Not to be cynical or morbid, but in some ways the COVID crisis is perhaps the best thing that could have happened to the current UK government. It makes the perfect excuse for denial and blame-shifting on all the negative consequences of Brexit.
(And to be fair, it has also doubtless seriously exacerbated all the negative consequences of Brexit. But COVID is getting blamed for lots of stuff that Brexit would have caused to some extent anyway.)
Up to a point, at least as regards the lorry driver shortage. But the problem over the Northern Ireland protocol can’t be blamed on Covid, nor a number of other disappointed sectional interests that can at least make a lot of noise. Whether that’s enough to rattle his backbenchers is another matter. His handling of Covid-related issues hasn’t always pleased them, anyway.
One advantage Covid is giving is that it permits the continued delay of actual Brexit, to wit:
A big part of the whole Brexit business is the introduction of customs and standards checks on imports from the EU. We haven’t actually started this properly, and we won’t till (at the time of writing) July 2022. Because of Covid, you understand, and not because we are absolutely not ready for either a) the implementation or b) the effects of instigating these checks on our trade.
And of course the fact that this announcement emerges just as Frost plays the “Don’t make me angry” card over the Northern Ireland protocol is sheer coincidence.
Absolutely appalling.
All the official and informed comments I have seen say that Brexit is partly the problem. They also point out that Poland for example also has a serious shortage of drivers, as does the USA.
The reversing exercise in the test was always derided as useless. Any aspirant would have done that dozens of times while learning and it bore little relationship to the problems of backing onto a bay. Coupling and uncoupling is a relatively recent addition and is really just a simple routine. The intention seems to be that the large fleets will want to do their own testing.
As an experienced HGV driver, I was often asked to go out with a newly qualified driver to “show them the ropes”. The essence was that even though they were competent to drive on the road, they were totally clueless when it came to a lot of the things like load security that drivers are legally responsible for.
Weirdly, it’s a relief to hear that this will pose less of a safety concern than it appeared, so thank you.
In a sense yes, but also in a sense no.
There is a global shortage of drivers. The spin this as the “global shortage of drivers” rather than Brexit, it’s the current governments strategy is divert and blame.
There isn’t SUCH a shortage of drivers anywhere else, The EU isn’t reporting shortages in the supermarkets, but we’re about three months into this now, and it’s getting very visible.
It isn’t everywhere. It isn’t every supermarket in an area. It isn’t every day. It isn’t every product. Some things like high bulk, low cost, long life products have disappeared from the shelves. Bottled water, and supermarket own-brand fizzy drinks disappeared about June around my way. Things come and go otherwise. We had no lettuce/mushrooms/carrots other week there. Nothing. They actually had brown lettuce on one shelf, I suspect with busted bags which had made them go off for the desperate. A few weeks ago there was no raw chicken. None. Wine racks go from partly filled on the cheap end, to one or two left. It hits cheaper products more, higher demand.
I’ve witnessed what could be beer supply problems in a number of pubs in various places. Pubs normally with large selections have only one.
Reports are also that blood sample tubes are in short supply, so instructions for NHS doctors to not do unnecessary ones (speculative low allergy for instance).
On the Brexit side, the shelf life of a typical fresh fruit/raw meat pretty much dropped by half around April this year, as the Brexit backlog was hoovered up. Not lorries, but just a noticable effect.
Is it just Brexit? It is a lot. Is it covid? I don’t think so. That was the first diversion, the “pingdemic” where the crappy app barely anyone uses went crazy once restrictions were lifted, because we were having massive amounts of new cases (50K per day). That was a while ago.
I think a thing called IR35 made a difference. The government brought it in on scale in April (delayed since April 20). This makes self-employed people get blanketed assessed as employees and thus pay more tax, which potentially led to 100-200% rise of taxes paid. Making a shit job which paid well into a shit job which paid badly. So I think a lot left then (it’s had an effect on multiple industries, including construction and IT which hasn’t fully adjusted yet to the idea you either have to pay more, or adjust working practices).
I personally don’t think what the government is doing is going to solve a damn thing. They’re just not competent enough to assess it, preferring to deny reality, believe their own lies, and then blame everyone else and repeat. It’s what they’ve done on pretty much everything (our current Covid stats are underestimates, a disease which takes over 28 days to kill a bunch of people don’t count towards deaths, and new cases don’t count if you’ve had it before, the stats are a lot lot worse)…
For the first time since World War 2, there’s now a minister appointed to secure a food supply in the UK. So some admission of guilt seems to be there.
