So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
I'm sorry, but @Chris told me very emphatically that case-to-hospitalization rates had not dropped.
To be fair that seems to mostly be following the drop in England cases-by-specimen date graph.
We still have a few day yet before we would expect to see an uptick in admissions if there is still a raw case-to-hospitalisation link.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Bollocks mate. LAB is NOT my favourite party and this site is about betting.
Think he is referring to CHB Mike not you
I haven't a clue what his point is, let alone who it's aimed at.
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone pn here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
The point is we are mid term and labour are on 32-35%.
If you believe the next election will be in 2023, then we're practically in the last 18 months.
The election has to be after the boundary changes are implemented so I suspect it's November 2023 so 26 months away.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
I'm sorry, but @Chris told me very emphatically that case-to-hospitalization rates had not dropped.
To be fair that seems to mostly be following the drop in England cases-by-specimen date graph.
We still have a few day yet before we would expect to see an uptick in admissions if there is still a raw case-to-hospitalisation link.
Given that the case increases are all among school age children right now it's hard to see where a rise in hospital admissions would come from.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
Yes -- running the numbers now. Few issues with the feed.
But what we have been seeing for a while now is a fall in cases in the vaccinated and rise in the unvaccinated.
There's a small sign of the parents of the school kids starting to get more cases (35-49 cohorts). It is a shame there was no age case data from Scotland when they had their return to school surge.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
I'm sorry, but @Chris told me very emphatically that case-to-hospitalization rates had not dropped.
To be fair that seems to mostly be following the drop in England cases-by-specimen date graph.
We still have a few day yet before we would expect to see an uptick in admissions if there is still a raw case-to-hospitalisation link.
Given that the case increases are all among school age children right now it's hard to see where a rise in hospital admissions would come from.
I agree with you. Just wanted to be fair before we start the Covid number mocking.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
Shell saying it's bringing forwards deliveries to forecourts. In this weird alternate universe that's apparently impossible and the man from Shell must be lying because the UK has got no tanker drivers.
Britain also has no petrol shortages so that is another reason Shell must be lying.
The trouble is, once the panic starts, the fuel deliveries can't keep pace with the demand. The supply from each tanker is used up more quickly.
I remember my mother queuing for three gallons of petrol (rationed) in 1974 and my father earnestly predicting there would be riots if petrol went above £1 a gallon.
Strangely, twenty one years on from the 2000 crisis, we still incredibly dependent on and vulnerable to any interruption to petrol supplies.
This is absolutely crucial.
There are 38 million cars in the UK. If we assume they all have 15 gallon petrol tanks, and that at any time they are normally 60% filled, that means there are 342 million gallons of petrol sitting in peoples' cars normally.
Now, if people panic about petrol availability, and everyone wants their car filled to (on average) 80% capacity to deal with the risk of shortages, then you need to find 114 million gallons of petrol.
That is about three million barrels of oil. (Indeed, that's based on the rather lazy assumption that there's a 0.8:1 ratio of petrol to crude oil, and the real number is probably less.)
Three million barrels of oil is a lot of oil.
I suspect an attack of PB approximation disease - choose number - OMG Whatalot. Is it actually a lot? So, a sanity check.
(I'm not quibbling about the average size of a tank, which I think is 20% smaller, or the ignoring of 'diesel' cars which are 25% and are the same for this purpose, but some are electric).
I'm working in litres, as I'm not an Imperialist. 114 million gallons of fuel x 4.546 is 518 million litres, which is the suggested amount of fuel "we need to find".
Average UK weekly fuel sales are £800 million, which is remarkably consistent.
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
This is tiring. Yes housing inflation has been way too high and that needs to be addressed.
The impacts of extremely high wage and goods inflation, which is what you are calling for, what we are discussing, and the most common usage of the word inflation, are quite different to those.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Bollocks mate. LAB is NOT my favourite party and this site is about betting.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Bollocks mate. LAB is NOT my favourite party and this site is about betting.
Think he is referring to CHB Mike not you
I haven't a clue what his point is, let alone who it's aimed at.
If you get a poll substantially different from the rest, especially if it’s in your ‘desired’ direction, take it with a huge pinch of salt. And yes, I meant CHB.
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
Philip, with respect, the high inflation of the 70s and early 80s was of a different order, all-pervading and in most areas very caustic, very disruptive.
We really don't want that again, it does no one any good.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
The highest of
£25,600 pa
£10.10 per hour
The going rate for the type of work
That's going to encourage people to become HGV drivers (not).
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
The highest of
£25,600 pa
£10.10 per hour
The going rate for the type of work
That's going to encourage people to become HGV drivers (not).
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Bollocks mate. LAB is NOT my favourite party and this site is about betting.
Think he is referring to CHB Mike not you
I haven't a clue what his point is, let alone who it's aimed at.
If you get a poll substantially different from the rest, especially if it’s in your ‘desired’ direction, take it with a huge pinch of salt. And yes, I meant CHB.
Everybody knows that, and CHB's bet wasn't subject to an "unless it's an outlier" exclusion, so your point remains obscure. You may never learn, but you mustn't generalise from there.
