The front pages that should frighten ministers – politicalbetting.com

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The front pages that should frighten ministers – politicalbetting.com

Dramatic things can happen politically when motorists are unable to buy the precious liquid that enables their cars to move. September 2000 was a case in point when after years of Blair’s LAB totally dominating politics there was the brief period when Hague’s Tories found themselves in the lead. It didn’t last – the dispute got settled and we could fill up our cars again.

Read the full story here

bigjohnowls

Zero

ClippP

First.... How did you manage that, Big John? My post was the only one for several minutes.....

bigjohnowls

bigjohnowls said:

Zero

As in the chance of buying BP petrol tonight.

Massive BREXIT saving of 100% compared to pre BREXIT

slade

LD hold in South Lakeland and East Devon but lose to Con in East Cambridgeshire. Lab hold in Hammersmith and Resident hold in Epsom and Ewell.

rottenborough

Good to see Jackson Browne being quoted on all the front pages there.

SeaShantyIrish2

rottenborough said:

Good to see Jackson Browne being quoted on all the front pages there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdHg4QEmBvk

RUNNING ON EMPTY
Jackson Browne

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
'65, I was 17 and running up 101

I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on
Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I'm running behind

Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it, with what you do to survive
'69, I was 21 and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned into the road I'm on

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone, but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes, I see them running too

Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I'm running behind

Honey, you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around, but I'm running behind
(Running on) You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
(Running blind) Running into the sun, but I'm running behind . . .

gealbhan

The Matt cartoon is pretty funny “The order on my first Electric Car should deliver about the same time as the first power cuts”

gealbhan

ClippP said:

First.... How did you manage that, Big John? My post was the only one for several minutes.....

Stewards enquiry. How much more are we expected to take, if people can cheat at getting PB firsts? Not that Big John the Anarchist likely cares about the moral collapse he’s instigating.

Andy_JS

I remember it being reported that Blair was astonished to be told by his experts that there were no emergency pipelines to transport fuel in the event of a strike, although the armed forces did have such emergency pipelines IIRC.

swing_voter

2000/1 was a heck of a time - fuel protests , foot and mouth and then 9/11 and to think we are now living in a new age of uncertainty.

Andy_JS

"Britain grinds to a halt as Blair's pleas are ignored
•NHS put on emergency footing
•Army ambulances deployed
•Post, banks, buses, food threatened
Special report: the petrol war"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/sep/14/tonyblair.oil

MarqueeMark

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

JosiasJessop

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

This is a classic example where irresponsible reporting could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

WhisperingOracle

I see even Ruth Davidson has joined those socialist firebrands Ian Duncan-Smith and Steve Baker in recognising both the political and economic idiocy of the UC cuts, exactly at a time when we're riding into some of the most unprecedented and unpredictable headwinds. I suppose it's difficult to underestimate Johnson morally or intelectually as usual, though, and I expect the Britannia Unchained contingent of the cabinet are in favour of it in lockstep behind, with Johnson agreeing with the last person he spoke to about it. Truly repellent and idiotic.

rcs1000

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

darkage

Not wishing to prolong yesterdays discussion about the buy to let market in Darlington; but I did another rightmove search and found another house, 3 bed, EPC rating C for £52k.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/112002452#/?channel=RES_BUY

tlg86

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

darkage

Regarding the petrol crisis; now that we have been through an 18 month long pandemic and experienced empty shelves as part of this, with effective controls of movements being normalised, along with WFH and self isolation becoming part of everyday life; perhaps people will just see it as part of the new normal and cease to care. The rise in heating costs is going to be a bigger political problem; I would suspect.

tlg86

I'm not worried about the headlines leading to panic buying. We went through this with the empty shelves. The media are desperate to cause panic buying, but the public are immune to it now.

Jonathan

Take back petrol

WhisperingOracle

tlg86 said:

I'm not worried about the headlines leading to panic buying. We went through this with the empty shelves. The media are desperate to cause panic buying, but the public are immune to it now.

It's always only a snapshot, but the Daily Mail's army of commenters are more anxious about some of these difficulties being linked to Brexit, via the HGV driver shortage, than I've seen since 2019. Many are comparing it to their recent experiences in Spain, for instance, where they haven't seen any shortages.

Jonathan

“Brexit isn’t working”.

DavidL

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

ydoethur

DavidL said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

I can think of eight in Cannock Chase, including three linked to supermarkets plus two motorway service stations.

IshmaelZ

tlg86 said:

I'm not worried about the headlines leading to panic buying. We went through this with the empty shelves. The media are desperate to cause panic buying, but the public are immune to it now.

No they aren't, I'm off to texaco because my truck is only half full of diesel. When the panic buying starts the only logical move is to panic buy. See also "prisoner's dilemma" and "tragedy of the commons."

darkage

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

I can think of eight in Cannock Chase, including three linked to supermarkets plus two motorway service stations.

One Council I worked for tried to protect petrol stations under planning rules, as 'social and community facilities'.

DavidL

Wind still at 8.7gw this morning. As long as that keeps up the domestic pressure is going to come off the gas price. International pressures will remain and there will be some volatility but the particular combination of the interlink fire and a serious lack of wind were really providing the froth.

Having said that these companies that are going bust are a truly weird creation, simply parasitical on a very oddly constructed market. I would be delighted if we had a more diverse range of power suppliers but I really don't see the point of having a diverse range of bill providers. Their whole model is basically dependent upon playing the market, buying power that they do not generate to sell to customers through an infrastructure they do not own. If they manage to buy that power for less than they can sell it to customers they make a profit. If they don't, as now, they make a loss. But where is the societal gain from all of this? Why is this better than simply regulating the prices that those who do generate the energy are allowed to charge?

We have something very similar in the water industry. Companies that do not own or maintain infrastructure or provide water charge commercial clients (in Scotland at least they are restricted to commercial clients) for that water. What, other than their own costs and profit, do they bring to the party?

DavidL

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

I can think of eight in Cannock Chase, including three linked to supermarkets plus two motorway service stations.

