Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
It was happening immediately after
- the referendum - Article 50 - Brexit
What a flimsy & transparent lie for him to pretend otherwise
James O'Brien is desperate to always "be right" and is secretly delighted at these supply chain challenges now as it gives him a chance to argue he's been finally vindicated.
If instead of pay increases, full employment and lots of job vacancies we had mass unemployment, falling pay rates and no job vacancies then he'd also claim Project Fear was right.
Personally I view pay increases, full employment and job vacancies as a good thing and a sign of a good economy. Others mileage may vary.
Request for info... Would putting an empty glass jam jar outside provide a reasonably accurate rain guage by measuring with a ruler ?
Yes. Needs to be straight sided.
The curve at the bottom would make measuring most British rain fall impossible by ruler. Let alone the size of the lip vs the size of the rest of the jar.
Sure but i only want a rough idea... how rough is my rough idea?
See my post above - I reckon it will be +/- 20%, but you can help yourself by using a straight sided vessel, with as large a circumference as possible. Jam jars may not be best. Think about a saucepan, and then use a ruler without a dead section at the end (i.e. the measuring starts at the tip).
Edit - If you want to know than buy a rain gauge and compare to your jar method. But then as you have a rain gauge, you won't need the jar...
I would calculate the cross sectional area of the pan, and then weigh the pan empty and after the rain to determine how much water it has collected. A quick calc and you get the depth. The density of water being 1g/cm3 makes this easy. Should be more accurate using a kitchen balance than a ruler when the depth is minimal.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
I don't blame Brexit, rather the present Government's failure to prepare for Brexit. And also the failure of the previous government, which acted as though it could render Brexit all but meaningless if it happened at all.
Basically the present approach seems to be, let's see what happens and do nothing on the laissez-faire assumption that the market will eventually sort things out. It probably will, five years or so down the line, but in a sub-optimal way with a lot of pain in between. An interventionist government could easily have anticipated the present problems and taken steps years ago to effect changes directly and through incentives. Let's not forget that the Brexit vote was 5 years ago.
You are behind the curve on this. Far from scaremongering, this is the Brexiteer master plan. It has been in place ever since 2016. They didn't really talk about it much before last week, but apparently if you dig you can find the earlier references to it.
Far from scaremongering or the Brexiteer master plan its what we've had for the past two decades.
CPI is based upon owner occupiers costs, but for non-owner occupiers housing is the biggest element of their budget even bigger than food and that has been inflated by 6.2% per annum since 1999 but wages have gone up by 2.8% inflation since then.
So spare me any crocodile tears about inflation now please. Some people have 'enjoyed' inflicting inflation upon this country for over two decades and only now are scared it might affect them instead of others.
Karma's a Bitch.
Your compassion for others is legendary. Get yourself a job keyboard boy and see a bit more of the real world.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I have not the slightest scepticism of their motives.
When asked they will state, generally, that they are employed to maximise shareholder vale in the short term. Which they are remunerated for.
Some years ago, a Bank I was working at tried an elaborate scheme to try and stop derivatives traders simply making a profit. They wanted them to expand business. This resulted is traders selling below market value to expand business......
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
I don't blame Brexit, rather the present Government's failure to prepare for Brexit. And also the failure of the previous government, which acted as though it could render Brexit all but meaningless if it happened at all.
Basically the present approach seems to be, let's see what happens and do nothing on the laissez-faire assumption that the market will eventually sort things out. It probably will, five years or so down the line, but in a sub-optimal way
Yes, I can certainly sympathise with that - to move away from free movement and restrict low-level immigration you need to work on a domestic labour strategy and work closely with businesses, schools and adult education institutes to aid that transition.
You are behind the curve on this. Far from scaremongering, this is the Brexiteer master plan. It has been in place ever since 2016. They didn't really talk about it much before last week, but apparently if you dig you can find the earlier references to it.
Far from scaremongering or the Brexiteer master plan its what we've had for the past two decades.
CPI is based upon owner occupiers costs, but for non-owner occupiers housing is the biggest element of their budget even bigger than food and that has been inflated by 6.2% per annum since 1999 but wages have gone up by 2.8% inflation since then.
So spare me any crocodile tears about inflation now please. Some people have 'enjoyed' inflicting inflation upon this country for over two decades and only now are scared it might affect them instead of others.
Karma's a Bitch.
Your compassion for others is legendary. Get yourself a job keyboard boy and see a bit more of the real world.
I do have compassion for others, that's why I advocate cutting real tax rates on the poorest and ensuring everyone can afford their own home via their own hard work not inheritances.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Does anyone else find the exactitude of the 100,000 claim a little too precise? I mean if they said 97,000 or 103,000 I'd probably be happy, but it just looks plucked out of the air (as does 500,000 across Europe).
There probably is a precise figure but it's just reported as "over" 100,000 drivers.
You can see in this graph here that vacancies across Europe have tracked a similar trend over Covid:
Those are % changes - do you have the absolute numbers ?
Since when does Bluewater qualify as the "High Street"? Is this an error or has all physical retail space become the "High Street" now?
The "High Street" has become a synonym for all physical retail space now. Especially in discussions related to Amazon or 'High Street retailers'
When Debenhams collapsed that was spoken about as the High Street, I can't think of many High Street Debenhams stores they're primarily in large shopping centres too.
Just like every passenger on the railway is a 'commuter'.
And every member of a political party is an 'activist'.
Since when does Bluewater qualify as the "High Street"? Is this an error or has all physical retail space become the "High Street" now?
The "High Street" has become a synonym for all physical retail space now. Especially in discussions related to Amazon or 'High Street retailers'
When Debenhams collapsed that was spoken about as the High Street, I can't think of many High Street Debenhams stores they're primarily in large shopping centres too.
Just like every passenger on the railway is a 'commuter'.
And every member of a political party is an 'activist'.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Brexit appears to have undermined UK resilience, in ways that are not generally understood. Which is why the UK is in a supply shock when other countries aren't that are facing similar stresses.
Since when does Bluewater qualify as the "High Street"? Is this an error or has all physical retail space become the "High Street" now?
The "High Street" has become a synonym for all physical retail space now. Especially in discussions related to Amazon or 'High Street retailers'
When Debenhams collapsed that was spoken about as the High Street, I can't think of many High Street Debenhams stores they're primarily in large shopping centres too.
Just like every passenger on the railway is a 'commuter'.
And every member of a political party is an 'activist'.
And every MP who might be in trouble or defecting is a ‘senior’ MP. Where ‘senior’, appears to mean ‘was an MP before the last election’.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
I don't blame Brexit, rather the present Government's failure to prepare for Brexit. And also the failure of the previous government, which acted as though it could render Brexit all but meaningless if it happened at all.