Shell saying it's bringing forwards deliveries to forecourts. In this weird alternate universe that's apparently impossible and the man from Shell must be lying because the UK has got no tanker drivers.
Britain also has no petrol shortages so that is another reason Shell must be lying.
The trouble is, once the panic starts, the fuel deliveries can't keep pace with the demand. The supply from each tanker is used up more quickly.
I remember my mother queuing for three gallons of petrol (rationed) in 1974 and my father earnestly predicting there would be riots if petrol went above £1 a gallon.
Strangely, twenty one years on from the 2000 crisis, we still incredibly dependent on and vulnerable to any interruption to petrol supplies.
This is absolutely crucial.
There are 38 million cars in the UK. If we assume they all have 15 gallon petrol tanks, and that at any time they are normally 60% filled, that means there are 342 million gallons of petrol sitting in peoples' cars normally.
Now, if people panic about petrol availability, and everyone wants their car filled to (on average) 80% capacity to deal with the risk of shortages, then you need to find 114 million gallons of petrol.
That is about three million barrels of oil. (Indeed, that's based on the rather lazy assumption that there's a 0.8:1 ratio of petrol to crude oil, and the real number is probably less.)
Three million barrels of oil is a lot of oil.
I suspect an attack of PB approximation disease - choose number - OMG Whatalot. Is it actually a lot? So, a sanity check.
(I'm not quibbling about the average size of a tank, which I think is 20% smaller, or the ignoring of 'diesel' cars which are 25% and are the same for this purpose, but some are electric).
I'm working in litres, as I'm not an Imperialist. 114 million gallons of fuel x 4.546 is 518 million litres, which is the suggested amount of fuel "we need to find".
Average UK weekly fuel sales are £800 million, which is remarkably consistent.
Fuel prices are around £1.35 per litre. Also consistent for several years (brief Covid discounts excepted).
So weekly fuel sales are 800/1.35 or 590 million litres per week.
So this big number that we are looking for is about 5 days sales.
Which is, I suggest, not actually very much. Although I think the RCS estimate is pretty good, and question the "that's a lot' interpretation.
At 30k litres per tanker, that is about 20k tanker deliveries.
Ah ha, but it is a lot.
Both the oil market and the refining market both extremely price inelastic in the short term. So, if you want to find three million barrels extra oil for the UK (and bear in mind that the world market is about 100 million barrels a day), then that's a lot of extra oil given we don't have massive amounts of storage, and oil reservoirs can't simply be turned on or off. In the very short term, you have to outcompete someone on price to get that marginal barrel of oil.
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
This is tiring. Yes housing inflation has been way too high and that needs to be addressed.
The impacts of extremely high wage and goods inflation, which is what you are calling for, what we are discussing, and the most common usage of the word inflation, are quite different to those.
Housing inflation has been quite successfully addressed (2010-2020 vs 2000-2010 housing inflation is massively lower). Apart from the moronic Stamp Duty holiday.
We need to stop the twattish deliberate demand side inflation, and make it relatively somewhat more expensive to own an expensive home (and especially an expensive home) by a suitable wealth tax (Proportional Property Tax would do nicely), and continue with much of the other stuff they have been doing.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone on here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
I agree. But I'm pretty sure you said earlier today that those drifting from Labour to Green hate Starmer even more than they hate the Tories. They really don't; they will hold their noses and vote Labour if the Greens have no chance and if the Tories are a clear and present danger. The three constituencies in Brighton and Hove are instructive in this. Caroline Lucas's seat is safe Green, so the Labour vote has collapsed. But both Kemptown and Hove used to be Tory; they both now have stonking Labour majorities, thanks in part to Green sympathisers voting Labour to keep the Tories out. There are Green types all over Brighton, but the Green vote only holds up in Lucas's seat. The Greens do better in local elections.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone on here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
I agree. But I'm pretty sure you said earlier today that those drifting from Labour to Green hate Starmer even more than they hate the Tories. They really don't; they will hold their noses and vote Labour if the Greens have no chance and if the Tories are a clear and present danger. The three constituencies in Brighton and Hove are instructive in this. Caroline Lucas's seat is safe Green, so the Labour vote has collapsed. But both Kemptown and Hove used to be Tory; they both now have stonking Labour majorities, thanks in part to Green sympathisers voting Labour to keep the Tories out. There are Green types all over Brighton, but the Green vote only holds up in Lucas's seat. The Greens do better in local elections.
I think they just won't vote. The fight between Corbynites and Sir Keir's Labour is new, so I don't think past form is all that sound
Shell saying it's bringing forwards deliveries to forecourts. In this weird alternate universe that's apparently impossible and the man from Shell must be lying because the UK has got no tanker drivers.
Britain also has no petrol shortages so that is another reason Shell must be lying.
The trouble is, once the panic starts, the fuel deliveries can't keep pace with the demand. The supply from each tanker is used up more quickly.
I remember my mother queuing for three gallons of petrol (rationed) in 1974 and my father earnestly predicting there would be riots if petrol went above £1 a gallon.