I think that the 8,300 if anything will be on the high side, especially if that estimate is more than a year old. For several small garages I suspect the first lockdown was the final straw.

squareroot2

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

ydoethur

DavidL said:

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

I can think of eight in Cannock Chase, including three linked to supermarkets plus two motorway service stations.

I think that the 8,300 if anything will be on the high side, especially if that estimate is more than a year old. For several small garages I suspect the first lockdown was the final straw.

Agreed. It’s only really the major chains that can sell petrol profitably now given how tight the margins are. Does mean very long queues at supermarket stations though. If you want to buy petrol at Sainsbury’s in Cannock, Tesco in Rugeley or Morrison’s in Burntwood, bring a packed lunch!

squareroot2

.. and that post Brexit, the French were stiffed over a submarines contract was most enjoyable.

IshmaelZ

DavidL said:

Wind still at 8.7gw this morning. As long as that keeps up the domestic pressure is going to come off the gas price. International pressures will remain and there will be some volatility but the particular combination of the interlink fire and a serious lack of wind were really providing the froth.

Having said that these companies that are going bust are a truly weird creation, simply parasitical on a very oddly constructed market. I would be delighted if we had a more diverse range of power suppliers but I really don't see the point of having a diverse range of bill providers. Their whole model is basically dependent upon playing the market, buying power that they do not generate to sell to customers through an infrastructure they do not own. If they manage to buy that power for less than they can sell it to customers they make a profit. If they don't, as now, they make a loss. But where is the societal gain from all of this? Why is this better than simply regulating the prices that those who do generate the energy are allowed to charge?

We have something very similar in the water industry. Companies that do not own or maintain infrastructure or provide water charge commercial clients (in Scotland at least they are restricted to commercial clients) for that water. What, other than their own costs and profit, do they bring to the party?

The illusion of competition.

DavidL

IshmaelZ said:

DavidL said:

Wind still at 8.7gw this morning. As long as that keeps up the domestic pressure is going to come off the gas price. International pressures will remain and there will be some volatility but the particular combination of the interlink fire and a serious lack of wind were really providing the froth.

Having said that these companies that are going bust are a truly weird creation, simply parasitical on a very oddly constructed market. I would be delighted if we had a more diverse range of power suppliers but I really don't see the point of having a diverse range of bill providers. Their whole model is basically dependent upon playing the market, buying power that they do not generate to sell to customers through an infrastructure they do not own. If they manage to buy that power for less than they can sell it to customers they make a profit. If they don't, as now, they make a loss. But where is the societal gain from all of this? Why is this better than simply regulating the prices that those who do generate the energy are allowed to charge?

We have something very similar in the water industry. Companies that do not own or maintain infrastructure or provide water charge commercial clients (in Scotland at least they are restricted to commercial clients) for that water. What, other than their own costs and profit, do they bring to the party?

The illusion of competition.

Exactly, it is an illusion.

WhisperingOracle

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

DavidL

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

tlg86 said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

I count 10 in Woking Constituency, so it sounds about right to me.

I can only think of 7 in Dundee West, 5 of which are connected to supermarkets. Even a couple of years ago there were more but the private ones have been closing and being converted to car washes and the like.

I can think of eight in Cannock Chase, including three linked to supermarkets plus two motorway service stations.

I think that the 8,300 if anything will be on the high side, especially if that estimate is more than a year old. For several small garages I suspect the first lockdown was the final straw.

Agreed. It’s only really the major chains that can sell petrol profitably now given how tight the margins are. Does mean very long queues at supermarket stations though. If you want to buy petrol at Sainsbury’s in Cannock, Tesco in Rugeley or Morrison’s in Burntwood, bring a packed lunch!

As the number of electric vehicles increases the problems can only get worse. We worry, correctly, about having the infrastructure in place to charge those electric vehicles but how long can the existing infrastructure providing fuel survive? Within 10 years finding anywhere to fill your tank is going to be a real challenge.

IshmaelZ

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

"Only x out of y, so not a problem" is a naive and often fallacious argument. Only a handful of your cells have turned cancerous, only one person in the city is carrying the Black Death, only two out of this world record length row of dominoes have fallen.

darkage

DavidL said:

Wind still at 8.7gw this morning. As long as that keeps up the domestic pressure is going to come off the gas price. International pressures will remain and there will be some volatility but the particular combination of the interlink fire and a serious lack of wind were really providing the froth.

Having said that these companies that are going bust are a truly weird creation, simply parasitical on a very oddly constructed market. I would be delighted if we had a more diverse range of power suppliers but I really don't see the point of having a diverse range of bill providers. Their whole model is basically dependent upon playing the market, buying power that they do not generate to sell to customers through an infrastructure they do not own. If they manage to buy that power for less than they can sell it to customers they make a profit. If they don't, as now, they make a loss. But where is the societal gain from all of this? Why is this better than simply regulating the prices that those who do generate the energy are allowed to charge?

We have something very similar in the water industry. Companies that do not own or maintain infrastructure or provide water charge commercial clients (in Scotland at least they are restricted to commercial clients) for that water. What, other than their own costs and profit, do they bring to the party?

Well, I went with Iresa for a while; an energy provider seemingly run from a shed in Nottingham by one man. They had the cheapest prices possible and made no claims to have any environmental credentials at all. I went down this road because we were short of money and my wife was pregnant. I paid for a fraction of the energy that I actually used. I tried to put in meter readings, but they were never accepted. You could not call them and they never replied to any emails or written correspondence. Eventually they went bust. The new provider could not believe me when I gave the meter reading, at which point I offered to pay the arrears. They thanked me profusely for my honesty - the implication was that I could have got away with not paying for all the energy provided by Iresa because no one had any idea at all about our meter reading or records of what energy they had actually provided us with.

What purpose do they perform? It is a good question. It is a deranged free market experiment driven by blind faith; something which I have a profound objection to, but a system that you can game if you are clever enough. However, I will concede that the existence of entities like Iresa probably effected a downward pressure on prices and generated efficiencies in larger entities which would not otherwise occur.