Basically the present approach seems to be, let's see what happens and do nothing on the laissez-faire assumption that the market will eventually sort things out. It probably will, five years or so down the line, but in a sub-optimal way with a lot of pain in between. An interventionist government could easily have anticipated the present problems and taken steps years ago to effect changes directly and through incentives. Let's not forget that the Brexit vote was 5 years ago.
There may be pain in between but laissez-faire means we end up in the right destination.
Government intervention means the government picking [quite probably the wrong] winners and losers.
You are behind the curve on this. Far from scaremongering, this is the Brexiteer master plan. It has been in place ever since 2016. They didn't really talk about it much before last week, but apparently if you dig you can find the earlier references to it.
Far from scaremongering or the Brexiteer master plan its what we've had for the past two decades.
CPI is based upon owner occupiers costs, but for non-owner occupiers housing is the biggest element of their budget even bigger than food and that has been inflated by 6.2% per annum since 1999 but wages have gone up by 2.8% inflation since then.
So spare me any crocodile tears about inflation now please. Some people have 'enjoyed' inflicting inflation upon this country for over two decades and only now are scared it might affect them instead of others.
Karma's a Bitch.
The FBPE supporters are realising that Boris is running rings round them and are in panic mode talking to themselves whilst the country moves on
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
That's a nonsensical response to the Wolfson plan, which would mean that any EU workers would cost companies more than domestic ones.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Interesting. Tim Harford thought otherwise. You pays your money and takes your pick.
Either way it is a proportion of the incremental shortage above that which we've been (happily?) living with these past years. So even if it's "only" 10,000 that is still 20% of the shortage.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
That's a nonsensical response to the Woodson plan, which would mean that any EU workers would cost companies more than domestic ones.
That's nonsensical, if that were the case then why would any EU workers be hired?
What you mean is they'd cost more than they want to offer to domestic ones. The idea is that domestic ones aren't being offered enough yet so wages should go up, having a supplement for EU workers that is less than the amount wages for domestic workers should go up is still a saving.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Does anyone else find the exactitude of the 100,000 claim a little too precise? I mean if they said 97,000 or 103,000 I'd probably be happy, but it just looks plucked out of the air (as does 500,000 across Europe).
There probably is a precise figure but it's just reported as "over" 100,000 drivers.
You can see in this graph here that vacancies across Europe have tracked a similar trend over Covid:
Those are % changes - do you have the absolute numbers ?
Yes, they are in here - Germany, Poland and the UK are the worst affected:
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Every HGV driver I knew voted Leave. 100% of them.
There was a reason for that and to be frank they've been vindicated. People like Scott and O'Brien and Foremain look down their noses at those voters, but they've got what they voted for.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Interesting. Tim Harford thought otherwise. You pays your money and takes your pick.
Either way it is a proportion of the incremental shortage above that which we've been (happily?) living with these past years. So even if it's "only" 10,000 that is still 20% of the shortage.
Demand patterns were different and more predictable pre-Covid, so it's not just a case of looking at longstanding supply shortages - you have to look at the other side of the equation too.
I've admitted Brexit does pose an extra challenge - where I digress is the inference that life would be perfectly rosy without it, and that it's an insurmountable one.
We can plug 30-40k HGV drivers (or more) in the UK domestically over 6-18 months with the right strategy.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Interesting. Tim Harford thought otherwise. You pays your money and takes your pick.
Either way it is a proportion of the incremental shortage above that which we've been (happily?) living with these past years. So even if it's "only" 10,000 that is still 20% of the shortage.
Demand patterns were different and more predictable pre-Covid, so it's not just a case of looking at longstanding supply shortages - you have to look at the other side of the equation too.
I've admitted Brexit does pose an extra challenge - where I digress is the inference that life would be perfectly rosy without it, and that it's an insurmountable one.
We can plug 30-40k HGV drivers (or more) in the UK domestically over 6-18 months with the right strategy.
Not unless we actually spend some effort trying to make it a decent job as well.
Renting affordability - no surprise that London (by a wide margin) and the South East are least affordable - but some surprises lower down the rankings:
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Given that even in the thickest parts of the Waitrose belt nobody is now queueing for fuel any problems seem to have been based on nothing more fundamental than a critical mass of fuckwits and nimbys. Sparked off by BP subcontracting its fuel delivery rather than paying the going rate.
As to 'empty shelves' the distinct absence of any photographic evidence suggests it exists more a wish than a reality.
There's also this:
Tesco doubled profits in the first half of the year as it reduced costs related to the coronavirus pandemic and said its strong supply chain had kept shelves stocked despite widespread delivery problems across the industry.
If 'empty shelves' are something which only exists for some shops in some parts of the country then that suggests there is no fundamental national problem but more individual problems which ultimately lead back to inadequate pay either at certain businesses and/or certain parts of the country.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Because the youngest and naive voted to Remain yes. But students aren't workers any more than the retired are.
The original reason for excluding housing costs from some inflation measures was the argument that when the Bank of England put up interest rates, to control inflation, this led to a feedback loop when the resulting rise in cost was measured as inflation.
No-one has explained to me why they didn't simply create another inflation measure, for use by the BoE, which excluded mortgage interest rates. And I asked someone in the BoE research dept. about this.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Because the youngest and naive voted to Remain yes. But students aren't workers any more than the retired are.
Nice theory, but no:
A majority of those working full-time or part-time voted to remain in the EU; most of those not working voted to leave. More than half of those retired on a private pension voted to leave, as did two thirds of those retired on a state pension.
Boris to commit to minimum wage of £10.50 an hr by 2024.
Leaving the useless nonentity £10ph look exactly what it is ie pathetic.
SKS is foikin useless at this Politics lark.
PB ahead of the curve, we said that £10ph is less than what it would be by 2024 anyway.
Won't look so bloody clever when he's driven inflation into double figures, mind.
Double digit inflation could be just what we need.
We've had over 6% inflation for decades now for prices in things like houses, but wages hasn't kept up. If double-digit inflation happened now with wages keeping up but assets not then that would reverse the errors of the last couple of decades and take us back to a time where people could work hard and progress up the ladders. It'd be a transfer from those on fixed incomes, to those actually working for a living.
I see nothing wrong with that now.
How to tell someone didn't live through the Seventies.
We've gone back full circle back to the Seventies though. Inflation wasn't defeated, that was a myth, instead it was pushed onto certain costs and they've gone through the roof.
From memory in the Seventies the highest cost in a household's budget was food, rent or mortgage etc would cost about half of what food cost. In the Twenties the highest cost in a household's budget is housing. Rents or mortgages for new purchases cost more than what food costs.
So we've swapped around what's facing high inflation, but the highest element of the household budget was the one facing high inflation both then and now. The difference is that wages were growing in the past at least, they've not been growing anything like costs in recent years.
So for the I'm Alright Jacks who think costs are assets instead of costs maybe there's no inflation. Because they've found a way to bypass paying inflation, but others aren't.