Strangely, twenty one years on from the 2000 crisis, we still incredibly dependent on and vulnerable to any interruption to petrol supplies.
This is absolutely crucial.
There are 38 million cars in the UK. If we assume they all have 15 gallon petrol tanks, and that at any time they are normally 60% filled, that means there are 342 million gallons of petrol sitting in peoples' cars normally.
Now, if people panic about petrol availability, and everyone wants their car filled to (on average) 80% capacity to deal with the risk of shortages, then you need to find 114 million gallons of petrol.
That is about three million barrels of oil. (Indeed, that's based on the rather lazy assumption that there's a 0.8:1 ratio of petrol to crude oil, and the real number is probably less.)
Three million barrels of oil is a lot of oil.
I suspect an attack of PB approximation disease - choose number - OMG Whatalot. Is it actually a lot? So, a sanity check.
(I'm not quibbling about the average size of a tank, which I think is 20% smaller, or the ignoring of 'diesel' cars which are 25% and are the same for this purpose, but some are electric).
I'm working in litres, as I'm not an Imperialist. 114 million gallons of fuel x 4.546 is 518 million litres, which is the suggested amount of fuel "we need to find".
Average UK weekly fuel sales are £800 million, which is remarkably consistent.
Fuel prices are around £1.35 per litre. Also consistent for several years (brief Covid discounts excepted).
So weekly fuel sales are 800/1.35 or 590 million litres per week.
So this big number that we are looking for is about 5 days sales.
Which is, I suggest, not actually very much. Although I think the RCS estimate is pretty good, and question the "that's a lot' interpretation.
At 30k litres per tanker, that is about 20k tanker deliveries.
Ah ha, but it is a lot.
Both the oil market and the refining market both extremely price inelastic in the short term. So, if you want to find three million barrels extra oil for the UK (and bear in mind that the world market is about 100 million barrels a day), then that's a lot of extra oil given we don't have massive amounts of storage, and oil reservoirs can't simply be turned on or off. In the very short term, you have to outcompete someone on price to get that marginal barrel of oil.
Any chance she could be tempted to switch from tennis to running the country?
Running it? Emma could be ruling it – she was playing doubles with the Duchess of Cambridge this morning. And iirc Emma does switch coaches more often than a second tier Premier League team. This chap's only been in place a few weeks after she axed her Wimbledon coach.
'No other pollster had Labour in anything like as good position and there has been a bit of a bounce back to the Tories.' Not true. Opinium a few days later had both main parties on 38% - whereas Yougov showed Labour ahead with only 35%. The Yougov poll was clearly an outlier in that the Tory vote was too low at 33%. Now Yougov appear to be back to business as usual with a high Green vote at Labour's expense.In a GE the Greens would not poll 9% - with a good prospect of Labour getting to 37%/38%. Certainly Hung Parliament territory with the Tories at 39%.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
I've not learned anything since the early 2000s, that's exhausting. Plus like a newspaper story it means I'm perennially surprised by everything.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Odd that, an opinion poll out on its own, and fitting the hopes of a well known poster (financial gain AND his favorite party), proving to be an outlier? Who'd have thought it? We never learn.
Bollocks mate. LAB is NOT my favourite party and this site is about betting.
Think he is referring to CHB Mike not you
And surely OGH ranks above 'well known poster'?
We could perhaps do with Ars-style poster rankings: - Political obsessive (starting rank, I guess) - Pedant (awarded for first pedantic post, probably could be starting rank) - Full time job poster (reserved for Philip, Scott) - Drunken entertainer (for the poster formerly known as SeanT) - Well known poster (after, what, 100 replies or likes?)
Shell saying it's bringing forwards deliveries to forecourts. In this weird alternate universe that's apparently impossible and the man from Shell must be lying because the UK has got no tanker drivers.
Britain also has no petrol shortages so that is another reason Shell must be lying.
The trouble is, once the panic starts, the fuel deliveries can't keep pace with the demand. The supply from each tanker is used up more quickly.
I remember my mother queuing for three gallons of petrol (rationed) in 1974 and my father earnestly predicting there would be riots if petrol went above £1 a gallon.
Strangely, twenty one years on from the 2000 crisis, we still incredibly dependent on and vulnerable to any interruption to petrol supplies.
This is absolutely crucial.
There are 38 million cars in the UK. If we assume they all have 15 gallon petrol tanks, and that at any time they are normally 60% filled, that means there are 342 million gallons of petrol sitting in peoples' cars normally.
Now, if people panic about petrol availability, and everyone wants their car filled to (on average) 80% capacity to deal with the risk of shortages, then you need to find 114 million gallons of petrol.
That is about three million barrels of oil. (Indeed, that's based on the rather lazy assumption that there's a 0.8:1 ratio of petrol to crude oil, and the real number is probably less.)
Three million barrels of oil is a lot of oil.
I suspect an attack of PB approximation disease - choose number - OMG Whatalot. Is it actually a lot? So, a sanity check.