DavidL

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

Jonathan

Conservative HQ

Pulpstar

The world is ticking over at a bit over a billion covid jabs per month now.
The global population over 15 is around 6 billion.
So basically by next March the entire adult world could be double jabbed.
That they won't be won't be anything to do with richer nations booster programs, more the fact that places like DR Congo are very difficult logistically for, well, anything.

WhisperingOracle

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

Foxy

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

There are far fewer than there used to be. It can be an issue in rural areas.

Philip_Thompson

Pulpstar said:

The world is ticking over at a bit over a billion covid jabs per month now.
The global population over 15 is around 6 billion.
So basically by next March the entire adult world could be double jabbed.
That they won't be won't be anything to do with richer nations booster programs, more the fact that places like DR Congo are very difficult logistically for, well, anything.

And antivaxx attitudes which probably haven't been helped by 'citizens of the world' prevaricating over booster programs because they want a few million extra jabs going to poorer countries instead . . . whose citizens can see viral memes about how the 'experts' in the West are prevaricating over the jabs. 🤦‍♂️

OldKingCole

Morning all, from near the NE Coast. Drove up the Ai yesterday; petrol at Washington Services £1.55 per litre. However, when we got to where we were going (near Belford) we were able to fill up at £1.35
Motorway services are traditionally expensive but this did seem to be over the top.

As Dr F says, far fewer rural petrol stations than there used to be, but we didn't see any closed ones.

IshmaelZ

"Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."

Boris later today?

Philip_Thompson

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

Casino_Royale

Economies run on energy. Right now, the energy we need is gas (to heat our homes) and fuel (to run our vehicles). Yes, they are both fossil fuels but as of yet there are no affordable mainstream alternatives. And governments (any government) will collapse very quickly if people can't afford them.

This reality will always take precedence over greenery, and greenery can only be delivered if it doesn't violate this rule.

Scott_xP

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he will "move heaven and earth" to solve the HGV driver shortage but stops short of saying the Government will change the visa requirements for drivers in Europe to come to the UK.

https://trib.al/Slr44rF https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1441286194625613831/video/1

Philip_Thompson

Scott_xP said:

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he will "move heaven and earth" to solve the HGV driver shortage but stops short of saying the Government will change the visa requirements for drivers in Europe to come to the UK.

https://trib.al/Slr44rF https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1441286194625613831/video/1

Quite right. If the issue is prospective drivers can't sit a Test then that's his responsibility and he should be held to account for it and fix it.

SouthamObserver

We are experiencing the consequences of having a deeply incompetent government led by a bone idle, lying, grifter. Bizarrely, though, 40% or so of the electorate is happy enough. And that’s really all that matters.

Scott_xP

Covid distracted us of the devastating commercial effect of Brexit.Truck drivers ran back to EU. Small companies can't do business in the EU due to VAT and Duty issues.Supermarkets shelves are empty due to lack of deliveries. Govt needs to relax work permits for EU drivers
https://twitter.com/Lord_Sugar/status/1441165520493899777

OldKingCole

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

Scott_xP

Turns out ending the freedom of movement of the people who brought us our food and fuel is a sub-optimal way to make sure we have enough people to bring us our food and fuel.
https://twitter.com/DMinghella/status/1441171302392287233

RochdalePioneers

We really are heading into an autumn of shit. Rhetoric always goes splat against reality, and we've been fed a right load of old guff by the man who wrote his speech to the UN on the train ride to the UN and decided to quote Kermit the Frog and criticise his mistreatment of Miss Piggy.

I was assured yesterday that there would be an easy market solution to the driver shortage. "Just pay more" and the good firms win and the scrooge firms die and huzzah for that! The fuel crisis is direct proof of this theory being as good as something the clown threw together on the train. Hoyer have a shortage of drivers. Their HGV special load licensed drivers - the people who can drive fuel trucks - have been poached.

We can't quickly train people to drive fuel tankers. So the very specialised pool of not enough drivers will have to be brought back. "Just pay more". The problem is that you can pay more. Then someone offers even more and off they go, you are short of drivers and the fuel runs out.

A wild west gunfight between firms where you do not know one day to the next if your drivers will turn up works for no-one. During the pay war you both pay a lot more *and* have driver shortages. And at the end all the firms have vastly inflated pay bills and the same lack of drivers they started with.

UC. Food. Fuel. Energy Costs. Pox rates still stubbornly massive in international terms. Perhaps Beaker will start to blame Kermit the Frog for these absolute failures. They were warned what would happen - directly on energy prices. Chose to ignore the experts and here we are.

Scott_xP

SCOTSMAN: ‘Autumn of discontent’ warning as crisis grows #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1441265127282540557/photo/1

IshmaelZ

Casino_Royale said:

Economies run on energy. Right now, the energy we need is gas (to heat our homes) and fuel (to run our vehicles). Yes, they are both fossil fuels but as of yet there are no affordable mainstream alternatives. And governments (any government) will collapse very quickly if people can't afford them.

This reality will always take precedence over greenery, and greenery can only be delivered if it doesn't violate this rule.

You are confusing what is imperative, with what is immediate. "Greenery" is not subordinate to anything else.

Philip_Thompson

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

DavidL

darkage said:

DavidL said:

Wind still at 8.7gw this morning. As long as that keeps up the domestic pressure is going to come off the gas price. International pressures will remain and there will be some volatility but the particular combination of the interlink fire and a serious lack of wind were really providing the froth.

Having said that these companies that are going bust are a truly weird creation, simply parasitical on a very oddly constructed market. I would be delighted if we had a more diverse range of power suppliers but I really don't see the point of having a diverse range of bill providers. Their whole model is basically dependent upon playing the market, buying power that they do not generate to sell to customers through an infrastructure they do not own. If they manage to buy that power for less than they can sell it to customers they make a profit. If they don't, as now, they make a loss. But where is the societal gain from all of this? Why is this better than simply regulating the prices that those who do generate the energy are allowed to charge?

