since the beginning of the month I’ve been only in the rural west highlands, which is stowed out by the way, and even more stunningly gorgeous than ever, if you can get away from the gawkers.)
Perth was like a ghost town yesterday. My family blamed the good weather, so that might be an explanation. But the lack of Homo sapiens was not actually the prime problem, it was the urban decay. Absolutely tragic. You’re maybe like a frog in slowly warming water David: the changes are so incremental you don’t notice. Yesterday for me was an epiphany: Brexit has fucked the country.
Ok, if it was the first time in a while I could see why the decline would be more obvious. But these trends have very little or anything to do with Brexit and a lot more to do with the Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline and Glenrothes.
Wrong.
Online shopping is *far* more established and universal in Sweden than in Scotland. Yet Swedish cities and large towns are absolutely buzzing. The good-times vibe is palpable. In fact, I find all those young, happy, affluent Scandinavians so disconcerting that I avoid city centres. Call me a misanthrope. You’d probably be right.
Scotland has had the Union, Brexit, Covid and online shopping. The place is totally fucked. Sweden has had independence, Covid and online shopping. The place is booming. Spot the difference.
Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry – accused of embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations – has had her trial moved to next year.
That's what being married to a Tory does to you..
God knows what being in wedlock to an English-hating-chip-on-shoulder-angry-SNP-nutjob must do to one.
I wonder what it would be like to be married to the man described by a QC as a "bully and a sex pest"?
If you wish to fantasise about being married to Alex Salmond, far be it from me to stand in your way. I'm very much a whatever floats yer boat kinda guy.
A lot of empty shelves in Tesco yesterday. When I asked a member of staff why, she blamed the shortage of drivers. Which is caused by Brexit.
Perth High Street is like something out of the apocalypse. Quite unnerving for someone familiar with the bustling, young, joyful affluence of Scandinavian cities. I’ve witnessed that High Street declining for three decades, but yesterday was a step-change. It must be soul-destroying for the few staff left manning those deserted retail spaces. Costa coffee looked like something out of a war zone.
I was in Perth last weekend and it was bustling. Like Dundee the loss of Debenhams is a major blow, especially after the loss of McEwans a few years ago now, but there is plenty of money in Perth and the shops seem to be doing fine. Dundee has much more of a problem with the Overgate centre.
This is the issue with anecdotes. When it comes to the 'health' of an area wrt footfall, much depends on when you go - or for that matter, where you go.
I've often got to know new places by walking through them. However, I freely admit that I've got the wrong impression of them by taking the 'wrong' streets through them. returning later, going down another street gives a vastly different impression.
As for High Streets: their 'health' in terms of shops has been generally decreasing for a decade or more. As a country, we need to reevaluate the purpose of our town centres, and consider changing more retail into livable residential.
plans have been submitted to redevelop the old Debenhams in the centre of Leeds with student residential on all the upper floors. better than empty retail but there has been so much new student accommodation built here with more in the pipeline.
My granddaughter takes up hers next week in Leeds complete with en suite bedroom
very nice. All this new student accommodation i'm sure must free up other housing stock for non-students so that is a positive.
There's a glut of it in Coventry, my Dad was in the business till recently - since he's got out the rents of his old block have roughly halved !
There is a glut of them in Newcastle and Durham too. I don’t know what has happened to the rents but a fair few were advertised as wonderful ‘investment’ opportunities.
I was briefly in the student accommodation business a few years ago and saw some of the shite “investment opportunities” up close.
Lots of clueless small scale investors will have lost most of their capital. I’m surprised it hasn’t hit the news in a big way.
I used a similar example on here last time i waded into the debate and even after breaking it down some people still thought it showed my hyptohetical Grammar school setup where less children got to go to University was better for getting kids to Uni.
You can but try.
The fraction of Welsh students going to Oxbridge has steadily declined since the 1950s.
In fact, Wales now does worse than any area of England.
Now, there may well be other factors that influence this, but certainly the decline and abolition of the Welsh grammars schools is one. What replaced them in Wales was not as good.
And in fact, it is this that inspired the founder of the Sutton Trust, Peter Lampl to set it up.
"I went to dinner at my old college, Corpus Christi, which used to have lots of ordinary Welsh kids, many of them my best friends. I was told they weren't coming through any more."