(I'm not quibbling about the average size of a tank, which I think is 20% smaller, or the ignoring of 'diesel' cars which are 25% and are the same for this purpose, but some are electric).
I'm working in litres, as I'm not an Imperialist. 114 million gallons of fuel x 4.546 is 518 million litres, which is the suggested amount of fuel "we need to find".
Average UK weekly fuel sales are £800 million, which is remarkably consistent.
Fuel prices are around £1.35 per litre. Also consistent for several years (brief Covid discounts excepted).
So weekly fuel sales are 800/1.35 or 590 million litres per week.
So this big number that we are looking for is about 5 days sales.
Which is, I suggest, not actually very much. Although I think the RCS estimate is pretty good, and question the "that's a lot' interpretation.
At 30k litres per tanker, that is about 20k tanker deliveries.
Ah ha, but it is a lot.
Both the oil market and the refining market both extremely price inelastic in the short term. So, if you want to find three million barrels extra oil for the UK (and bear in mind that the world market is about 100 million barrels a day), then that's a lot of extra oil given we don't have massive amounts of storage, and oil reservoirs can't simply be turned on or off. In the very short term, you have to outcompete someone on price to get that marginal barrel of oil.
The same is true, of course, for natural gas. There was a huge drop in exploration spending thanks to the pandemic, and higher prices aren't going to cure supply problems for about a year, even though lead-times are considerably shorter than for oil production.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone on here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
I agree. But I'm pretty sure you said earlier today that those drifting from Labour to Green hate Starmer even more than they hate the Tories. They really don't; they will hold their noses and vote Labour if the Greens have no chance and if the Tories are a clear and present danger. The three constituencies in Brighton and Hove are instructive in this. Caroline Lucas's seat is safe Green, so the Labour vote has collapsed. But both Kemptown and Hove used to be Tory; they both now have stonking Labour majorities, thanks in part to Green sympathisers voting Labour to keep the Tories out. There are Green types all over Brighton, but the Green vote only holds up in Lucas's seat. The Greens do better in local elections.
The thing I suspect saving Labour from seeing a SNP-style wipeout in urban seats with a high percentage of educated, professional voters is that the Greens are seen as rubbish when it comes to running things. However, for many of these voters, their views are more aligned with the Greens than Labour.
Any chance she could be tempted to switch from tennis to running the country?
Running it? Emma could be ruling it – she was playing doubles with the Duchess of Cambridge this morning. And iirc Emma does switch coaches more often than a second tier Premier League team. This chap's only been in place a few weeks after she axed her Wimbledon coach.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
I'm sorry, but @Chris told me very emphatically that case-to-hospitalization rates had not dropped.
I did notice, looking back, that he'd responded to my graph by challenging the reliability of the ONS daily incidence figures and saying we could really only rely on the prevalence ones.
So I've gone and compared the ONS prevalence numbers for England to the number in hospital in England (lagged to coincide peaks and normalised to equalise the height of the peaks).
After all - number infected at any one time compared to number seriously ill in hospital at any one time should be the comparable metrics.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone pn here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
The point is we are mid term and labour are on 32-35%.
If you believe the next election will be in 2023, then we're practically in the last 18 months.
The election has to be after the boundary changes are implemented so I suspect it's November 2023 so 26 months away.
October 2023 is more likely . The boundary changes can be implemented in July 2023.
"That YouGov LAB lead poll is increasingly looking like an outlier"
Not by tomorrow it won't be.
What is surprising is how the Tory vote reduces and then within a few days returns to previous heights.
It seems that 25% of the Tory vote has the memory of a goldfish - they react to a tap on the fish tank's glass and then within a week or so completely forget about the reason why there were annoyed.
The Tory vote is very slowly going down. Labour's problem is that it is not benefiting.
I suspect it's benefiting, it's just that at the same time some tentative Labour support is shifting to the Lib Dems and Greens.
That was what Yougov's latest poll suggested: SKS's "after you Boris" approach is winning back support but shedding voters on the other side.
Of those 2019 Labour voters who gave us a party vote intention (i.e. excluding those who will not vote or are currently unsure), 78% said they would stick with Labour. At this point 11% would vote Green instead, 4% would now vote Conservative, and another 4% would vote Liberal Democrat. A mere 1% would switch to Reform UK. This suggests that Labour face their biggest thread from the left – specifically the Greens – when it comes to shoring up their voter base from the last election. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/23/labour-are-struggling-make-big-inroads-voters-are-
I would expect a decent chunk of that Green vote to come back.
What would be your line on under/over Green % at the next GE?
I reckon they'll end up with around 5%, slightly more than they got in 2019 - and most of the rise will happen in safe Labour seats.
Yeah I reckon so too. Reduced Labour majorities in a few safe seats, but no real damage. Someone on here produced a list of seats where a drift from Lab to Green could let the Tories in, but cant be many.