We have something very similar in the water industry. Companies that do not own or maintain infrastructure or provide water charge commercial clients (in Scotland at least they are restricted to commercial clients) for that water. What, other than their own costs and profit, do they bring to the party?

Well, I went with Iresa for a while; an energy provider seemingly run from a shed in Nottingham by one man. They had the cheapest prices possible and made no claims to have any environmental credentials at all. I went down this road because we were short of money and my wife was pregnant. I paid for a fraction of the energy that I actually used. I tried to put in meter readings, but they were never accepted. You could not call them and they never replied to any emails or written correspondence. Eventually they went bust. The new provider could not believe me when I gave the meter reading, at which point I offered to pay the arrears. They thanked me profusely for my honesty - the implication was that I could have got away with not paying for all the energy provided by Iresa because no one had any idea at all about our meter reading or records of what energy they had actually provided us with.

What purpose do they perform? It is a good question. It is a deranged free market experiment driven by blind faith; something which I have a profound objection to, but a system that you can game if you are clever enough. However, I will concede that the existence of entities like Iresa probably effected a downward pressure on prices and generated efficiencies in larger entities which would not otherwise occur.

What we need are more energy producers selling their product into the market place.

WhisperingOracle

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

It could be, ofcourse, that the market can't sustain the shortfall, whatever employers were to do. From what I can gather, it seems to be easier for continental european countries to temporarily make up shortfalls at the moment, ad hoc, which also means that any problems in chains are much more temporary, even that means they then appear somewhere for a while, like bumps in a mattress. There's a scarce but fairly mobile army of HGV drivers around the European continent, but unless the government swallows its pride and changes some of the rules back again, it seems that many of them won't be coming back here.

bigjohnowls

Tesco Chesterfield petrol station closed.

Crisis what crisis?

Labour ahead in polls next week?

Casino_Royale

Pulpstar said:

The world is ticking over at a bit over a billion covid jabs per month now.
The global population over 15 is around 6 billion.
So basically by next March the entire adult world could be double jabbed.
That they won't be won't be anything to do with richer nations booster programs, more the fact that places like DR Congo are very difficult logistically for, well, anything.

One question I have is whether, say, you double-jab 65% of that figure (c.4 billion) will that be enough to make it fizzle out? Or, moreover, what's the fizzle-out target, particularly if you take into account that in hard to reach places like DR Congo the virus will have far fewer vectoring opportunities?

I think the Western world sums to about 1.2 billion, China 1.4 billion and India 1.35 billion - so if we factor by 75% for over 16s and assume 80% get double-vacced this year then that gets you to about 2.4 billion alone.

After that, I'd probably run through in Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and maybe SA/ Philippines. At a stretch, Egypt and Iran too. It becomes an administrative/logistical skills test as much as a medical one, and each nation's infrastructure will be critical. Might get you near the 4 billion target.

I'd probably put most African countries at the bottom of the list, I'm afraid.

Philip_Thompson

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

It could be, ofcourse, that the market can't sustain the shortfall, whatever employers were to do. From what I can gather, it seems to be easier for continental european countries to temporarily make up shortfalls at the moment, ad hoc, which also means that any problems in chains are much more temporary. There's a scarce but fairly mobile army of HGV drivers around the European continent, but unless the government swallows its pride and changes some of the rules back again, it seems that many of them won't be coming back here.

It takes about six weeks to train a HGV driver. People have been banging on about this "isssue" for more than six months.

If there's a shortage of drivers then pay your drivers more.

If testing capacity is insufficient then how about saying that instead of moaning that you can't get cheap serfs anymore?

WhisperingOracle

Even if the bumps appear somewhere *else* for a while, that should say below - apologies.

bigjohnowls

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

JohnLilburne

RochdalePioneers said:

We really are heading into an autumn of shit. Rhetoric always goes splat against reality, and we've been fed a right load of old guff by the man who wrote his speech to the UN on the train ride to the UN and decided to quote Kermit the Frog and criticise his mistreatment of Miss Piggy.

I was assured yesterday that there would be an easy market solution to the driver shortage. "Just pay more" and the good firms win and the scrooge firms die and huzzah for that! The fuel crisis is direct proof of this theory being as good as something the clown threw together on the train. Hoyer have a shortage of drivers. Their HGV special load licensed drivers - the people who can drive fuel trucks - have been poached.

We can't quickly train people to drive fuel tankers. So the very specialised pool of not enough drivers will have to be brought back. "Just pay more". The problem is that you can pay more. Then someone offers even more and off they go, you are short of drivers and the fuel runs out.

A wild west gunfight between firms where you do not know one day to the next if your drivers will turn up works for no-one. During the pay war you both pay a lot more *and* have driver shortages. And at the end all the firms have vastly inflated pay bills and the same lack of drivers they started with.

UC. Food. Fuel. Energy Costs. Pox rates still stubbornly massive in international terms. Perhaps Beaker will start to blame Kermit the Frog for these absolute failures. They were warned what would happen - directly on energy prices. Chose to ignore the experts and here we are.

How do you employ other people then? Drivers aren't the only specialised people on the planet. I expect there's a shortage of Rochdale Pioneers. Why don't we just import a lot of people to drive down your salary?

Big_G_NorthWales

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

5 live this morning had truckers phoning in complaining about the medias attempt to blame Brexit and reiterating the comments you make

Furthermore a trucker phoned in who works in Europe who said there are half a million drivers short in Europe and the idea the UK could just get drivers from Europe is unrealistic

It was very interesting to hear from trucker themselves

RochdalePioneers

bigjohnowls said:

Tesco Chesterfield petrol station closed.

Crisis what crisis?

Labour ahead in polls next week?

You're about to spend conference having blazing rows about whether to roll the clock back to 1981 or not and for someone to find any kind of vision in Keir's 140,000 word essay.

Yes I know you have bleated on and on about Starmer, yes I know that I find myself in the surreal position of agreeing with Laura Pillock and Ricky Dicky Di Do Burgon, but all of this could have been avoided by just purging the trots in the first place.