Yes quite true, there used to be lots of Welsh grammar pupils at Oxford, Jesus College being a fine example now that number has declined significantly now there is not a single grammar school left in Wales.
Of course the trend is clear across the top jobs, 65% of senior Judges, 57% of the Cabinet, 52% of diplomats and junior ministers, 55% of top solicitors, 67% of British Oscar winners (Anthony Hopkins was a Welsh grammar school boy of course as was Richard Burton) and 61% of top doctors went to private school.
However never mind. I am sure kjh will be along soon with another 'stat' to say how brilliantly our comprehensives are doing at getting state educated pupils into the top jobs now most of the grammar schools have been scrapped
Sweden doesn’t have grammar schools, yet funnily enough we manage to find good people to fill top jobs, judicial posts, diplomatic posts, solicitors, universities, doctors and winners of daft showbiz gongs. We even manage to find incorrupt and competent cabinet ministers.
How do we manage without grammar schools? It’s a mystery.
Germany does have grammar schools called gymnasiums and also manages to find all of the above.
However neither have British, Anglosphere style public schools, so without grammar school competition the public schools are back on top again in terms of the top jobs
What Stuart has conveniently omitted is that Sweden has a growing independent sector where the state pays the fees. Sounds an ideal model to me. Perhaps similar to "free schools". I would have been quite happy for the state to pay my kids independent school fees. Sadly it was a choice between the bog standard comprehensive with the heavy influence of trade unions, or forking out an eye watering amount of money to ensure they got a trade union free education. I chose the latter. Best money I ever spent.
The problem as I see it is that, over a very short space of time english private schools have become more woke than state secondary schools. Private school is now simply buying your way in to a woke elite. What you really need to actually get a decent education is a time machine, and no such service exists.
My own conclusion on all of this was that you have to move to a different country to get a decent education for your children. There are many outstanding teachers and lecturers, but the school and university system in the UK and USA has basically been taken over by clowns.
The 'optics' of flying out a plane-load of animals whilst leaving desperate Afghans to be tortured and murdered will be distinctly sub-optimal. What the hell does the government think it's doing?
It's not the government its a private charter - all the government is doing is trying to get a slot for it once the staff & cats & dogs have made it to the gate.
Yeah, well they should tell them there are no slots available because they are all needed for the desperate people we're trying to get out.
Though that's not true is it? There is one plane leaving every 45 min, so free take off and landing slots. If someone wants to fly in a charter, there is capacity.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Even if there is capacity, what message is it going to send to Afghanis and the rest of the world that we got animals out but left behind desperate people?
Interesting, it was implied there was no spare capacity listening to the Gov't. "Working non stop to evacuate" or words to that effect.
Is the problem not people getting to the airport? The impression I am getting is that there are plenty of planes when you get there but getting there, especially for Afghan nationals, is extremely difficult to impossible.
Well if the animals can be airlifted but people can't then the evacuation should probably allowed (The cats don't need to go imo though) - shaky optics isn't a reason to prevent it, denying people a flight out is.
There truly is some absolutist bollocks spoken when it comes to Brexit and the battleground seems to be shortages. It is a demonstrable fact that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain. Uncontrolled means that finding a fully stocked supermarket does not in any way disprove that it exists - it is simply what "uncontrolled" means. So Brexiteer sneering of "my shelves are full so its a remoaner lie" demonstrates their personal stupidity.
Why this is happening is multi-faceted. There are *global* supply shortages of all kinds of things. As we are once again talking grocery I know of grossly extended lead times on everything from staple ingredients to cardboard impacting producers in the EU. So the pressure on the UK supply chain is not entirely brexit related and trying to claim it is demonstrates the personal stupidity of the #FBPE person.
Here is the problem. The impacts are worse - a lot worse - in the UK. We haven't yet implemented the bulk of our new trading arrangements between GB and the EU. There is a calm before the storm as full paperwork and standards checks kick in. Not that we have bothered with the infrastructure needed to carry out these checks at our border control posts.
We already have a big reduction in GB - EU traffic with ROI/NI now bypassing GB and so many EU hauliers simply refusing (or pricing themselves out of contention) to come to the GB. Which adds throttling of capacity and thus supply problems on top of the global ones. Then you add on the EU vehicles which are not in the UK making drops to and from their final destination which creates a shortage of both vehicles and drivers. Then you add on the EU workforce who aren't here any more (despite more people registering to stay than expected there is now a big shortage - how many people were here...?)