That's no comfort if you go to buy bread. And discover that the bread you budgetted for last week isn't affordable now. This is life not a theoretical fantasy. Inflation hurts. Real people. Continually.
Yeah its fucking shit.
And you know what else is fucking shit? Having people told that their rent or getting a home isn't affordable now.
That's not a theoretical fantasy either, that's real life for countless people in this country.
Food is a smaller share of a household's budget than rent, so why is it OK to have double-digit rent inflation but not food or wage inflation?
Boris to commit to minimum wage of £10.50 an hr by 2024.
Leaving the useless nonentity £10ph look exactly what it is ie pathetic.
SKS is foikin useless at this Politics lark.
PB ahead of the curve, we said that £10ph is less than what it would be by 2024 anyway.
Won't look so bloody clever when he's driven inflation into double figures, mind.
Double digit inflation could be just what we need.
We've had over 6% inflation for decades now for prices in things like houses, but wages hasn't kept up. If double-digit inflation happened now with wages keeping up but assets not then that would reverse the errors of the last couple of decades and take us back to a time where people could work hard and progress up the ladders. It'd be a transfer from those on fixed incomes, to those actually working for a living.
I see nothing wrong with that now.
How to tell someone didn't live through the Seventies.
We've gone back full circle back to the Seventies though. Inflation wasn't defeated, that was a myth, instead it was pushed onto certain costs and they've gone through the roof.
From memory in the Seventies the highest cost in a household's budget was food, rent or mortgage etc would cost about half of what food cost. In the Twenties the highest cost in a household's budget is housing. Rents or mortgages for new purchases cost more than what food costs.
So we've swapped around what's facing high inflation, but the highest element of the household budget was the one facing high inflation both then and now. The difference is that wages were growing in the past at least, they've not been growing anything like costs in recent years.
So for the I'm Alright Jacks who think costs are assets instead of costs maybe there's no inflation. Because they've found a way to bypass paying inflation, but others aren't.
That's no comfort if you go to buy bread. And discover that the bread you budgetted for last week isn't affordable now. This is life not a theoretical fantasy. Inflation hurts. Real people. Continually.
Yeah its fucking shit.
And you know what else is fucking shit? Having people told that their rent or getting a home isn't affordable now.
That's not a theoretical fantasy either, that's real life for countless people in this country.
Food is a smaller share of a household's budget than rent, so why is it OK to have double-digit rent inflation but not food or wage inflation?
It isn't. Housing inflation is dire. You are sound on that. It is shit. The answer isn't to import that into every other aspect of life.
There are only three paths from here and every single one of them is shit.
1: House price crash, millions plunged into negative equity immediately. 2: Years of inflation in wages exceeding inflation in costs (a reversal of past twenty years). 3: Do nothing and see the problem only continue to get worse, or be locked in as a problem forever.
I can't think of a fourth solution, so pick yer poison. Which of those three paths should we take? I'm torn between 1 and 2 but think 2 is better. Alternatively if you can think of a fourth solution I'd love to hear it, I'm all ears.
Do you know what? I actually think 1 would be the best all round. Won't happen, cos the Party holding the parcel wouldn't get back in for a generation. But 1 would be best. Their store of utterly unearned income wiped out. Year Zero as it were.
And the banks would be fucked resulting a squeezing on lending and economic catastrophe.
Why do you think a house price crash is the core part of the Bank of England stress tests? It’s because it’s the single worst thing that could happen to the Uk economy
Not really - for a lot of BTL landlords there would initially be other assets to use if a bank needs to recover any unpaid loans.
And most house owners will curse but continue to pay the mortgage off.
Why do you think I emphasised the Northern Ireland negative equity loan scheme
Capital adequacy rules for mortgages with a value more than the value of the security are very very painful
So the Government bails the loans out or allows them to be moved to another Bad Bank - from memory the 125% Northern Rock loans have had better long term repayment rates than the more standard B&B ones.
How about we address a problem that took 20 years to create with a 20 year adjustment instead of a crash?
Because then people are f***ed for 40 years.
If the final tulip holders are stuffed when the music stops that's a shame for them, but is that any reason to keep tulips overvalued for decades?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Because the youngest and naive voted to Remain yes. But students aren't workers any more than the retired are.
Wrong to assume that people voted just for what they themselves might gain from. They might have voted for what they perceive as best for the country. I voted brexit even though I had a pretty good idea it would be costly to me.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Interesting. Tim Harford thought otherwise. You pays your money and takes your pick.
Either way it is a proportion of the incremental shortage above that which we've been (happily?) living with these past years. So even if it's "only" 10,000 that is still 20% of the shortage.
Demand patterns were different and more predictable pre-Covid, so it's not just a case of looking at longstanding supply shortages - you have to look at the other side of the equation too.
I've admitted Brexit does pose an extra challenge - where I digress is the inference that life would be perfectly rosy without it, and that it's an insurmountable one.
We can plug 30-40k HGV drivers (or more) in the UK domestically over 6-18 months with the right strategy.
Not unless we actually spend some effort trying to make it a decent job as well.
Trying to make it a decent job is fascism.
We should impose a combination of the maximum wages of the Act of 1515 and the laws tying miners to their mines in Scotland, in late middle ages.
Make the villeins work for 5d a day, as they should.
Renting affordability - no surprise that London (by a wide margin) and the South East are least affordable - but some surprises lower down the rankings:
Certainly was my experience - a pleasant 1-bed flat in Nottingham cost exactly half what an almost identical place costs in Surrey.
What struck me in both places and in London when I was looking for a place is that rent is almost entirely dictated by size and location, with the state of the property irrelevant. In London, I was offered a place with the front door reinforced by an iron grille, a huge (blood?)stain on the floor and a non-functioning heater. The place I took, a nice second floor flat with modern central heating and a good kitchen, was only £25/month more. I had similar though less extreme experiences in both the other places. I don't get it - given a choice, why don't better properties cost more than crap properties?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Because the youngest and naive voted to Remain yes. But students aren't workers any more than the retired are.
Nice theory, but no:
A majority of those working full-time or part-time voted to remain in the EU; most of those not working voted to leave. More than half of those retired on a private pension voted to leave, as did two thirds of those retired on a state pension.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
But that is always going to be the case.
Where you have enough fat, you will still be impacted, but it will never be reported, although less new jobs and capital investment will be made even if there is expansion and Brexiteers say 'look they are still doing well, so no Brexit impact, they didn't go bust like the Remoaners predicted'.
Where you are borderline you go from small profit to out of business, Brexiteers say 'well they weren't really viable anyway'.
And where you have a logistics problem, it gets made worse and Brexiteers say 'we had a problem already, it wasn't Brexit'.
Just because we have a problem it is no excuse to make it worse.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Given the only way Starmer becomes PM is with the support of Scottish SNP MPs I accept there will still almost certainly be a Tory majority in England in 2023/4.