However embarrassing it was for Beaker to turn up the UK with a speech written on the train up from Washington to not only quote Kermit the Frog and criticise him for being mean to Miss Piggy, that is what we have running the show. It isn't about to change any time soon because when people think "should we vote against" they see wazzock union leaders and Zarah Sultana making the impassioned case for the return of hug a terrorist blame the Jews magic grandpa.

Philip_Thompson

RochdalePioneers said:

We really are heading into an autumn of shit. Rhetoric always goes splat against reality, and we've been fed a right load of old guff by the man who wrote his speech to the UN on the train ride to the UN and decided to quote Kermit the Frog and criticise his mistreatment of Miss Piggy.

I was assured yesterday that there would be an easy market solution to the driver shortage. "Just pay more" and the good firms win and the scrooge firms die and huzzah for that! The fuel crisis is direct proof of this theory being as good as something the clown threw together on the train. Hoyer have a shortage of drivers. Their HGV special load licensed drivers - the people who can drive fuel trucks - have been poached.

We can't quickly train people to drive fuel tankers. So the very specialised pool of not enough drivers will have to be brought back. "Just pay more". The problem is that you can pay more. Then someone offers even more and off they go, you are short of drivers and the fuel runs out.

A wild west gunfight between firms where you do not know one day to the next if your drivers will turn up works for no-one. During the pay war you both pay a lot more *and* have driver shortages. And at the end all the firms have vastly inflated pay bills and the same lack of drivers they started with.

UC. Food. Fuel. Energy Costs. Pox rates still stubbornly massive in international terms. Perhaps Beaker will start to blame Kermit the Frog for these absolute failures. They were warned what would happen - directly on energy prices. Chose to ignore the experts and here we are.

So pay more then. Oh and treat your staff with respect so they enjoy working for you and are happy and don't want to leave.

How many ex-drivers have been quoted saying that they left because they were treated like shit? Because they had poor conditions as well as poor pay?

If you think you can treat your staff like shit and pay them a pittance and if they quit then so what there's an infinite pool to replace them with . . . that's not healthy.

Casino_Royale

IshmaelZ said:

Casino_Royale said:

Economies run on energy. Right now, the energy we need is gas (to heat our homes) and fuel (to run our vehicles). Yes, they are both fossil fuels but as of yet there are no affordable mainstream alternatives. And governments (any government) will collapse very quickly if people can't afford them.

This reality will always take precedence over greenery, and greenery can only be delivered if it doesn't violate this rule.

You are confusing what is imperative, with what is immediate. "Greenery" is not subordinate to anything else.

Let me be clear in case you haven't worked this out yet: I am not engaging with you on this site.

My view is you're the most unpleasant poster on this site, and if it were up to be I'd have had you banned long ago.

Alastair Meeks got you bang to rights a long time ago.

WhisperingOracle

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

It could be, ofcourse, that the market can't sustain the shortfall, whatever employers were to do. From what I can gather, it seems to be easier for continental european countries to temporarily make up shortfalls at the moment, ad hoc, which also means that any problems in chains are much more temporary. There's a scarce but fairly mobile army of HGV drivers around the European continent, but unless the government swallows its pride and changes some of the rules back again, it seems that many of them won't be coming back here.

It takes about six weeks to train a HGV driver. People have been banging on about this "isssue" for more than six months.

If there's a shortage of drivers then pay your drivers more.

If testing capacity is insufficient then how about saying that instead of moaning that you can't get cheap serfs anymore?

But, as mentioned, it could be that the market just can't fix it, in the urgent timeframe we have. The job is just too unappealing, the hours too long, etc. That leaves the supply of drivers you already have - and the inescapable fact is the government has disproportionately diminished ours with the new visa rules - among other facets of Brexit. If sky-high wages could fix this over a course of years - which I have to say I doubt - that's going to be scant comfort to people if the problems get worse over this winter.

Philip_Thompson

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

Foxy

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

The world is ticking over at a bit over a billion covid jabs per month now.
The global population over 15 is around 6 billion.
So basically by next March the entire adult world could be double jabbed.
That they won't be won't be anything to do with richer nations booster programs, more the fact that places like DR Congo are very difficult logistically for, well, anything.

One question I have is whether, say, you double-jab 65% of that figure (c.4 billion) will that be enough to make it fizzle out? Or, moreover, what's the fizzle-out target, particularly if you take into account that in hard to reach places like DR Congo the virus will have far fewer vectoring opportunities?

I think the Western world sums to about 1.2 billion, China 1.4 billion and India 1.35 billion - so if we factor by 75% for over 16s and assume 80% get double-vacced this year then that gets you to about 2.4 billion alone.

After that, I'd probably run through in Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and maybe SA/ Philippines. At a stretch, Egypt and Iran too. It becomes an administrative/logistical skills test as much as a medical one, and each nation's infrastructure will be critical. Might get you near the 4 billion target.

I'd probably put most African countries at the bottom of the list, I'm afraid.

Quite a lot of African countries run good vaccination programmes, not least because infectious diseases are a much more prominent part of practice there. They do tend to be orientated to children though, who constitute 50% of the population in typical Sub Saharan Africa.

I was given my third Pfizer this week as part of the hospital staff programme. It surprises me that 25% of our Trust staff are still not vaxxed, but those are the figures. Some antibody testing amongst them would be interesting.

Big_G_NorthWales

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

As I have just commented a trucker working in Europe said on 5 live this morning there are half a million drivers short across Europe

IanB2

The thing to do is get in before the panic buyers….

I am still in the EU (where there is abundant fuel), heading for Belgium in the hope of turning my dog into a Belgian pet. I guess it makes sense to fill up before I set off for home tomorrow?

Do I need to fill the car with emergency relief supplies?

eek

darkage said:

Not wishing to prolong yesterdays discussion about the buy to let market in Darlington; but I did another rightmove search and found another house, 3 bed, EPC rating C for £52k.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/112002452#/?channel=RES_BUY

Even that requires some work to it. Close to the new Treasury Campus though (it would be a less than 5 minute walk).