Any vaguely competent opposition would be tearing this lot apart at the moment, but they seem to fail. A campaign of something like “Remember Oranges?” would be memorable and get the point across, but this leader seems to be about as spineless as the last, though with more charisma and far less baggage.
So tldr:
There’s a global shortage of drivers
BUT Brexit has removed a chunk
Covid had some effect about two months ago
IR35 may have removed a chunk
There are definitely shortages across the board
This is going to be permanent
(missed the edit window)
Also, why is it Brexit? Well, the drivers were largely from what we might term Eastern European countries (though arguably the likes of Poland is central). Due to no social support network a lot went home during the pandemic. This stopped them being able to claim in effect right to stay when came back. They can’t get new jobs because the wages now don’t match the type of level allowing them to work here. Also, the general job has got crappier with new barriers and waits to cross into the likes of the EU for those going internationally. This might be reflected in lost wages. I believe there is also license validity reasons. To summarise, a country which doesn’t want them, with extra requirement on paperwork, with some unable to return, versus an economic area with far less hassle probably far better pay, and it’s a no brainer.
The real danger is when the UK is introducing checks (deferred for fourth time just this week) on incoming goods which it has to do to suit the WTO membership. Without it, the EU has a distinct advantage over other countries with no check. EU is fine with that, because it’s good for them. WTO countries don’t seem to be pushing for this to be done though (that may happen).
At the moment trucks come in with goods from the EU, and often return empty, to avoid the delay on checking the contents entering the EU which has been huge over the last six months, with reported days of delay due to paperwork. But it’s still worth it to run these. When the trucks get stuck on the way in, then the trucks will stop coming, and prices to do so will go up to get those who are fine to price including the incoming delays.
This is when the real shortages will happen. Some comes in in January (I think those were due in 2 weeks time), and rest in July (deferred from January).
An update here. It appears (and the journalists in the country appear to be ignoring this story, so it’s hard to get history and context) there’s another reason for shortages coming up. And one which will hit after.
First up, there will be a shortage of Co2, due to the two factories in the UK closing down due to high energy prices at the moment. The effect of this is that fizzy drinks, be it lager or soda/coke, will be pretty much stopping being produced, and apparently meat will stop being slaughtered, something to do with a part of the production process I’d rather not think about.
This should happen the next few weeks. I’m not sure if the government can throw money at it (like it has the other brexit problems eg: huge lorry parks in Kent due to new trading barriers) and fly stocks in.
It’s caused by the second problem, which is a massive hike in energy prices. I’m not sure what they were historically, but apparently there was safeguards in the EU energy market, which were removed on Brexit, and the current price of a unit of energy in the UK is FOUR TIMES most EU counties. It seems as if our stupid government didn’t care about the effect of this when removed, and would, like the rest, deal with the crisis if and when it came, probably by blaming someone else or waving a flag. They’ve also pissed off France by stealing deal with Australia for submarines, and pretty much putting a crack down Nato. This could be related to the supply, some of which may come from France (like I say, I don’t know, nobody seems to be addressing in press). I’d not be surprised if our relations got a lot worse with France, where a lot of our food supply still comes.
So the upshot is that we were saved from shortages in two weeks time, and will have other ones. Then we’ll pay through the nose to heat our homes through the winter. If the energy supply holds, that is.
Looks like he is in big trouble. Someone I know who lives in London summed it up that despite a litany of lies and policy failures over the years by the Conservative government prior to and including Johnson’s tenure, what looks to be the cause of the potential demise is a Downing Street Christmas Party last year. This story has been extensively covered and it seems to have struck a chord with the British public who were under covid restrictions at the same time. Now the Labour Party are leading the polls and by some big margins in terms of percentage points which is a remarkable turn around after the 2019 election result.
Everyone’s waiting on the result of a forthcoming bye-election in a rock-solid Tory constituency (last majority 23,000 or thereabouts). The vacancy arises because of another of Boris’s shambles, which had already turned plenty of former supporters against him, and now the final stages of the campaign coincide with a procession of revelations about more breaches of Covid rules within government (not just at No. 10). Plus, there’s still the nagging question of who paid for the (over the top?) redecoration of his official flat, and a series of attempts to nobble/muzzle independent checks on government standards, from the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to the Electoral Commission to judicial review.
And there’s the usual dithering over how to respond to the new Covid variant.
So if Friday morning turns up a substantial change in North Shropshire, it would take 15% of the Tory MPs (55) to write in to ask for a leadership election, and someone to stand against Johnson, though it may take a while for the likely candidates to settle their positions.