However as long as the Tories have a UK majority no indyref2 will be allowed, so the only way you get indyref2 is for Starmer to become PM
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
That's a nonsensical response to the Woodson plan, which would mean that any EU workers would cost companies more than domestic ones.
That's nonsensical, if that were the case then why would any EU workers be hired?
What you mean is they'd cost more than they want to offer to domestic ones. The idea is that domestic ones aren't being offered enough yet so wages should go up, having a supplement for EU workers that is less than the amount wages for domestic workers should go up is still a saving.
It's not nonsensical at all - it's proposed as a solution to the short term shock to significant parts of the economy. The 'supplement' is a tax - which the government could easily raise if it had the effect you suggest.
It's more sensible than anything you've said on the issue.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
My sister-in-law working in the slightly higher end retail than Next - still shop floor stuff.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
Talking of jobs, can the PB brains trust think of any ‘out there’ niche jobs that most people may not of thought of that would suit someone with no degree but nearly 10 years nhs admin experience? (My Girlfriend)
Executive Assistant (what we used to call a PA). Needs to be very organised, good at planning someone else’s time and movements.
EAs and PAs are very different roles if used properly!
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Yes. The livestock issue is however AFAIK unique to Britain. Not sure why though - possibly really is Brexit.
In the US, the slaughter houses use a lot of illegal immigrant labour. So they never have a shortage - even with the hideous rates for injuries, due to poor training and tools.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
Exactly, most CEOs voted Remain, it was most of their workers who voted Leave, especially the lower paid ones
Hold on. Most working age people voted to remain. Not all, and there are obvious patterns in different industries. But most.
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
Full time workers voted only 53% Remain, AB upper middle class voted 59% Remain. C2s voted 62% Leave, DEs voted 64% Leave.
So the divide was more upper middle class managers and professionals (CEOs are also workers) v unskilled or low skilled and low paid workers than it was workers v non workers and the retired
An optimist with no plan to deliver is just a liar.
No they’re not.
I’m optimistic things will turn out fine in the long run
But it’s not my responsibility to have a plan
Charles, sorry to burst your bubble but not everything is about you! But you stay optimistic, it's what we love you for. I'm sure that when we are all eating out of bins, you will be the one to find the choicest morsels amid the rancid leftovers. 😉
So, how does the Tory party still worship the Blessed St Margaret, who fought inflation as the demon of the British economy, triggered a house price boom to spread prosperity, faced down demands from workers for higher pay and was the architect of the Single Market?
Is it possible to dance on the grave while she spins below?
I was never a fan, having lived through the Eighties, but nice to see PB Tories have learned to despise her policies. Slow learners these Tories be.
On inflation, it is no longer the government's responsibility. In my opinion, it bloody well should be. But it isn't. It will be interesting to see how it plays out politically. Will Starmer call for the BoE to put up interest rates to curb inflation? Or will he call for the BoE to be nationalised?
How could the BoE be nationalised? It’s already owned by the Treasury!
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
My sister-in-law working in the slightly higher end retail than Next - still shop floor stuff.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
High Street retailers don't want to be the first to raise prices and hence they are holding out.
It will either be higher wages => lower margins or higher prices. "The market" will make the latter challenging and drawn out hence we will reach a point where the two will collide.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Given the only way Starmer becomes PM is with the support of Scottish SNP MPs I accept there will still almost certainly be a Tory majority in England in 2023/4.
However as long as the Tories have a UK majority no indyref2 will be allowed, so the only way you get indyref2 is for Starmer to become PM
You are Cato the Elder, and I claim my five denarii.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Given the only way Starmer becomes PM is with the support of Scottish SNP MPs I accept there will still almost certainly be a Tory majority in England in 2023/4.
However as long as the Tories have a UK majority no indyref2 will be allowed, so the only way you get indyref2 is for Starmer to become PM
Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed
So, how does the Tory party still worship the Blessed St Margaret, who fought inflation as the demon of the British economy, triggered a house price boom to spread prosperity, faced down demands from workers for higher pay and was the architect of the Single Market?
Is it possible to dance on the grave while she spins below?
I was never a fan, having lived through the Eighties, but nice to see PB Tories have learned to despise her policies. Slow learners these Tories be.
On inflation, it is no longer the government's responsibility. In my opinion, it bloody well should be. But it isn't. It will be interesting to see how it plays out politically. Will Starmer call for the BoE to put up interest rates to curb inflation? Or will he call for the BoE to be nationalised?
How could the BoE be nationalised? It’s already owned by the Treasury!
Okay, I mean remove it's independence and make the government responsible for monetary policy as it was pre-New Labour.
Renting affordability - no surprise that London (by a wide margin) and the South East are least affordable - but some surprises lower down the rankings:
That's interesting. What it actually shows is that outside London (38%) renting affordability is fairly even across the country. In all other regions rent as a % of household income is between 27% (SE) and 22% (EM). That's a 5pp range, much narrower than I would have guessed.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Given that even in the thickest parts of the Waitrose belt nobody is now queueing for fuel any problems seem to have been based on nothing more fundamental than a critical mass of fuckwits and nimbys. Sparked off by BP subcontracting its fuel delivery rather than paying the going rate.
As to 'empty shelves' the distinct absence of any photographic evidence suggests it exists more a wish than a reality.
There's also this:
Tesco doubled profits in the first half of the year as it reduced costs related to the coronavirus pandemic and said its strong supply chain had kept shelves stocked despite widespread delivery problems across the industry.
If 'empty shelves' are something which only exists for some shops in some parts of the country then that suggests there is no fundamental national problem but more individual problems which ultimately lead back to inadequate pay either at certain businesses and/or certain parts of the country.
I’ve yet to encounter a single ‘empty shelf’ anywhere in London. Nor have I encountered a lack of any particular product - apart from that horrific two day shortage of ‘flaked parmesan’ in Marks & Sparks a month back, and, about a week later, in the same shop, a day when they had no tiny bottles of white wine (the quarter size bottles for cooking wine, they had ample 75cl bottles)
That’s it. That’s the extent of the dire supermarket shortages in London, in my experience. It’s not exactly the USSR in 1937. However, maybe The Party is making sure the nomenklatura are kept well fed in Moscow-London, even as the Holomodor rages across Yorkshire, where parents are eating their children?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
That's a nonsensical response to the Woodson plan, which would mean that any EU workers would cost companies more than domestic ones.
That's nonsensical, if that were the case then why would any EU workers be hired?
What you mean is they'd cost more than they want to offer to domestic ones. The idea is that domestic ones aren't being offered enough yet so wages should go up, having a supplement for EU workers that is less than the amount wages for domestic workers should go up is still a saving.
It's not nonsensical at all - it's proposed as a solution to the short term shock to significant parts of the economy. The 'supplement' is a tax - which the government could easily raise if it had the effect you suggest.