I agree. But I'm pretty sure you said earlier today that those drifting from Labour to Green hate Starmer even more than they hate the Tories. They really don't; they will hold their noses and vote Labour if the Greens have no chance and if the Tories are a clear and present danger. The three constituencies in Brighton and Hove are instructive in this. Caroline Lucas's seat is safe Green, so the Labour vote has collapsed. But both Kemptown and Hove used to be Tory; they both now have stonking Labour majorities, thanks in part to Green sympathisers voting Labour to keep the Tories out. There are Green types all over Brighton, but the Green vote only holds up in Lucas's seat. The Greens do better in local elections.
Brighton Pavilion was also a Tory seat - indeed safer than Kemptown. For many years it was represented by Julian Amery.
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
Philip, with respect, the high inflation of the 70s and early 80s was of a different order, all-pervading and in most areas very caustic, very disruptive.
We really don't want that again, it does no one any good.
I disagree. I'd MUCH rather that than no wage inflation but escalating cost inflation.
Increasing costs but not wages may be good for those who don't have to pay those costs but it's a complete disaster for those who do have to pay those costs.
We need balance. Low wage inflation with low cost inflation may be good, but we haven't had that ... Unless you exclude costs that people have no choice but to pay.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
If it's youngsters getting infected, and they're not passing it on to oldies....hospital rates will continue to fall - and in a largely vaccinated population, the hospitalisation rate is what we should be paying attention to.
I'm sorry, but @Chris told me very emphatically that case-to-hospitalization rates had not dropped.
I did notice, looking back, that he'd responded to my graph by challenging the reliability of the ONS daily incidence figures and saying we could really only rely on the prevalence ones.
So I've gone and compared the ONS prevalence numbers for England to the number in hospital in England (lagged to coincide peaks and normalised to equalise the height of the peaks).
After all - number infected at any one time compared to number seriously ill in hospital at any one time should be the comparable metrics.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
See also: Iraq. The Conservatives wanted that war too. But Labour deservedly gets the blame.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
It depends on how this crisis is mitigated and the publics perception, not least whether labour would have been better
In Los Angeles for a week, a few things to report:
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
See also: Iraq. The Conservatives wanted that war too. But Labour deservedly gets the blame.
See also GFC and Labour spending. Both of which there was no discernible policy difference.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
See also: Iraq. The Conservatives wanted that war too. But Labour deservedly gets the blame.
What was the Conservatives position on A8 Accession?
Amputations and executions, yes, but also this: [Mullah in charge of prisons] notorious for his harsh punishments for people caught listening to non-religious music or trimming their beards in the 1990s, told AP that although harsh forms of punishment would continue, the group would now allow televisions, mobile phones, photos and videos.
In Los Angeles for a week, a few things to report:
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
Biden's definitely a one term President. In fact, I suspect he may well be a 0.6 term President.
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
Another bad decision.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
No it's not. This is a crisis averted by Johnson and Priti.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
And a problem for Labour
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
I am not sure that is a problem for anyone but the incumbent, unless you can demonstrate it is the Labour Party's fault that the situation was allowed to arise.
They did not raise it and have agreed largely with HMG policies
I know the Johnsonian Conservatives are cuddly and gorgeous, but even if this were the fault of everyone but Johnson, he carries the can because he is in office. Those are the rules of incumbency. Likewise he was carried through town on a golden sedan chair as a reward for the success of the vaccine rollout.
It depends on how this crisis is mitigated and the publics perception, not least whether labour would have been better
Wish away BigG.
If no one thinks queueing outside the Tesco filling station for an hour is fun the Government gets the blame. If voters decide they really like the idea of panic buying fuel, Labour will be ten points behind the Conservatives on the next round of opinion polls. Labour in opposition are mere bystanders.
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
Philip, with respect, the high inflation of the 70s and early 80s was of a different order, all-pervading and in most areas very caustic, very disruptive.
We really don't want that again, it does no one any good.
As a teenager of the 70s, I remember the effect of inflation on my family's shopping budget. Even though Mum and Dad both worked, it was always a race to the end of the week to the next pay packet. A large amount of the pay was for food and energy, so inflation used to have a big effect. I remember a quarterly gas bill of £30 really causing a lot of trouble to pay. ( I think that was a whole week's money for Dad then. I remember after Mum died, we went through her belongings to find page after page of added up money amounts. I think she went through hell then.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only for a duration of the next couple of months, it will create a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
In Los Angeles for a week, a few things to report:
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
Biden's definitely a one term President. In fact, I suspect he may well be a 0.6 term President.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
But we were assured the shortage of drivers was a world wide problem.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
I think these will ultimately be for EU workers, and even if not explicitly so, the broader immigration issue will also still be raised as a political principle.
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
In Los Angeles for a week, a few things to report:
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
Biden's definitely a one term President. In fact, I suspect he may well be a 0.6 term President.
So should Boris be as PM.
Well whether we count a term as a full five years, or the average parliament being more like 4 (probably 3.75 or something like that), he must be close to that 0.6.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
I think these will ultimately be for EU workers, and even if not explicitly so, the broader immigration issue will also still be raised as a political principle.
They'll be available to all drivers. But pretty much the only HGV licenses we'll recognise will be our own and those from EEA countries.