Is all of this down to brexit? Of course not - Covid and IR35 add to the problems. But we now have a major structural problem which we're about to make worse and there is absolute denial from the Brexit/Tory voters that is Brexit related. Unlike the PB loons who insist there are no shortages most people have eyes and a brain. But they blame 100% Covid.
We will find out...
It may be a 'demonstrable fact' that we are suffering uncontrolled shortages in the UK supply chain: it's just that many of us are not seeing much sign of it in the shops. I've just been in my local Co-Op; one empty shelf (the 'sales' shelf which is often empty), and none of my favourite lemon yoghurts - which they often didn't have anyway. There was plenty of the short shelf-life items I'd expect to have shortages of first, such as fruit and bread.
The only thing of note was that two of the three local petrol stations were out of fuel a few weeks ago (and before you say 'absolutist bollocks' to me, I mentioned that on here).
That's the problem with trying to make this into a big issue: if people don't see much of a change (perhaps due to brilliant work by the supermarkets and distributors to shuffle things around), then it just seems like people screeching at the skies for political reasons.
It'l become a political issue if people really start noticing shortages. And at the moment, much of the anecdata on shortages appears to follow political lines. Remainers are seeing thousands of empty shelves and Russian-style queues of starving children; Brexiteers are seeing shops full of bounty and goodness. The rest of us just go 'Meh.'
I hear you - I did call bollocks at the #FBPE crown. But then we're back to reality. "I haven't seen shortages so there are no shortages". Which means the cause of the shortages is left to get worse until we actually DO call the 2,000 army drivers to try and fill the 100,000 shortage of drivers. Which is an extraordinary thing for the government to do and doesn't work.
Then people will notice. Just because it hasn't significantly impacted Jim from Barnsley yet doesn't mean that it won't.
Isn't the issue partly that supermarkets are reducing the range of items, as an initial compensatory tactic? I am finding the selection markedly smaller on my online shopping: not sure if temporary shortages or outright deletions.
Several things could feed into this: 1. Best way to manage uncontrolled shortages is to try and manage them - control what you short.Suppliers may have consolidated production down to fewer products 2. When you order online, you are reliant on the minimum wage spod going round the store picking from whatever is available at that time. It doesn't matter if you order in advance, they can only pick what is there to pick just as you can if you shop in person.
I have a weekly Asda delivery averaging £70 and it arrives at 9.00am every Thursday and I genuinely have not experienced any shortages
And you won't be alone in that. Again, it is uncontrolled shortages. And even if you did get shortages one time that could be down to the pingdemic wiping out the store's pick team when they need to pick your order.
I think this issue whilst real is going to have very little salience unless it gets an awful lot worse. It's not like the shortages in March 2020, when suddenly finding loo rolls and pasta in any supermarket was nearly impossible. This time round, the gaps on the shelves vary, both day to day and supermarket to supermarket.
A friend went to Aldi for me last night, after ice-cream (it's amazing for soothing inflamed throats - whilst Covid is around I'd recommend everyone sticks a big tub of a plain mild flavour in the freezer as a precaution), and all they had was lemon sorbet (don't try soothing a Covid throat with this - turns out its like an acid attack). Now this sort of thing is mildly annoying, but little more. She went back this morning and had no problem finding a large tub of vanilla (crisis over).
Sometimes I've wandered into my local Morrisons over the last couple of months and found the fresh veg section a bit bizarre (one day it appeared to be 70% salad peppers), or they didn't have own brand ketchup, and stuff like that, but none of it has been at a level where I've stomped off home grumpy because I couldn't get something I really needed.
Maybe I'm lucky, and other places have had it much worse, but from what I can see on the present showing I don't think the rejoin campaign is going to get much traction from this.
@HYUFD Don't want to fall out with you HYUFD because I like you a lot and without getting back into the Comprehensive/Grammar argument I would just like to know whether you understood @rcs1000 hypothetical example he gave last night to demonstrate the fallacy of the stats you were using?
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
Anyone can produce a hypothetical example to prove their point, I just gave actual facts of the dominance by the privately educated of the top jobs now.
I prefer to deal in actual facts not hypothetical ones
Is "I know plenty of private school pupils who have left their schools to go to state schools in the sixth form" fact or hypothesis or anecdote.