It's more sensible than anything you've said on the issue.
What I've said is to let supply and demand sort it out. Laissez-faire.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
My sister-in-law working in the slightly higher end retail than Next - still shop floor stuff.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
Thanks.
My son is working in the sector. Has just started a new job. Not enjoying it much so far as he is having to deal with a lot of customers complaining about delivery problems .....
At his previous employers a lot of experienced staff were being made redundant. I find this infuriating because when I do go to a shop the one thing I want is good staff who know the products and can genuinely help and advise. Increasingly there are fewer of them. Good customer service is a real USP but seems to be the one thing shops cut. And this applies even over the phone or for online operations. I have in recent months gravitated to those places which provide good customer service and not merely the cheapest offering.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
My sister-in-law working in the slightly higher end retail than Next - still shop floor stuff.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
High Street retailers don't want to be the first to raise prices and hence they are holding out.
It will either be higher wages => lower margins or higher prices. "The market" will make the latter challenging and drawn out hence we will reach a point where the two will collide.
No idea which way it will go.
Yes - and they also know that if they raise wages at the bottom, they will be forced to raise wages upwards to maintain differentials.
Good morning everyone. Lovely morning. Autumn is blazing gloriously here in the North West. My ten days' isolation is nearly up, and I think I might take the family to Wharfedale at the weekend and have a walk at Bolton Abbey, which is as good a place as you might find to see October at its best. Two reflections on life: 1) Previously covid-stricken middle daughter has gone off on her school residential to Lancashire, along with almost all of her classmates. Hooray! A sign that normal life is returning and, despite the best rearguard efforts of the public sector safetyists that, real life has substantially returned. Children can have a childhood again. Sadly one of her classmates was stopped from going due to a positive LFT before he left - we still have a little way to go before we can call ourselves properly free. But we are much closer to it than we were this time last year. 2) I've also just lined up my first gig since 2019 (not until January 2022, but still). It's the big one - the one group I have always wanted to see but have never managed to - Half Man Half Biscuit. I can honestly say I've never been so excited about seeing a band live. I have even been considering trying to obtain a Dukla Prague Away kit just for the event (I never do anything like this: almost every gig I've been to this century I have been dressed in the same large green canvas shirt I bought from Asda in Long Eaton in 1999. But googling the product, it seems that Damian Green has beaten me to it by several years, also managing a rather clever bit of self-reference: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2017/jul/17/half-minister-half-biscuit-how-a-dukla-prague-shirt-outed-damian-green-as-an-indie-fan
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
When they don’t offer a penny above minimum wage, and want people to work only a guaranteed 16 hours a week of their choosing on a 7-day schedule, then yes, it can be difficult to find staff.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
So, how does the Tory party still worship the Blessed St Margaret, who fought inflation as the demon of the British economy, triggered a house price boom to spread prosperity, faced down demands from workers for higher pay and was the architect of the Single Market?
Is it possible to dance on the grave while she spins below?
I was never a fan, having lived through the Eighties, but nice to see PB Tories have learned to despise her policies. Slow learners these Tories be.
On inflation, it is no longer the government's responsibility. In my opinion, it bloody well should be. But it isn't. It will be interesting to see how it plays out politically. Will Starmer call for the BoE to put up interest rates to curb inflation? Or will he call for the BoE to be nationalised?
How could the BoE be nationalised? It’s already owned by the Treasury!
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
I think this is a classic example of the "sole actor fallacy".
There are lots of reasons why we're short of HGV drivers right now. To think of just five:
1. Covid meaning very few new licenses have been granted in 18 months 2. Most pan-EU drivers choosing to work the Continental beat rather than the UK one 3. The rise of Amazon, Deliveroo, etc., in pulling drivers away from long-distance work 4. A sudden spike in demand as Covid dissipates and economic activity rebounds 5. British HGV drivers earning less because most trips to the continent are now "one way".
Sure Brexit has been a factor. But if we hadn't had Covid, we probably wouldn't have noticed.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
I am not sure @StuartDickson realised how poor those figures are for indyref2
Talking of jobs, can the PB brains trust think of any ‘out there’ niche jobs that most people may not of thought of that would suit someone with no degree but nearly 10 years nhs admin experience? (My Girlfriend)
Executive Assistant (what we used to call a PA). Needs to be very organised, good at planning someone else’s time and movements.
EAs and PAs are very different roles if used properly!
Ooh okay, can you explain the differences then? IMHO the terms are pretty much interchangeable, with EA the latest fashionable title.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
I think this is a classic example of the "sole actor fallacy".
There are lots of reasons why we're short of HGV drivers right now. To think of just five:
1. Covid meaning very few new licenses have been granted in 18 months 2. Most pan-EU drivers choosing to work the Continental beat rather than the UK one 3. The rise of Amazon, Deliveroo, etc., in pulling drivers away from long-distance work 4. A sudden spike in demand as Covid dissipates and economic activity rebounds 5. British HGV drivers earning less because most trips to the continent are now "one way".
Sure Brexit has been a factor. But if we hadn't had Covid, we probably wouldn't have noticed.
I would add to that
6. Due to perceived poor pay/conditions for HGV drivers, relative to other jobs, the industry already had a very high "churn" rate. So the effect of reducing new entrants was that much higher.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
I am not sure @StuartDickson realised how poor those figures are for indyref2
Except VI is not based solely on whether you want a referendum or how you would vote if there was one. I voted Lib Dem, and might do again, and I think there should be a referendum.
Genuine question: how many PB-ers have actually encountered a proper empty shelf in a supermarket?
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, so not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Does anyone else find the exactitude of the 100,000 claim a little too precise? I mean if they said 97,000 or 103,000 I'd probably be happy, but it just looks plucked out of the air (as does 500,000 across Europe).
There probably is a precise figure but it's just reported as "over" 100,000 drivers.
You can see in this graph here that vacancies across Europe have tracked a similar trend over Covid:
I'm slightly suspicious of any chart that anchors at 100 from an arbitrary date (given how obviously the conclusions would change if you moved the date by a month or so). It might be useful to look at some metric like vacancies per 100,000 population.
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Lord Wolfson, Tory peer and CEO of Next, says employers are very worried about a shortage of workers in the UK. He wants them to be able to pay a visa tax to hire someone from abroad if they need
Wolfson's plan would seem to answer all the criticisms of Brexiteers regarding the hiring of foreign workers. That he is yet to receive any response at all from government (today was not its first airing) is ... interesting.
CEOs are panicking because they are having to pay higher wages to attract staff which then threatens the margin targets they have promised investors and which, in many cases, are used to determine the size of the multi-million pound compensation packages. Let's just say I am slightly sceptical of their motives.
I find it bizarre that Next cannot find people here to work in retail. Is this really the case?
My sister-in-law working in the slightly higher end retail than Next - still shop floor stuff.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
Thanks.