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*. Independence, self-sufficiency, autonomy, taking back control of borders.
In Los Angeles for a week, a few things to report:
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
Biden's definitely a one term President. In fact, I suspect he may well be a 0.6 term President.
So should Boris be as PM.
Well whether we count a term as a full five years, or the average parliament being more like 4 (probably 3.75 or something like that), he must be close to that 0.6.
Indeed and its time for Truss or Sunak to replace him. He's lost his nerve.
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*.
No that's not true, its been about uncontrolled immigration. Allowing it in controlled is perfectly compatible.
Its just not necessary since pay rates haven't been done properly.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
I think these will ultimately be for EU workers, and even if not explicitly so, the broader immigration issue will also still be raised as a political principle.
They may but all applicants must prove they can read, write, and understand English to at least level B1 so will attract from the ROW
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only just for a duration of the next few months, it creates a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
The visa quota are not EU restricted but available to workers across the world
But we were assured the shortage of drivers was a world wide problem.
Half a million shortage in the EU so the wider the net the better
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*.
No that's not true, its been about uncontrolled immigration. Allowing it in controlled is perfectly compatible.
Its just not necessary since pay rates haven't been done properly.
Well, the Daily Mail litmus test commenters are already fuming. "If we're going to let in EU drivers back in what was Brexit for ? " is one of the choice comments I saw this afternoon.
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*.
No that's not true, its been about uncontrolled immigration. Allowing it in controlled is perfectly compatible.
Its just not necessary since pay rates haven't been done properly.
They should all go on strike Red Philo. All out lads, the management haven't got nice enough biscuits.
What a political catch-22 for the government are facing tonight. If they issue special EU visas, even if only for a duration of the next couple of months, it will create a large neon sign saying "Brexit" in Hollywood-sized letters, but if they don't, the short-term problems will surely be exacerbated.
But we can all be reassured as long as Raab is DPM and Patel the HomeSec
So the problem which apparently according to Leavers wasn’t made worse by Brexit will be alleviated by removing some of the restrictions placed on EU drivers by Brexit .
Leavers need to stop embarrassing themselves . They seem to be running down a rabbit hole and flailing as to how they can continue to polish the Brexit turd!
Remainers need to stop embarrassing themselves. Leavers are saying its a good thing not a problem.
I’m happy to see wages going up for drivers , equally the pragmatic solution until more U.K. drivers can be hired is to temporarily relax the visa rules . This seems like common sense whereas sticking to your stance re this issue seems to be hoping the problem will magically go away overnight . How can supply shortages and problems with supply chains be a good thing .
So-called "problems" force people to pay the real market rate. Drivers get to go to whichever "predatory pay rise" (TM Rochdale) gets offered to them, the firms get to move whichever goods companies are prepared to pay enough to get moved - and the freeloaders at the bottom of the pyramid fall out.
The problem with your argument is that it's not the freeloaders who are falling out.
Its the greater hassle fuel and coolchain hauliers who have immediate problems because the extra money they pay is now not worth the extra hassle.
The biggie was when the pay fiesta hit the tanker drivers. I assume that Hoyer et al have responded with their own pay rises so they will recruit drivers back which will fill the gaps. Until the next round of poaching when we go back to shortages again and again.
Thing is, if you are an ADR driver the country really needs you driving fuel and toxic chemicals, not sofas. "Just pay more" is fine and they will and are. But as you lose and then poach back drivers you have gaps and that means fuel shortages.
Then maybe don't lose them. Maybe pay them more in the first place and when they hand in their notice, maybe stop and think "oh I'll need to pay even more than this".
If you keep having pathetically small pay rises under the circumstances then yes that will be a problem. Its a problem you need to fix though not have the state fix it for you.
38% is "pathetically small"?
How much should a pay rise be to (a) keep existing drivers and (b) cover any and all possible pay rises by competitors? I've managed a lot of salary budgets and recruited talent where you have to pay to keep them. Never managed a speculative +80% or +180% just in case the rival down the road increases their offer.
If you haven't filled your vacancies then yes it is.
The benchmark I'm using is I know truckers in the States can be on over $100k per annum. What did your piddly 38% (34% if we exclude the 2.5% inflation only rise) pay rise in the circumstances increase pay upto out of curiosity?
"Your piddly 38% pay rise"
Careful. Your trolling about this is very high grade but you've now become complacent. And this is just to see how much you can get away with. Don't blow it.
I'm not trolling.
For months now Rochdale and others have been saying that there's this humongous crisis in the industry with 100,000 extra staff needed. The refrain time and again was pay more to get the vacancies paid.
I for one did not mean a 38% pay rise as being the limit for that. Yes if it means a 100% pay rise or more to fill the vacancies then JFDI applies.
If you want to increase the pool of drivers by 33% then I see no reason why they must be paid less than MPs for instance.
Time for some back of the envelope maths.
Give 300k truck drivers £40k salary increases is an extra £12bn filtering through to costs for UK plc. Over £400 per household.
And that is just one industry, there will be other wage rises we have to fund too, we have tax increases, energy increases as well.