As I said yesterday £60k is currently the base price in Darlington for this type of property.

Philip_Thompson

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

It could be, ofcourse, that the market can't sustain the shortfall, whatever employers were to do. From what I can gather, it seems to be easier for continental european countries to temporarily make up shortfalls at the moment, ad hoc, which also means that any problems in chains are much more temporary. There's a scarce but fairly mobile army of HGV drivers around the European continent, but unless the government swallows its pride and changes some of the rules back again, it seems that many of them won't be coming back here.

It takes about six weeks to train a HGV driver. People have been banging on about this "isssue" for more than six months.

If there's a shortage of drivers then pay your drivers more.

If testing capacity is insufficient then how about saying that instead of moaning that you can't get cheap serfs anymore?

But, as mentioned, it could be that the market just can't fix it, in the urgent timeframe we have. The job is just too unappealing, the hours too long, etc. That leaves the supply of drivers you already have - and the inescapable fact is the government has disproportionately diminished ours with the new visa rules - among other facets of Brexit. If sky-high wages could fix this over a course of years - which I have to say I think is unlikely - that's going to be scant comfort to people if the problems get worse over this winter.

If the job is unappealing then make it more appealing. Offer better working conditions, offer better pay.

The job being unappealing isn't something that has to be as a magical divine rule.

It takes six weeks to train a new driver from scratch, this could all be over by the start of November if enough is paid to attract people to the sector. If Testing capacity is insufficient then that is the government's fault - if pay and conditions are shit then that's the employer's fault.

Jonathan

Worry not. Big G has got this under control. Some dude has rung into a radio show. Everything is totally fine now.

WhisperingOracle

Big_G_NorthWales said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

As I have just commented a trucker working in Europe said on 5 live this morning there are half a million drivers short across Europe

Yes, but this doesn't seem to have translated into the same shortages so far, because many of the drivers are continuously mobile across the EU. This may mean lots of temporary problems in unpredictable regions, like creases in a tablecloth wherever you move it, not the building situation we seem to be having.

IanB2

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

There aren’t any goods or fuel shortages nor any such stories in the news in Europe, as far as I have noticed. Hospitality and retail are having some problems getting staff after the lockdowns, because they didn’t have as generous furlough arrangements as we did and a lot of staff have left to retrain as drivers, there having been the same boom in home delivery across the continent.

eek

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

He should pay more. However, paying more won't solve a shortage of drivers as untrained drivers can't start tomorrow. There is a lead time to train the drivers up.

So regardless of whether he pays more or not, as we said yesterday the only short term fix is to steal/borrow drivers from elsewhere (preferably Europe).

Foxy

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

The problem is that a pay rise doesn't stop the shortage, it just redistributes it. Same goes for social care, hospitality, health service, agriculture. The same people cannot be doing all these things.

It is time to look at how consumerist society works, and consider what is unnecessary in terms of employment.

RochdalePioneers

JohnLilburne said:

RochdalePioneers said:

We really are heading into an autumn of shit. Rhetoric always goes splat against reality, and we've been fed a right load of old guff by the man who wrote his speech to the UN on the train ride to the UN and decided to quote Kermit the Frog and criticise his mistreatment of Miss Piggy.

I was assured yesterday that there would be an easy market solution to the driver shortage. "Just pay more" and the good firms win and the scrooge firms die and huzzah for that! The fuel crisis is direct proof of this theory being as good as something the clown threw together on the train. Hoyer have a shortage of drivers. Their HGV special load licensed drivers - the people who can drive fuel trucks - have been poached.

We can't quickly train people to drive fuel tankers. So the very specialised pool of not enough drivers will have to be brought back. "Just pay more". The problem is that you can pay more. Then someone offers even more and off they go, you are short of drivers and the fuel runs out.

A wild west gunfight between firms where you do not know one day to the next if your drivers will turn up works for no-one. During the pay war you both pay a lot more *and* have driver shortages. And at the end all the firms have vastly inflated pay bills and the same lack of drivers they started with.

UC. Food. Fuel. Energy Costs. Pox rates still stubbornly massive in international terms. Perhaps Beaker will start to blame Kermit the Frog for these absolute failures. They were warned what would happen - directly on energy prices. Chose to ignore the experts and here we are.

How do you employ other people then? Drivers aren't the only specialised people on the planet. I expect there's a shortage of Rochdale Pioneers. Why don't we just import a lot of people to drive down your salary?

In the long term we will not have a shortage. We will invest into facilities for trucks and their drivers - both at the roadside and at customer sites - so that conditions are improved as pay has been. In a few years we shouldn't have the acute shortage we have now.

But here and now? We are fucked. There are not enough drivers, we can't train enough drivers quickly even if a bucket of cash was thrown at it, and we're entering the busiest season of the year.

So the solution is simple.
1. Lift the ban on cabotage
2. A 3 month work visa for drivers
3. A ban on predatory "just pay more" offers

That gets us through Christmas. Remember that the fuel crisis is because Hoyer have had their ADR drivers poached by "just pay more". Even if Hoyer now turn round and pay even more there is a gap until replacements are recruited, and there is nothing to stop another firm paying even more to poach again.

Scott_xP

“Only 5% of Dominic Cummings” - Tory MP uses the standard Barnard Castle benchmark for measuring email anger from constituents on cost of living issues. But party strategists admit this is just the start and fear a “perfect storm” of bad winter news
https://on.ft.com/3CBRMVs

Scott_xP

The spectre of the Seventies haunts the Tories https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-spectre-of-the-seventies-haunts-the-tories-0vb8cpb03

Philip_Thompson

Jonathan said:

Worry not. Big G has got this under control. Some dude has rung into a radio show. Everything is totally fine now.

That's all we're getting from you guys. "Some dude" (boss of Tesco, vested interest in keeping drivers pay low) complains there is an issue. Alternative "Some dude" (actual truckers) say things are better now than they used to be for them.