And AAMOF I know zero private school pupils who have made the journey you suggest they have made. It is an absurd notion.
And it continues on here unabated and frankly not helping their cause.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
What 'they' (if by 'they' you mean sensible people wanting the best for the country) want is a sensible set of measures to make Brexit work without so much gratuitous, self-inflicted damage. These measures to include things like:
- Negotiating a cabotage deal with the EU - Providing visas for much-needed staff - Negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU - Abandonment of the lunatic ideologically-driven refusal to recognise CE marks - Cooperation with our EU friends and avoidance of petty insults such as the (now-reversed) refusal to grant full diplomatic status to the EU ambassador
Perhaps the biggest damage that Brexit has done is to our government, who cannot tolerate any view being expressed that some difficulties may be expected from Brexit. There has to be the pretence from both long term Brexiteers and careerist opportunistic converts that it is all a good thing with no downsides. Such stupidity spreads across all other areas of government too.
Is the government really saying that? Frost certainly isn't. He is looking to smooth trading relations with the EU both generally and in NI.
Clearly a change in trading relationships has resulted in some additional paperwork and some dislocations. Turning off the tap of EU labour will also have consequences until we adapt. It would be ridiculous to say that there are not issues. But it is equally ridiculous to say that these issues are having a material impact on our trade or businesses. The issues are at the margins. That doesn't mean that the government should not be looking to resolve them.
There have been some completely silly things. The CE standards are one of them. But I find the arguments that nothing has changed and everything is going to shit equally absurd.
On staff shortages, the issue isn't whether these are caused by Brexit. It is that the government can choose to make visas available for EU citizens to take these jobs. They choose not to do so.
The general Brexiteer view is to simultaneously deny shortages exist and say they are a good thing because they drive up wages. None of this stacks up.
The Brexiter plan is to rejoice that everyone will be paid more for everything with apparently zero consequences for anything.
Mr. Foremain, aye, long been a critic of the press. Political reporting is appallingly bad in so many ways.
Those seeking to get us to rejoin at some point should be looking at making a case rather than gleefully pointing at woe and seeming glad that their country is suffering because it means they were right.
A big problem, having managed to bugger up the referendum (despite having almost all the Commons for the EU) is that rejoining means on worse terms unless there's a special EU deal that it would be rejoining on the previous basis. That seems very unlikely. But without it, rejoining means the euro, no rebate whatsoever (what was left of it after Blair threw it away), and so on.
Well if the animals can be airlifted but people can't then the evacuation should probably allowed (The cats don't need to go imo though) - shaky optics isn't a reason to prevent it, denying people a flight out is.
Agreed. An update on this: for simplicity the intention is to have a single flight for both animals and people. The plane chartered is costing the UK tax payer nothing, the animals would go in the cargo hold, taking zero places from people, and furthermore the plane can also accommodate people - up to 100+ that need to evacuate. That should include the British staff, reducing the queue for other flights. All that is required is (a) permission to land and take off and (b) permission to board.
Neither sentimentality nor anti-sentimentality is appropriate here. Literally nobody is saying that the animals should take priority over human refugees. Conversely it would be perverse to refuse the help on general grounds of "put humans first" when no humans would be helped by refusing. Obviously the question of whether the Taleban will allow access to the airport for the staff, let alone the animals, is currently not known.
@HYUFD Don't want to fall out with you HYUFD because I like you a lot and without getting back into the Comprehensive/Grammar argument I would just like to know whether you understood @rcs1000 hypothetical example he gave last night to demonstrate the fallacy of the stats you were using?
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
Anyone can produce a hypothetical example to prove their point, I just gave actual facts of the dominance by the privately educated of the top jobs now.
I prefer to deal in actual facts not hypothetical ones
You've demonstrated that you didn't understand the reason for the hypothetical, nor why it makes your "fact" almost irrelevant.
If drug A cures a condition in 60% of people (600 of 1000 treated) and drug B cures it in 50% of people (500 of 1000) - HYUFD declares drug A better.
Someone points out that drug A cured 10 of 100 males (10%) and 590 of 900 females (66%). Drug B cured 120 of 600 males (20%) and 380 of 400 females (95%). So drug B cures a higher percentage of males and a higher percentage of females.