My son is working in the sector. Has just started a new job. Not enjoying it much so far as he is having to deal with a lot of customers complaining about delivery problems .....
At his previous employers a lot of experienced staff were being made redundant. I find this infuriating because when I do go to a shop the one thing I want is good staff who know the products and can genuinely help and advise. Increasingly there are fewer of them. Good customer service is a real USP but seems to be the one thing shops cut. And this applies even over the phone or for online operations. I have in recent months gravitated to those places which provide good customer service and not merely the cheapest offering.
British management rule 1 - Fire the expensive, experienced staff and replace them with the cheapest you can find. By the time anyone notices, you'll have got your bonus and the next job.
I've seen it done in so many places. The first was when I was at university in the 90s. The brewery binned the 2-3 regular staff at my favourite pub - the pay for the job was cut, massively.
They ended up having 6 idiots wandering around behind the bar on a Friday, not serving drinks because they were trying to work out how the till worked.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Does anyone else find the exactitude of the 100,000 claim a little too precise? I mean if they said 97,000 or 103,000 I'd probably be happy, but it just looks plucked out of the air (as does 500,000 across Europe).
There probably is a precise figure but it's just reported as "over" 100,000 drivers.
You can see in this graph here that vacancies across Europe have tracked a similar trend over Covid:
I'm slightly suspicious of any chart that anchors at 100 from an arbitrary date (given how obviously the conclusions would change if you moved the date by a month or so). It might be useful to look at some metric like vacancies per 100,000 population.
It’s not arbitrary. It’s the onset of Covid. Feb 2020
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
This is the story the media and others do not want to publicise as it puts balance into the discussion
The last article, on China, is from The Guardian! So it's obvious that the left-liberal media is covering it, at least.
To be honest right across the media they need to stop desperately trying to get 'gotchas' and explain to the country just how the world is being hit by rising fuel prices and supply shortages and the reasons for it
Just as I asked yesterday how serious the pig crisis is, and I hate the idea of slaughtering pigs unnecessarily, it appears the 112,000 figure comparers to 4.75 million pigs in the country and HMG needs to provide a limited number of visas to address the issue short term as pay rises
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Brexit is responsible for 50% of our variable driver shortage is a useful way to look at it.
We have had an ongoing, longstanding (and sustainable, evidently) shortage of 50,000 and then Brexit (25,000) and Covid/testing (25,000) make up the difference.
About 16,000-20,000 foreign drivers are estimated to have returned post-Brexit. So my figures were based on the upper-end of that.
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
Do drivers 'return'? Because a lot of HGV driving happens pan-Europe. If you are an EU/EEA truck driver with a British work permit, you are in a great position - able to take packages anywhere across the continent.
Genuine question: how many PB-ers have actually encountered a proper empty shelf in a supermarket?
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, sp not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
Yes. A few weeks ago, no lamb or beef*, fresh or frozen, anywhere in the fridges or freezers. Plenty of chicken available. Most recent trip to the supermarket, I don't remember seeing any gaps.
There may have been canned beef and/or pies available.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
What are you talking about Scott?
The "Project Fear" warning was that there'd be mass unemployment, not labour shortages.
Getting pay rises is what Brexiteers said would happen.
Project Fear was wrong, Brexiteers were right.
I certainly don't recall Brexiteers highlighting queues for petrol, pigs being culled because they can't be butchered, empty supermarket shelves etc as a Brexit benefit PRIOR to the vote.
But they are now.
There are supply problems and energy problems right across the world, including in Brussels, China and the USA.
It's only in Britain it's blamed on Brexit rather than Covid.
Genuine question, are there verifiable examples of other first world economies with queues at the pumps, culled excess livestock and empty supermarket shelves?
Don't be silly TUD, though they deserve to be mocked.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
I am not sure @StuartDickson realised how poor those figures are for indyref2
Except VI is not based solely on whether you want a referendum or how you would vote if there was one. I voted Lib Dem, and might do again, and I think there should be a referendum.
Except PB Nats are happy to pray in aid VI figures when they show a combined majority FOR pro-Indy parties
Genuine question: how many PB-ers have actually encountered a proper empty shelf in a supermarket?
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, so not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
Bottled water, Tesco, 6-8 weeks ago. Ony "with a hint of" stuff left.
Annoyingly, the first time for at least a decade I have wanted bottled water, as a fallback supply on a little boat I've just bought in case I get swept out to sea.
Even by Brexit standards, “You should have been prepared for the stuff we swore would never happen” is a remarkable position to take. Never underestimate the seductive power of a lie that lets people deny that they’ve been duped. However flimsy & transparent the lie may be. https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1445378612585185282
Yes, I see the FBPE mob are pleasuring themselves furiously over that this morning.
We'd have problems even if we were in the EU - it's just we'd be 80,000 drivers short (at best) as opposed to100,000 drivers short, and still have supply problems.
Does anyone else find the exactitude of the 100,000 claim a little too precise? I mean if they said 97,000 or 103,000 I'd probably be happy, but it just looks plucked out of the air (as does 500,000 across Europe).
There probably is a precise figure but it's just reported as "over" 100,000 drivers.
You can see in this graph here that vacancies across Europe have tracked a similar trend over Covid:
I'm slightly suspicious of any chart that anchors at 100 from an arbitrary date (given how obviously the conclusions would change if you moved the date by a month or so). It might be useful to look at some metric like vacancies per 100,000 population.
It’s not arbitrary. It’s the onset of Covid. Feb 2020
Even that is a little arbitrary.
Italy got Covid before the UK.
What's so uncontroversial about looking at looking at job vacancies relative to population?
Request for info... Would putting an empty glass jam jar outside provide a reasonably accurate rain guage by measuring with a ruler ?
Not really, would be surprisingly inaccurate because of the issue of the lip and pouring the water out loses alot to surface adhesion.
Unless you are measuring the rainy season in the tropics, of course.
surely you just make sure you have measuring scale on the outside of the jam jar then you only pour out after measuring when full etc
Setting a measuring scale like that is a fair amount of work (different opening to internal size, curved at the bottom) - the OP wanted to just use a ruler.
Looks like we will just have to swap stilton for brie and drink English and Australian wines.
Who has French Turkey and French Christmas puddings anyway? It is normally British all the way
At some point the penny will drop on a clear majority of the population that we're suffering a series of self-inflicted wounds, which HMG is doing f*ck-all to heal.
No, it won't. Sorry
No, probably not. Just a shite decade of disruption and decline ahead then. ☹️
Edit: the Scots will certainly realise it. And the Northern Irish and Welsh probably. By which time it will be little England all alone going down the drain.
On today's Comres there was little difference between English and Scottish views of Brexit.