Who should we believe, the boss saying things are bad and we need to bring over workers from abroad to drive down wages - or the workers saying things are going better now?

It seems the left all want to side with the boss. Funny that.

Fishing

Foxy said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

There are far fewer than there used to be. It can be an issue in rural areas.

My area isn't remotely rural but the local petrol station was replaced by a Metrobank several years ago.

Not sure if that's a sign of the times or not.

RochdalePioneers

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

You have a vested interest in denying reality. Drivers have had a huuuuge increase. All drivers. Every firm. The "boss of Tesco" is paying a lot more. And still has a shortage of drivers. Because there's a shortage of drivers.

algarkirk

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

Is that all? That's only twelve per parliamentary constituency. And that sounds far too few.

Massive numbers of local rural ones have closed in recent years. The time you realise there are not many around if you are somewhere strange in a car, away from the motorway network and don't have access to online information. Suddenly there aren't any. But that doesn't often happen to motorists now.

IanB2

Big_G_NorthWales said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

As I have just commented a trucker working in Europe said on 5 live this morning there are half a million drivers short across Europe

Read this:

https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-shortage-so-why-do-uk-supply-chains-seem-more-disrupted-254524

Jonathan

Philip_Thompson said:

Jonathan said:

Worry not. Big G has got this under control. Some dude has rung into a radio show. Everything is totally fine now.

That's all we're getting from you guys. "Some dude" (boss of Tesco, vested interest in keeping drivers pay low) complains there is an issue. Alternative "Some dude" (actual truckers) say things are better now than they used to be for them.

Who should we believe, the boss saying things are bad and we need to bring over workers from abroad to drive down wages - or the workers saying things are going better now?

It seems the left all want to side with the boss. Funny that.

Can’t believe you actually wrote that. You might like to lie down.

malcolmg

JosiasJessop said:

MarqueeMark said:

"scores closed"

1. How many people today know how many a "score" is?

2. There are around 8,300 petrol stations in the UK. BP has said "a handful" are affected.

Get a grip.

This is a classic example where irresponsible reporting could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Petrol stations will be chocker today

IshmaelZ

Casino_Royale said:

IshmaelZ said:

Casino_Royale said:

Economies run on energy. Right now, the energy we need is gas (to heat our homes) and fuel (to run our vehicles). Yes, they are both fossil fuels but as of yet there are no affordable mainstream alternatives. And governments (any government) will collapse very quickly if people can't afford them.

This reality will always take precedence over greenery, and greenery can only be delivered if it doesn't violate this rule.

You are confusing what is imperative, with what is immediate. "Greenery" is not subordinate to anything else.

Let me be clear in case you haven't worked this out yet: I am not engaging with you on this site.

My view is you're the most unpleasant poster on this site, and if it were up to be I'd have had you banned long ago.

Alastair Meeks got you bang to rights a long time ago.

I love this bit.

Next you say something about Johnny Chinaman or Johnny Frog, and somebody points it out, and then it's waaah mods somebody called me a racist, and then it all calms down and we all agree you are not a racist. Just the unluckiest anti-racist since Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Meeks is a great and good man with whom my most recent exchanges have been the most cordial imaginable. Never compare yourself with him in any respect whatever.

And try just once to say something interesting.

Foxy

Big_G_NorthWales said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is also what the Daily Mail constituency is beginning to notice too.

As I have just commented a trucker working in Europe said on 5 live this morning there are half a million drivers short across Europe

Yes, so visas are not a magic solution. If you are a Slovak trukie why would you come to Brexitland rather than Germany?

Philip_Thompson

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

He should pay more. However, paying more won't solve a shortage of drivers as untrained drivers can't start tomorrow. There is a lead time to train the drivers up.

So regardless of whether he pays more or not, as we said yesterday the only short term fix is to steal/borrow drivers from elsewhere (preferably Europe).

You're right new recruits can't start tomorrow, it takes six weeks to train up a new driver I do believe.

So if more money had been offered in March when people were complaining about a shortage of drivers then we could have increased our supply of drivers by ... May. Its now September. If more money is offered now to start training up new drivers from scratch, they could be on the road by November.

eek

RochdalePioneers said:

JohnLilburne said:

RochdalePioneers said:

We really are heading into an autumn of shit. Rhetoric always goes splat against reality, and we've been fed a right load of old guff by the man who wrote his speech to the UN on the train ride to the UN and decided to quote Kermit the Frog and criticise his mistreatment of Miss Piggy.

I was assured yesterday that there would be an easy market solution to the driver shortage. "Just pay more" and the good firms win and the scrooge firms die and huzzah for that! The fuel crisis is direct proof of this theory being as good as something the clown threw together on the train. Hoyer have a shortage of drivers. Their HGV special load licensed drivers - the people who can drive fuel trucks - have been poached.

We can't quickly train people to drive fuel tankers. So the very specialised pool of not enough drivers will have to be brought back. "Just pay more". The problem is that you can pay more. Then someone offers even more and off they go, you are short of drivers and the fuel runs out.

A wild west gunfight between firms where you do not know one day to the next if your drivers will turn up works for no-one. During the pay war you both pay a lot more *and* have driver shortages. And at the end all the firms have vastly inflated pay bills and the same lack of drivers they started with.

UC. Food. Fuel. Energy Costs. Pox rates still stubbornly massive in international terms. Perhaps Beaker will start to blame Kermit the Frog for these absolute failures. They were warned what would happen - directly on energy prices. Chose to ignore the experts and here we are.

How do you employ other people then? Drivers aren't the only specialised people on the planet. I expect there's a shortage of Rochdale Pioneers. Why don't we just import a lot of people to drive down your salary?

In the long term we will not have a shortage. We will invest into facilities for trucks and their drivers - both at the roadside and at customer sites - so that conditions are improved as pay has been. In a few years we shouldn't have the acute shortage we have now.