HYUFD says 60% is bigger than 50%, because it's a fact.
@HYUFD Don't want to fall out with you HYUFD because I like you a lot and without getting back into the Comprehensive/Grammar argument I would just like to know whether you understood @rcs1000 hypothetical example he gave last night to demonstrate the fallacy of the stats you were using?
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
Anyone can produce a hypothetical example to prove their point, I just gave actual facts of the dominance by the privately educated of the top jobs now.
I prefer to deal in actual facts not hypothetical ones
No they can't. What Robert showed was 100% rigorous maths.
Oh my god you don't get it do you? The hypothetical example was to show that you were using a stat incorrectly by showing (in an example) that the stat you were using, although accurate didn't show what you thought it showed.
He showed in an example that mathematically a school in one area could appear to be significantly more successful than schools in another area, whereas the outcome was actually better for the children in the other area.
I'll have a go:
2 identical areas with identical kids. In one there are 4 comprehensives, in the other a Grammar and 3 Secondaries.
The results are each Comp gets 2 people to Oxbridge, the Grammar 4 people and the Secondaries 0.
So applying your stats to these results the Grammar school is twice as good as the Comps. Agree?
But in fact the other area actually got twice as many kids to Oxbridge than the Grammar school area.
You see your method gives the wrong result even though the stat is correct.
Now you may be right and I might be wrong and Grammar schools might be better, but your stat definitely doesn't show that so you shouldn't be using it.
The UK and Sweden have among the worst per-capita COVID-19 mortality in Europe. Sweden stands out for its greater reliance on voluntary, rather than mandatory, control measures. We explore how the timing and effectiveness of control measures in the UK, Sweden and Denmark shaped COVID-19 mortality in each country, using a counterfactual assessment: what would the impact have been, had each country adopted the others’ policies? Using a Bayesian semi-mechanistic model without prior assumptions on the mechanism or effectiveness of interventions, we estimate the time-varying reproduction number for the UK, Sweden and Denmark from daily mortality data. We use two approaches to evaluate counterfactuals which transpose the transmission profile from one country onto another, in each country’s first wave from 13th March (when stringent interventions began) until 1st July 2020. UK mortality would have approximately doubled had Swedish policy been adopted, while Swedish mortality would have more than halved had Sweden adopted UK or Danish strategies. Danish policies were most effective, although differences between the UK and Denmark were significant for one counterfactual approach only. Our analysis shows that small changes in the timing or effectiveness of interventions have disproportionately large effects on total mortality within a rapidly growing epidemic.
There is no need to restart the UK's vaccine programme, government adviser Adam Finn says
He is advocating for only a very small number of people to get a third dose.
Javid is going to have to overrule the JCVI.
“Adam Hugh Roderick Finn is professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol and head of the Bristol Vaccine Centre. He has been chairman of the WHO European Technical Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization since 2011 and is an ex-officio member of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts.” - Wikipedia
I mean, yeah, an amateur. What would he know? Has he even done some internet research?
Comments
Those of us who have businesses that didn't want this pointless xenophobic twattery have come to terms with the fact that it is a problem we all have to deal with, and there is no turning the clock back. It won't stop us calling out morons who pretend it hasn't caused problems though.
I am not sure what they want other than to be in the EU again
Llama antibodies may neutralize COVID and help prevent infections, lab trial finds https://trib.al/XDiim76
Maybe this works with alpacas too, giving Geronimo a lifeline?
Boffins: Cases are beginning to rise and in a few weeks' time, we expect it will get a lot worse. We ought to do something now.
Government: Cases are low so there's no way that we're putting in any control measures now.
Navigating by the situation now rather than the anticipated problems down the line is probably excellent popular democratic politics. After all, to respond to problems is to admit to problems and who knows- we might get lucky. But when you systematically over-discount what might go wrong, it stops you making the best decisions.
It also shows viral load was on average lower for the second infection compared to the first http://ow.ly/eDjH50FXDOK
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1430448040012288002?s=20
Yes. There are two Brexit-related shortages currently - a shortage of drivers that is notably worse than in neighbouring countries with the same covid issues, and a shortage of people to pick fruit and vegetables.
What you wrote is untrue, the Brexit absolutism I referred to in my first post this morning. You're as bonkers as the people who insist that crap summer weather is because of Brexit.