Plus of course as long as the Tories are in power there will be no indyref2 allowed anyway, if Starmer becomes PM however it will be with Scottish and Welsh votes
There was however a huge difference between English and Scottish voting intention:
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
I am not sure @StuartDickson realised how poor those figures are for indyref2
Except VI is not based solely on whether you want a referendum or how you would vote if there was one. I voted Lib Dem, and might do again, and I think there should be a referendum.
I do not disagree but indyref2 will only happen if the Scots show a substantial majority for it and at present that seems quite away off
An optimist with no plan to deliver is just a liar.
But still at an electoral advantage over a pessimist with no plan to deliver.
I think the electorate may be ready for a dose of sober realism by the time Johnson has finished with them. As for the plan - any good ideas announced now will just get nicked by the government.
It's a tasty irony that the UK may need another Thatcher to clear up the mess of 11 years & counting of Tory government.
No doubt that will be their next pivot. Perhaps the plan all along is to have Johnson talk up state intervention, do nothing to deliver on it, then claim his failure as evidence that a dose of hair-shirt Thatcherism is what's actually needed. Who am I kidding, there is no fucking plan. It's just a remorseless conveyor belt of mindless slogans powered by blind, power-hungry opportunism.
Genuine question: how many PB-ers have actually encountered a proper empty shelf in a supermarket?
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, so not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
My local co-op was completely out of frozen pizza for a week or so, but I think there was a freezer breakdown that was the primary culprit there (and they still haven't got much back in stock a few weeks on). Oh, and they ran totally out of eggs except for a few packs of expensive fancy blue-shelled freerange ones once. But mostly it's more that there's areas where the overall level of choice has fallen and there's often gaps on shelves where particular product lines are out of stock. So there's clearly underlying supply issues but they're doing a reasonable job of coping.
Genuine question: how many PB-ers have actually encountered a proper empty shelf in a supermarket?
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, sp not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
Yes. A few weeks ago, no lamb or beef*, fresh or frozen, anywhere in the fridges or freezers. Plenty of chicken available. Most recent trip to the supermarket, I don't remember seeing any gaps.
There may have been canned beef and/or pies available.
Fair enough, and interesting. Roughly where was this?
Talking of jobs, can the PB brains trust think of any ‘out there’ niche jobs that most people may not of thought of that would suit someone with no degree but nearly 10 years nhs admin experience? (My Girlfriend)
Executive Assistant (what we used to call a PA). Needs to be very organised, good at planning someone else’s time and movements.
They still are PAs where I work (in wokademia! Are we being un-PC? )
Comments
Personally I view pay increases, full employment and job vacancies as a good thing and a sign of a good economy. Others mileage may vary.
I’m optimistic things will turn out fine in the long run
But it’s not my responsibility to have a plan
Basically the present approach seems to be, let's see what happens and do nothing on the laissez-faire assumption that the market will eventually sort things out. It probably will, five years or so down the line, but in a sub-optimal way with a lot of pain in between. An interventionist government could easily have anticipated the present problems and taken steps years ago to effect changes directly and through incentives. Let's not forget that the Brexit vote was 5 years ago.
When asked they will state, generally, that they are employed to maximise shareholder vale in the short term. Which they are remunerated for.
Some years ago, a Bank I was working at tried an elaborate scheme to try and stop derivatives traders simply making a profit. They wanted them to expand business. This resulted is traders selling below market value to expand business......
Nick Bailey, head of research at Transport Intelligence: "Brexit is one factor in the mix definitely. It’s not a huge factor, we’re talking about a few thousand (drivers who have left), it’s enough to exacerbate and add on extra challenge. You can’t say Brexit has not had an impact but neither can you say that Brexit is to blame for this."
It's more of a problem for us because of the way our economy is rapidly reopening after the pandemic - there’s a lot more demand at the moment, and people are spending their disposable income on goods and home improvement rather than going out, and that surge in demand is hitting a brick wall: a shift of drivers into DPD/Amazon/UPS vans instead coupled with a lack of HGV driver testing capacity is causing a big backlog.
We've basically gone cold turkey.
Can you say the same?
And every member of a political party is an 'activist'.
Government intervention means the government picking [quite probably the wrong] winners and losers.
Then its your job to clear the hurdles and get out of the way and let the market sort it out.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/187453/belgium-is-looking-for-5000-lorry-drivers-to-keep-shop-shelves-filled/
Very large cargo backlogs in Southern California affecting San Franciso
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-stuff-we-want-to-buy-is-in-shorter-supply-16508271.php
Electricity crisis in China due to coal supply problems:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/29/china-hit-by-power-cuts-and-factory-closures-as-energy-crisis-bites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z6cd
Either way it is a proportion of the incremental shortage above that which we've been (happily?) living with these past years. So even if it's "only" 10,000 that is still 20% of the shortage.
What you mean is they'd cost more than they want to offer to domestic ones. The idea is that domestic ones aren't being offered enough yet so wages should go up, having a supplement for EU workers that is less than the amount wages for domestic workers should go up is still a saving.
https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-how-bad-the-lorry-crisis-is-in-europe-and-beyond-compared-to-the-uk-1231010
https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1445645448077725698?s=20
There was a reason for that and to be frank they've been vindicated. People like Scott and O'Brien and Foremain look down their noses at those voters, but they've got what they voted for.
The Carrefour situation one was due to industrial action wasn't it?
The text Jim wrote isn't the sentence he said, even in that clip.
I've admitted Brexit does pose an extra challenge - where I digress is the inference that life would be perfectly rosy without it, and that it's an insurmountable one.
We can plug 30-40k HGV drivers (or more) in the UK domestically over 6-18 months with the right strategy.
https://twitter.com/ons/status/1445670856575705089?s=21
The bedrock of the Leave win was people of retirement age.
As to 'empty shelves' the distinct absence of any photographic evidence suggests it exists more a wish than a reality.
There's also this:
Tesco doubled profits in the first half of the year as it reduced costs related to the coronavirus pandemic and said its strong supply chain had kept shelves stocked despite widespread delivery problems across the industry.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/06/tesco-profits-double-as-shelves-stay-stocked-despite-supply-chain-problems
If 'empty shelves' are something which only exists for some shops in some parts of the country then that suggests there is no fundamental national problem but more individual problems which ultimately lead back to inadequate pay either at certain businesses and/or certain parts of the country.
"Insults and misogyny" is completely wrong when ... it's a woman against a man" yes. That would fall under the insults category he said.
Snipping out the fact he said insults doesn't mean he didn't say it.
The original reason for excluding housing costs from some inflation measures was the argument that when the Bank of England put up interest rates, to control inflation, this led to a feedback loop when the resulting rise in cost was measured as inflation.
No-one has explained to me why they didn't simply create another inflation measure, for use by the BoE, which excluded mortgage interest rates. And I asked someone in the BoE research dept. about this.