Weirdly Owen Patterson, the MP who was forced to resign which caused that Bielection (due to take undeclared cash to represent companies in Parliament), used to sit on the same train as I was on on a Monday morning. He used to talk loudly on the phone about Brexit nonsense (the cliche from them about German car industry will save them all, which was not true). An appalling man in person.
I am not sure they’re going to lose that bielection. Too rural. I suspect the same sort of thing as Wyoming turning Blue.
As for replacements lining up. The empty vessel which is Liz Truss seems to be lining up to kind of take over the same lot, her morals long since gone. However, the second candidate for leadership last time, Jeremy Hunt (not rhyming slang, but certainly has been called it), is untouched by this administration and might be the one who emerges to throw off the scandal because he wasn’t ever involved.
I suspect Johnson will have to be dragged kicking and screaming from Number 10 though.
That’s a man who has, and had to be, fired from every job he ever had.
There’s no shortage of potential (in their own eyes) candidates. Perceived front-runner has been Rishi Sunak (busily trying to re-position himself as a fiscal hawk) though the aforementioned Liz Truss has apparently been described as popular with the party faithful, for reasons that escape me. The slithy Gove may have another try but might prefer to try to be a king-maker.
Priti Patel would want to push herself as tough on immigration, but AIUI she’s got to get enough MPs onside before they put two candidates to the party membership, which might be unlikely. More likely a candidate for the eventual ex-politician’s rehabilitation slot on Strictly Come Dancing (especially the jive: knee-jerk reactions are her thing).
Innnnnnteresting. 
It is interesting that significant sections of the Conservative party are losing patience with his poor performance as a leader. But they are conflicted. He won a majority for the party. People will vote for him rather than the lacklustre alternatives.
But if we have learnt anything, it is that these ‘larger than life’ characters who over promise and under deliver are not leaders. They are manufactured reality TV inspired personalities who tell people what they want to hear. They are empty vessels and Johnson is the British example of this genre.
Time for the UK to shake off this clown and find a statesman or stateswoman to lead the country.
Sadly the available candidates are a dispiriting bunch whose area of expertise is to win the Conservative party popularity contest and avoid getting blamed for involvement in the procession of fiascos.
Last night Boris announced on television that the NHS would be rolling out a massive increase in the vaccine booster programme, making it available to everyone 18 and up. Appointments and walk-in slots will be available seven days a week, including evenings.
This great undertaking starts as of this morning. NHS staff found out about it…last night when Boris announced it on television. The NHS websites promptly crashed from people trying to schedule vaccination appointments.
Boris Johnson, everybody - always finding new and interesting ways to fuck things up for everyone else.
Interesting. Have you ever seen Liz Truss give a speech? She is - hands down - the worst public speaker I have ever seen.
I’m not talking “lie and schmooze like a usual politician” bad.
I’m not talking “bumble and waffle like Boris Johnson” bad.
I’m not even talking “mumble and stare at your notes like a freshman giving a book report” bad.
I’m talking full-on “alien in a skinsuit” bad.
To watch Liz Truss speak is to take an express train to the Uncanny Valley. Her delivery is stilted, uneven, and completely unrelated to the words she is saying. Sometimes she will stop and suddenly grin or look seriously for no apparent reason (on one occasion she literally stopped and grinned because she had just said the word “cheese” in the context of dairy production). It is an exercise in existential horror.
I assume she must have enough redeeming qualities to warrant her rise through the ranks but dear God, you do not want to see her speak in public.
To me she seems to have exhibited to as what counts as competence to the dribbling morons who voted for this government. Ie: signed some trade deals. The fact the trade deals are either worthless (10p off some Ozzie biscuits similar to our biscuits) or destroy whole swathes of UK industry, such as Sheep farming, isn’t important to them. The detail is of absolutely no importance to them until a local farmer they know commits suicide, and that will only because because he owes them money.
I’m not quite sure of how awful Truss’s speeches were. Someone had exaggerated the pauses in the version I’d watched, but even without those, they looked exactly as you described, and reminded me of Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons in Dole and Clinton bodysuits:
“I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow which will eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath”.
Is he the guy responsible for all these new feel-good but lowbrow laws coming out of Britain, like from now on any adult hitting a child warrants a mandatory life sentence (paraphrase of something I half remember)?
As it happens, no, the law has not changed in England or Northern Ireland, but the Scottish and Welsh parliaments have done so. Like some 50-odd other countries.