Scots garage owner selling nuclear bomber on Gumtree as 'he doesn't have space for it'
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-garage-owner-selling-nuclear-24794455
- Negotiating a cabotage deal with the EU
- Providing visas for much-needed staff
- Negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU
- Abandonment of the lunatic ideologically-driven refusal to recognise CE marks
- Cooperation with our EU friends and avoidance of petty insults such as the (now-reversed) refusal to grant full diplomatic status to the EU ambassador
The lack of practice actually persuading people didn't help come the referendum.
Plenty of stray dogs and cats here already though!
Several factors have contributed to the crisis – Covid-19 caused a backlog in tests and license applications, and the industry, which is primarily comprised of older workers, is losing drivers faster than it can recruit them – but Brexit played a major role, with thousands of EU nationals departing the UK.
Some 14,000 EU HGV drivers left employment in the UK in the 12 months to June 2020, and only 600 have returned in the past year, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics labour force data commissioned by Logistics UK. “
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/hgv-lorry-driver-shortage-eu-workers-10000-visas-christmas-logistics-uk-1162285
On the one hand the Australians are going round shooting dogs apparently to prevent people getting Covid, whilst elsewhere in the world people are trying to use the force of the British army to evacuate 200 cats and dogs away from the reach of the Taliban....!
https://news.stv.tv/west-central/natalie-mcgarry-embezzlement-trial-postponed-until-2022
Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry – accused of embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations – has had her trial moved to next year.
“ European road transport firms are racing towards a driver shortage crisis of 150,000 unfilled jobs, according to new research from Transport Intelligence.
In a report released this week, European Road Freight Transport 2018, the supply chain analyst shows that in just six countries – the UK, Germany, France, Denmark Sweden and Norway – the shortage of drivers adds up to 127,500.
The UK leads the way with a shortage of 52,000 drivers, but is closely followed by Germany at 45,000 vacancies – with predictions that this could increase by a staggering 28,000 each year.
The report says: “In Germany, the DSLV transport union reports that in the next 15 years, two-thirds of drivers will retire. Germany is facing a shortage of 45,000 truck drivers, with around 30,000 leaving the profession every year. This compares with only 2,000 people receiving truck-driving qualifications each year.”
https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2018/dec/truck-driver-shortage-crisis-now-spreading-across-the-whole-of-europe
And of course for years previously it roared over our family home in Lossiemouth on approach and take-off
https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/unemployment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate
Try again luv. Or, just a thought, drop your absurd absolutism.
We just want leavers to suffer.
Also, save those dogs ahead of people.
Your insults fall on deaf ears, continue if you like but it doesn’t bother me either way.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-blast-idUSKBN1ZF1PD
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
If so do you think there was a flaw in Roberts maths and if so where?
Indeed an entrepreneur with a plane could do the same surely, and sell tickets.
CON: 41% (=)
LAB: 34% (=)
LDM: 9% (=)
GRN: 4% (=)
SNP: 4% (=)
Via @SavantaComRes, 20-22 Aug.
Changes w/ 13-15 Aug.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1430453388337156098?s=20
https://www.globalcoldchainnews.com/driver-shortage-is-pan-european.
The driver shortage is 33% in that well known bastion of the EU, Uzbekistan.
https://theloadstar.com/driver-shortage-crisis-a-demographic-time-bomb-that-will-get-worse-says-iru/
Rochdale is New Labour, being insulting is what they do.
I prefer to deal in actual facts not hypothetical ones
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
17h
Looking forward to Starmer's spokespeople saying election of union leader backed by SWP & Militant is good actually
I wonder what it would be like to be married to the man described by a QC as a "bully and a sex pest"?
same as: "you won, get over it"
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/almost-all-uk-citizens-without-dual-nationality-have-left-afghanistan-raab-2021-08-25/
The general Brexiteer view is to simultaneously deny shortages exist and say they are a good thing because they drive up wages. None of this stacks up.
https://order-order.com/2021/08/25/extinction-rebellion-lay-bare-the-naked-reality-of-climate-change/
Lots of clueless small scale investors will have lost most of their capital. I’m surprised it hasn’t hit the news in a big way.
My own conclusion on all of this was that you have to move to a different country to get a decent education for your children. There are many outstanding teachers and lecturers, but the school and university system in the UK and USA has basically been taken over by clowns.