A majority of those working full-time or part-time voted to remain in the EU; most of those not working voted to leave. More than half of those retired on a private pension voted to leave, as did two thirds of those retired on a state pension.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/03/a-reminder-of-how-britain-voted-in-the-eu-referendum-and-why/
If the final tulip holders are stuffed when the music stops that's a shame for them, but is that any reason to keep tulips overvalued for decades?
We should impose a combination of the maximum wages of the Act of 1515 and the laws tying miners to their mines in Scotland, in late middle ages.
Make the villeins work for 5d a day, as they should.
What struck me in both places and in London when I was looking for a place is that rent is almost entirely dictated by size and location, with the state of the property irrelevant. In London, I was offered a place with the front door reinforced by an iron grille, a huge (blood?)stain on the floor and a non-functioning heater. The place I took, a nice second floor flat with modern central heating and a good kitchen, was only £25/month more. I had similar though less extreme experiences in both the other places. I don't get it - given a choice, why don't better properties cost more than crap properties?
The huge lead for Remain over Leave is in the under 35s and especially the under 25s.
The more work experience that working people had, the more likely they were to vote Leave.
Pensioners are within margin of error of 45-54 on that poll.
English VI / Scottish VI (today’s ComRes)
Con 44% / 27%
Lab 39% / 19%
LD 10% / 8%
RUK 3% / 2%
Grn 4% / 1%
SNP - / 41%
oth 1% / 2%
Where you have enough fat, you will still be impacted, but it will never be reported, although less new jobs and capital investment will be made even if there is expansion and Brexiteers say 'look they are still doing well, so no Brexit impact, they didn't go bust like the Remoaners predicted'.
Where you are borderline you go from small profit to out of business, Brexiteers say 'well they weren't really viable anyway'.
And where you have a logistics problem, it gets made worse and Brexiteers say 'we had a problem already, it wasn't Brexit'.
Just because we have a problem it is no excuse to make it worse.
However as long as the Tories have a UK majority no indyref2 will be allowed, so the only way you get indyref2 is for Starmer to become PM
MirrorGuardianAn PhoblactSpeccie:https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-fantasy-world-of-boris-johnson
The 'supplement' is a tax - which the government could easily raise if it had the effect you suggest.
It's more sensible than anything you've said on the issue.
The problem is that no High Street retailer wants to pay wages that make it liveable, for the basic jobs. So they are very dependent on people who are doing other things, working a few hours.
There is a ferocious crunch on pay throughout the sector - which is still contracting, furiously.
She is looking to move to Spain, because while the pay isn't so very different there, the housing costs are dramatically lower.
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum
So the divide was more upper middle class managers and professionals (CEOs are also workers) v unskilled or low skilled and low paid workers than it was workers v non workers and the retired
It will either be higher wages => lower margins or higher prices. "The market" will make the latter challenging and drawn out hence we will reach a point where the two will collide.
No idea which way it will go.
That’s it. That’s the extent of the dire supermarket shortages in London, in my experience. It’s not exactly the USSR in 1937. However, maybe The Party is making sure the nomenklatura are kept well fed in Moscow-London, even as the Holomodor rages across Yorkshire, where parents are eating their children?
Taxes and interventionism aren't the solution.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/11/labour-ciriticse-tesco-next-cheap-labour
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/28/next-polish-workers-british-retailer-poland-uk-minimum-wage-yorkshire-warehouse
My son is working in the sector. Has just started a new job. Not enjoying it much so far as he is having to deal with a lot of customers complaining about delivery problems .....
At his previous employers a lot of experienced staff were being made redundant. I find this infuriating because when I do go to a shop the one thing I want is good staff who know the products and can genuinely help and advise. Increasingly there are fewer of them. Good customer service is a real USP but seems to be the one thing shops cut. And this applies even over the phone or for online operations. I have in recent months gravitated to those places which provide good customer service and not merely the cheapest offering.
Two reflections on life:
1) Previously covid-stricken middle daughter has gone off on her school residential to Lancashire, along with almost all of her classmates. Hooray! A sign that normal life is returning and, despite the best rearguard efforts of the public sector safetyists that, real life has substantially returned. Children can have a childhood again. Sadly one of her classmates was stopped from going due to a positive LFT before he left - we still have a little way to go before we can call ourselves properly free. But we are much closer to it than we were this time last year.
2) I've also just lined up my first gig since 2019 (not until January 2022, but still). It's the big one - the one group I have always wanted to see but have never managed to - Half Man Half Biscuit. I can honestly say I've never been so excited about seeing a band live. I have even been considering trying to obtain a Dukla Prague Away kit just for the event (I never do anything like this: almost every gig I've been to this century I have been dressed in the same large green canvas shirt I bought from Asda in Long Eaton in 1999. But googling the product, it seems that Damian Green has beaten me to it by several years, also managing a rather clever bit of self-reference:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2017/jul/17/half-minister-half-biscuit-how-a-dukla-prague-shirt-outed-damian-green-as-an-indie-fan
Unreliable if so, but interesting that it - unreliably - implies for Indy a NO vote of 56%, and a YES vote of just 42%. Not great for your cause, I suggest
There are lots of reasons why we're short of HGV drivers right now. To think of just five:
1. Covid meaning very few new licenses have been granted in 18 months
2. Most pan-EU drivers choosing to work the Continental beat rather than the UK one
3. The rise of Amazon, Deliveroo, etc., in pulling drivers away from long-distance work
4. A sudden spike in demand as Covid dissipates and economic activity rebounds
5. British HGV drivers earning less because most trips to the continent are now "one way".
Sure Brexit has been a factor. But if we hadn't had Covid, we probably wouldn't have noticed.
6. Due to perceived poor pay/conditions for HGV drivers, relative to other jobs, the industry already had a very high "churn" rate. So the effect of reducing new entrants was that much higher.
I voted Lib Dem, and might do again, and I think there should be a referendum.
There must surely be some examples underlying the multitude of stories.
And by ‘empty shelf’ I mean exactly that, an entire shelf wiped clean, so not just a lack of ‘Tilda Microwavable Basmati and Wild Rice’ but a shelf with all rice gone, or no bread, or zero citrus fruit, etc
I've seen it done in so many places. The first was when I was at university in the 90s. The brewery binned the 2-3 regular staff at my favourite pub - the pay for the job was cut, massively.
They ended up having 6 idiots wandering around behind the bar on a Friday, not serving drinks because they were trying to work out how the till worked.
Just as I asked yesterday how serious the pig crisis is, and I hate the idea of slaughtering pigs unnecessarily, it appears the 112,000 figure comparers to 4.75 million pigs in the country and HMG needs to provide a limited number of visas to address the issue short term as pay rises
Most recent trip to the supermarket, I don't remember seeing any gaps.
There may have been canned beef and/or pies available.
Annoyingly, the first time for at least a decade I have wanted bottled water, as a fallback supply on a little boat I've just bought in case I get swept out to sea.
Italy got Covid before the UK.
What's so uncontroversial about looking at looking at job vacancies relative to population?