But here and now? We are fucked. There are not enough drivers, we can't train enough drivers quickly even if a bucket of cash was thrown at it, and we're entering the busiest season of the year.

So the solution is simple.
1. Lift the ban on cabotage
2. A 3 month work visa for drivers
3. A ban on predatory "just pay more" offers

That gets us through Christmas. Remember that the fuel crisis is because Hoyer have had their ADR drivers poached by "just pay more". Even if Hoyer now turn round and pay even more there is a gap until replacements are recruited, and there is nothing to stop another firm paying even more to poach again.

From memory I can't remember any fuel drivers who liked their jobs (I used to encounter a lot when we had a friend working on the weighbridges at the Seal Sand). They did it because it paid more but it was stressful (a lot seemed to do it for x months and then returned to normal HGV driving as soon as they had paid back the additional training costs)

I suspect, that now they've left that part of the industry, it may take an awful lot to get them back...

This is the thing, the subsectors who are currently suffering real problems chilled and fuel haulage really aren't enjoyable jobs - all the risk is on the driver and the fuel / temperature requirements add additional complications on what is already a stressful job.

RochdalePioneers

Big_G_NorthWales said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

5 live this morning had truckers phoning in complaining about the medias attempt to blame Brexit and reiterating the comments you make

Furthermore a trucker phoned in who works in Europe who said there are half a million drivers short in Europe and the idea the UK could just get drivers from Europe is unrealistic

It was very interesting to hear from trucker themselves

We did this yesterday. If you are an EU driver you can work anywhere in the EU. The shortages in one country get covered by drivers from another country. "Just pay more" works here because there is a vast labour pool.

If the UK offered a 3 month work visa and a shit ton of cash, we absolutely will get drivers come over. Because the fortune on offer here to your Latvian truck driver demolishes what is on offer elsewhere.

"Just pay more" doesn't work in the GB because we have a small labour pool which is fixed. All we can do is poach drivers from one firm to another and back again without actually fixing the issue.

Theuniondivvie

Phew, think how much worse would things would be without Brexit.

https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1441291796781285383?s=21

IanB2

Philip_Thompson said:

Jonathan said:

Worry not. Big G has got this under control. Some dude has rung into a radio show. Everything is totally fine now.

That's all we're getting from you guys. "Some dude" (boss of Tesco, vested interest in keeping drivers pay low) complains there is an issue. Alternative "Some dude" (actual truckers) say things are better now than they used to be for them.

Who should we believe, the boss saying things are bad and we need to bring over workers from abroad to drive down wages - or the workers saying things are going better now?

It seems the left all want to side with the boss. Funny that.

That’s a travesty of a characterisation. What we have is media and anecdotal reports of a growing problem, set against a random PB’er who heard a random caller to a random radio station say that everything is OK. Or, more precisely, that other countries allegedly have the same problems, despite no evidence of any serious consequences there.

Philip_Thompson

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

You have a vested interest in denying reality. Drivers have had a huuuuge increase. All drivers. Every firm. The "boss of Tesco" is paying a lot more. And still has a shortage of drivers. Because there's a shortage of drivers.

There's a "shortage of drivers" yet I can get four different drivers from different companies dropping off products at my front door in the same day.

Plenty of people in this country know how to drive and training to convert that to a HGV licence (if Testing bottlenecks are resolved) take weeks not years.

Taz

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

bigjohnowls said:

Philip_Thompson said:

OldKingCole said:

Philip_Thompson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

DavidL said:

WhisperingOracle said:

squareroot2 said:

Brexit is working, its the only gamebin town. Driver shortages, container shortages etc are everywhere.

Driver shortages and container shortages aren't the same as food and petrol shortages, however. I haven't seen any reports of these in northern continental Europe up to now, which is what the Daily Mail constituency are beginning to notice also.

Disruptions in supply may well vary but a shortage of drivers makes such disruptions inevitable and that seems pretty universal in Europe at the moment.

There was a professional driver on R5 when I was driving home a couple of days ago who described how drivers had been treated as third class citizens, made to wait hours for both loads to be put on or taken off with no provision for them in terms of places to go and a pretty basic wage for a lonely, boring job. He admitted that he had just had a wage increase and that the supermarkets were now much keener to get them in and out. I am sure the likes of Tesco will want all its drivers on the road again as fast as possible at the moment.

There are certainly multiple well-known problems with the industry that have been widely reported, but until or unless people see plain evidence that the problems are as bad in neighbouring countries - which they haven't, and neither have I, frankly - Brexit will feature heavily.

I agree and made a similar point yesterday.

In America people are facing the same issues but they just pay whatever escalated prices are needed and get on with it. Inflation is running higher there, but the invisible hand is doing its job.

In the UK rather than 'Keep Calm And Carry On' we have 'whinge incessantly about Brexit'.

If you want to moan and moan then that's fine, you have free speech. But it won't get much done, not like gritting your teeth and actually paying your drivers or for timber or whatever the price the market demands.

I suggest that the issue is not necessarily Brexit itself, bit the apparent assumption in Government and Leavers generally, that 'we'll just Leave and all will be well'.

Very little thought was given to anything other than the obvious, and in many cases that was bodged.

All is well.

Its not the Government's job to fix companies supply chains, that's their own job. If something needs to change, they need to change it, and the market will ensure they do.

Thought boss of Tesco had said they had done everything in their power and shortages were still inevitable.

Time to grant visas for lorry drivers methinks. The Government won't survive long if most petrol stations are shut.

The boss of Tesco has a vested interest in not paying more.

He should stop moaning and pay what is required. But leftwingers would rather blame Brexit than see people get a pay rise.

You have a vested interest in denying reality. Drivers have had a huuuuge increase. All drivers. Every firm. The "boss of Tesco" is paying a lot more. And still has a shortage of drivers. Because there's a shortage of drivers.

Well the lorry drivers interviewed on the Jeremy Vine radio call in the other day say otherwise about rises. A few headline figures does not represent the industry and those getting the 50K plus salaries are having to work every hour they are allowed including staying away from home several nights a week.