Something is going to break, and it will be government promises around controlling migration.
I am not at all sure where your 300k truck drivers are to receive an additional £40K pa to their existing salary
They have seen increases but not of that magnitude
Or am I missing something
It is PT's "unusual" solution of increasing pay by 100%, not that of anyone responsible for this in the real world.
How is that "unusual" if you want to fill 100k vacancies from within this country? Its just supply and demand
If you don't want to fill 100k vacancies then yes fair enough don't raise prices to the appropriate market rate. But if you do, you charge whatever you need to and pay whatever you need to.
That's the going rate in the USA. I see no reason it shouldn't be the going rate in this country. Do you?
In isolation its fine. But there are millions of households who cannot afford £400 extra costs to pay for wage increases in just a single industry, on top of rising costs and taxes elsewhere. If that is the Brexit dividend the government will lose the next election. They don't want to so will allow much more migration than many Brexit voters want, but try and pretend it is temporary and less than it is.
Wage rises are going up in other sectors too.
Taxes should be cut and wages rise, besides as wages rise that's more money for the exchequer anyway.
The first generation to not live through the downsides of high inflation are starting to come through. It will not be the happy place you think it is. There will be winners, sure, but losers too, and losers blame politicians more than winners give them credit.
I've lived through high inflation.
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
Philip, with respect, the high inflation of the 70s and early 80s was of a different order, all-pervading and in most areas very caustic, very disruptive.
We really don't want that again, it does no one any good.
As a teenager of the 70s, I remember the effect of inflation on my family's shopping budget. Even though Mum and Dad both worked, it was always a race to the end of the week to the next pay packet. A large amount of the pay was for food and energy, so inflation used to have a big effect. I remember a quarterly gas bill of £30 really causing a lot of trouble to pay. ( I think that was a whole week's money for Dad then. I remember after Mum died, we went through her belongings to find page after page of added up money amounts. I think she went through hell then.
And nobody has any difficulty today? 🤔
Yes we've made progress in the past few decades and so we should have. But that progress has gone backwards since about 2003 for many people when costs started rising faster than wages.
Costs rising faster than wages is an unmitigated disaster whether it be housing, or food, or energy or anything else. As time goes on, wages should always be rising faster than costs.
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*. Independence, self-sufficiency, autonomy, taking back control of borders.
I absolutely believe that and the legislation has passed HOC implementing the new visa quota system
UK visa quotas apply to workers worldwide not just the EU
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Come now, Big G, I don't believe you really believe that. The entirety of Brexit post-2016 has been presented as a movement against immigration *in principle*. Independence, self-sufficiency, autonomy, taking back control of borders.
I absolutely believe that and the legislation has passed HOC implementing the new visa quota system
Big spike in energy prices. Growing shortages in production and distribution of food. A threat to Christmas.
Comments
Shell has seen an increase in demand and is adapting delivery schedules to ensure supplies
Relaxation of rules for HGV drivers and other workers imminent
It's just that high inflation has been in housing costs and not wages. In London in 1997 the average house price was about 100k and in the rest of the UK it was even cheaper ... Do you really think we've not lived through inflation since?
It's time to have inflation in wages instead of costs.
We still have a few day yet before we would expect to see an uptick in admissions if there is still a raw case-to-hospitalisation link.
Let's see what the salary threshold is if there is one. I bet it's lower than an MPs. There's no reason an HGV driver if they're in high demand should be less valuable than an MP. Let the market find an appropriate rate based on supply and demand.
(I'm not quibbling about the average size of a tank, which I think is 20% smaller, or the ignoring of 'diesel' cars which are 25% and are the same for this purpose, but some are electric).
I'm working in litres, as I'm not an Imperialist. 114 million gallons of fuel x 4.546 is 518 million litres, which is the suggested amount of fuel "we need to find".
Average UK weekly fuel sales are £800 million, which is remarkably consistent.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/287970/weekly-automotive-fuel-retail-sales-monetary-value-great-britain/
Fuel prices are around £1.35 per litre. Also consistent for several years (brief Covid discounts excepted).
So weekly fuel sales are 800/1.35 or 590 million litres per week.
So this big number that we are looking for is about 5 days sales.
Which is, I suggest, not actually very much. Although I think the RCS estimate is pretty good, and question the "that's a lot' interpretation.
At 30k litres per tanker, that is about 20k tanker deliveries.
The impacts of extremely high wage and goods inflation, which is what you are calling for, what we are discussing, and the most common usage of the word inflation, are quite different to those.
Your blinkered view is naive. As soon as we have trained enough drivers their value decreases as per supply and demand economics.
£25,600 pa
£10.10 per hour
The going rate for the type of work
We really don't want that again, it does no one any good.
Amazon warehouse pays £10 (minimum) an hour...
What would you do
We would not have allowed the crisis to arise
But what would you do
The same
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/24/emma-raducanu-splits-from-coach-who-guided-her-to-shock-us-open-triumph-tennis
Any chance she could be tempted to switch from tennis to running the country?