This time round, the gaps on the shelves vary, both day to day and supermarket to supermarket.
A friend went to Aldi for me last night, after ice-cream (it's amazing for soothing inflamed throats - whilst Covid is around I'd recommend everyone sticks a big tub of a plain mild flavour in the freezer as a precaution), and all they had was lemon sorbet (don't try soothing a Covid throat with this - turns out its like an acid attack).
Now this sort of thing is mildly annoying, but little more. She went back this morning and had no problem finding a large tub of vanilla (crisis over).
Sometimes I've wandered into my local Morrisons over the last couple of months and found the fresh veg section a bit bizarre (one day it appeared to be 70% salad peppers), or they didn't have own brand ketchup, and stuff like that, but none of it has been at a level where I've stomped off home grumpy because I couldn't get something I really needed.
Maybe I'm lucky, and other places have had it much worse, but from what I can see on the present showing I don't think the rejoin campaign is going to get much traction from this.
And AAMOF I know zero private school pupils who have made the journey you suggest they have made. It is an absurd notion.
Clearly a change in trading relationships has resulted in some additional paperwork and some dislocations. Turning off the tap of EU labour will also have consequences until we adapt. It would be ridiculous to say that there are not issues. But it is equally ridiculous to say that these issues are having a material impact on our trade or businesses. The issues are at the margins. That doesn't mean that the government should not be looking to resolve them.
There have been some completely silly things. The CE standards are one of them. But I find the arguments that nothing has changed and everything is going to shit equally absurd.
More money for all! Huzzah!
Those seeking to get us to rejoin at some point should be looking at making a case rather than gleefully pointing at woe and seeming glad that their country is suffering because it means they were right.
A big problem, having managed to bugger up the referendum (despite having almost all the Commons for the EU) is that rejoining means on worse terms unless there's a special EU deal that it would be rejoining on the previous basis. That seems very unlikely. But without it, rejoining means the euro, no rebate whatsoever (what was left of it after Blair threw it away), and so on.
Taliban seat on UN Commission on the Status of Women is 'likely,' says former U.S. envoy to UN.
https://twitter.com/UNWatch/status/1430325480754982913?s=20
There is no need to restart the UK's vaccine programme, government adviser Adam Finn says
He is advocating for only a very small number of people to get a third dose.
Javid is going to have to overrule the JCVI.
@ONS
Latest #COVID19 characteristics data shows COVID-19 reinfections between 26 April 2020 and 14 August 2021 were low.
It also shows viral load was on average lower for the second infection compared to the first http://ow.ly/eDjH50FXDOK
Neither sentimentality nor anti-sentimentality is appropriate here. Literally nobody is saying that the animals should take priority over human refugees. Conversely it would be perverse to refuse the help on general grounds of "put humans first" when no humans would be helped by refusing. Obviously the question of whether the Taleban will allow access to the airport for the staff, let alone the animals, is currently not known.
If drug A cures a condition in 60% of people (600 of 1000 treated) and drug B cures it in 50% of people (500 of 1000) - HYUFD declares drug A better.
Someone points out that drug A cured 10 of 100 males (10%) and 590 of 900 females (66%). Drug B cured 120 of 600 males (20%) and 380 of 400 females (95%). So drug B cures a higher percentage of males and a higher percentage of females.
HYUFD says 60% is bigger than 50%, because it's a fact.
Oh my god you don't get it do you? The hypothetical example was to show that you were using a stat incorrectly by showing (in an example) that the stat you were using, although accurate didn't show what you thought it showed.
He showed in an example that mathematically a school in one area could appear to be significantly more successful than schools in another area, whereas the outcome was actually better for the children in the other area.
I'll have a go:
2 identical areas with identical kids. In one there are 4 comprehensives, in the other a Grammar and 3 Secondaries.
The results are each Comp gets 2 people to Oxbridge, the Grammar 4 people and the Secondaries 0.
So applying your stats to these results the Grammar school is twice as good as the Comps. Agree?
But in fact the other area actually got twice as many kids to Oxbridge than the Grammar school area.
You see your method gives the wrong result even though the stat is correct.
Now you may be right and I might be wrong and Grammar schools might be better, but your stat definitely doesn't show that so you shouldn't be using it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95699-9#Sec7
I mean, yeah, an amateur. What would he know? Has he even done some internet research?