Both the oil market and the refining market both extremely price inelastic in the short term. So, if you want to find three million barrels extra oil for the UK (and bear in mind that the world market is about 100 million barrels a day), then that's a lot of extra oil given we don't have massive amounts of storage, and oil reservoirs can't simply be turned on or off. In the very short term, you have to outcompete someone on price to get that marginal barrel of oil.
See this excellent article - http://theoildrum.com/node/2899
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58682472
We need to stop the twattish deliberate demand side inflation, and make it relatively somewhat more expensive to own an expensive home (and especially an expensive home) by a suitable wealth tax (Proportional Property Tax would do nicely), and continue with much of the other stuff they have been doing.
Without panicking.
Lots of love and goodwill for RTD among all generations of fans. Hope he can put the ship back on course.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/oil-and-oil-products-section-3-energy-trends
So the inelasticity of world markets seems to not be dominant in the short term.
Or, as the talking head said, "there is not a shortage of petrol".
Can you find a number for how many days petrol stocks we have?
I agree there is an issue with low natural gas stocks, but petrol seems to be counted in several weeks or months.
Not true. Opinium a few days later had both main parties on 38% - whereas Yougov showed Labour ahead with only 35%. The Yougov poll was clearly an outlier in that the Tory vote was too low at 33%. Now Yougov appear to be back to business as usual with a high Green vote at Labour's expense.In a GE the Greens would not poll 9% - with a good prospect of Labour getting to 37%/38%. Certainly Hung Parliament territory with the Tories at 39%.
We could perhaps do with Ars-style poster rankings:
- Political obsessive (starting rank, I guess)
- Pedant (awarded for first pedantic post, probably could be starting rank)
- Full time job poster (reserved for Philip, Scott)
- Drunken entertainer (for the poster formerly known as SeanT)
- Well known poster (after, what, 100 replies or likes?)
There was a huge drop in exploration spending thanks to the pandemic, and higher prices aren't going to cure supply problems for about a year, even though lead-times are considerably shorter than for oil production.
Also a guaranteed script for Mark Gatiss every season.
So I've gone and compared the ONS prevalence numbers for England to the number in hospital in England (lagged to coincide peaks and normalised to equalise the height of the peaks).
After all - number infected at any one time compared to number seriously ill in hospital at any one time should be the comparable metrics.
Guess what:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58682998
Increasing costs but not wages may be good for those who don't have to pay those costs but it's a complete disaster for those who do have to pay those costs.
We need balance. Low wage inflation with low cost inflation may be good, but we haven't had that ... Unless you exclude costs that people have no choice but to pay.
She has not been able to travel to China to promote BC due to concerns about her security and safety since the arrest
What the hell happened to the private car market in the last 10 years ?
weather is great but LA itself is falling to pieces. Filthy, buildings are crumbling down and the homeless population out of control. Obviously it depends where you go through - Beverley Hills and the usual places still look good but the poorer areas / centre have really deteriorated since a few years back.
Recall is definitely yesterday's news. Everyone has forgotten about it and, while it was good for Larry Elder, I don't think it was great for the Republican GOP although it may have helped its case in the inland counties and the Recall "Yes" vote of near 38% is higher than Trump's vote. Newsom is certainly not acting as though he needs to change his behaviour (a nd why should he).
One piece of anecdata - my sister-in-law who is a Bernie supporter shocked us by saying that Biden's a one-term President and that Trump is going to get back in 2024. She brought up specifically the Haitian refugee surge on the Texas border. She would never vote for Trump but she thinks the Administration is running out of steam.
There are 8,384 petrol stations in the UK with around 100 experiencing problems
In the last 2 months I have increased wages twice
Amputations and executions, yes, but also this:
[Mullah in charge of prisons] notorious for his harsh punishments for people caught listening to non-religious music or trimming their beards in the 1990s, told AP that although harsh forms of punishment would continue, the group would now allow televisions, mobile phones, photos and videos.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58675153
I think the last holdout on mobiles is now AndyJS
If no one thinks queueing outside the Tesco filling station for an hour is fun the Government gets the blame. If voters decide they really like the idea of panic buying fuel, Labour will be ten points behind the Conservatives on the next round of opinion polls. Labour in opposition are mere bystanders.
And the system being applied is exactly as planned post brexit
Freedom of movement holding down wages gone, and a visa system with minimum wages of £25,600 and only for skilled jobs benefitting the economy now is place
This is the brexit dividend
Its just not necessary since pay rates haven't been done properly.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvnxa/snapchat-is-fuelling-britains-teen-murder-epidemic
Not sure i agree with the premise its all snapchat fault, but there is a serious.problem that is getting worse.
Yes we've made progress in the past few decades and so we should have. But that progress has gone backwards since about 2003 for many people when costs started rising faster than wages.
Costs rising faster than wages is an unmitigated disaster whether it be housing, or food, or energy or anything else. As time goes on, wages should always be rising faster than costs.
One rule for Johnny Foreigner and another less optimal rule for me under Johnson's Brexit Britain.
This is the Brexit dividend.