Petrol shortage

[gadget]

Bozo is exactly that ... 'a bozo' always has been and always will be. This Tory government is the worst I have ever seen, and now Labour has torn itself to pieces, the Tories have zero opposition and do pretty much exactly as they please making rubbish decisions one after another. I've always been an advocate of putting suitably qualified people in the jobs they were meant/trained to do, no matter what government has been in power ... it's always been 'jobs for the boys', government positions filled by personell that have no right to be there and no clue as to what it takes to do their job properly anyway, and Boris ' silly haircut' Johnson is just another one of those blah blah bull@#it merchants.

[Bibio]

i sometimes think that people have the wrong idea about politicians. its not their job to make descensions its their job to spin what they are told to do by the people in the background that we dont get to vote for. politicians sit in chamber and argue with each other about how the country is run and laws etc.etc. ideas are put forward and then passed onto the people in the background who then say yes or no to funds etc.etc.

its the advisors who are the idiots.

lets take an average household with income at a set rate. they cant make any more money out their job so how do they make ends meat? simple answer is to tighten their belts and juggle things around or go see a financial adviser or get a loan from the bank.. our government is no different except they have the power to take money from people in the street which they are not doing for fear of loosing votes... the wheels on the bus go round and round.....

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by Seeker

You're missing the point. BoZo knew we had a problem in advance but did nothing.
If I know my roof may leak when it next rains I don't wait until it's actually raining before I call a roofer beacuse that would be moronic.

Not missing the point at all, one of the largest driver shortages in EU is in Germany, pretty much of same magnitude as UK shortage, is their government useless and irresponsible as well for not planning for the shortage, and they cannot even blame Brexit.

[Biker Biggles]

Originally Posted by Seeker

Boris says he knew about HGV driver shortage for a "long, long time".
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/boris-john...102227425.html

So...

...why didn't he have plans to alleviate the problem?

but then he explains that it's necessary...

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/boris-john...113225705.html

as part of Brexit transition.

Hmm. If your plan is to move a higher paid driver scenario that sounds good but I'm not sure why we need to endure the pain if we could have made contingency plans. It sounds more like they were asleep at the wheel.

If the plan is to use pain to enforce a lesson, the only message I got was that things worked better when we had EU drivers freely available.

Boris has finally got a plan----In order to get to the sunlit uplands we are going to have to take some strong medicine, and there will be side effects, but that will be a price worth paying. I wonder where the half witted buffoon borrowed that rhetoric from. Some of us are old enough to remember

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

one of the largest driver shortages in EU is in Germany, pretty much of same magnitude as UK shortage, is their government useless and irresponsible as well for not planning for the shortage, and they cannot even blame Brexit.

No, because they are not suffering shortages in the shops, whereas we are.
https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-euro...srupted-254524

So the point is; if the Germans and the Poles can manage the problem why can't we, and the answer is our hopeless government. Assuming that a civil servant was even tasked to come up with a plan (and the evidence suggests they were not), the responsibility for failure lies with the transport minister. If you recall over the last few days he has blamed everyone except the tooth fairy and himself, but when have you ever heard a Conservative minister accept responsibility recently?

Don't forget also that we are not currently checking incoming goods from the EU because we haven't got the systems in place (how long does it take?). Once that starts it will increase delays and shortages more.

[johnnyrod]

The only people left who think our problems aren't Brexit are the Brexiters. There are less than 52% of them in the world though.

[ethariel]

People complain the government knew about the shortages and did nothing!

However most of the same people would be moaning if the government started making dispensations/investing public money for lorry drivers a few years back to keep numbers up.

As a politician you have to be able to lie out of your **** while keeping a straight face and having skin thicker than a whale.

At the end of the day there are 3 ways of dealing with politics

1- Vote
2- Don't vote, stick your head in the sand and mumble idontmatterwhybothervoting over and over.
3- Get into politics and change it from the inside out (tho i'll lay odds that you will be just as corrupt as the rest a few years down the line)

If you are a 1 or a 3 then good on you, if your a 2, well its your choice to ignore things just stay quiet about it.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by ethariel

People complain the government knew about the shortages and did nothing!

If you recall, industry complained endlessly about the lack of clarity and information during the Brexit negotiations making it hard to plan anything.

Originally Posted by ethariel

However most of the same people would be moaning if the government started making dispensations/investing public money for lorry drivers a few years back to keep numbers up

Personally, I would have seen it as planning ahead and been in favour but I don't seem to think like most people (not saying I'm better by any stretch).

One question is who should have built rest areas for truckers? I would have thought that was infrastructure, certainly industry should have at least made noises about improving conditions. It is laughable that Conservatives are complaining about relying on low paid EU drivers when capitalism demands ever increasing profits and Tories are/were "business friendly". Nothing was said when outsourcing sent support hubs overseas and manufacturing went soon after.

I vote (of course) but I live in a constituency that always votes Tory so my vote never counts. I write endless emails to my MP who no longer responds (I may have been a bit rude). My neighbour buys the Daily Mail, never reads the politics section and is aghast when I explain what the government is doing. She doesn't have a passport and is giving up her car so, if the proposed voting bill is enacted she won't be able to vote. She has previously voted Tory(until the last election - my one success).

So whose fault is it that I see shortages? I think the pig example is the best - UK pigs are being (or going to be) culled because of a shortage of drivers and butchers. (no EU workers). Meanwhile we are importing EU pork which is not being checked because government hasn't set anything up yet. Insanity. Are the supermarkets to blame by demanding low prices from suppliers forcing the meat industry to use lower paid workers? It keeps coming back to profit...

I see both sides being at fault - the government's vagueness on how the Brexit rules would affect business (teething problems they called it) and industry for reacting too slowly. As far as I can tell they only seem to communicate through the media, if so, that needs to change asap.

I like the concept of what Boris is trying to achieve (never thought I'd say that - ever) but I don't see it working - prices will rise, wages will possibly rise and people will buy less. Unemployment will rise, economic growth will slow and we have stagflation (it took 10 years for Japan to shake that off).

Buckle up, it's going to get bumpy. (I remember the 70s ).

[svenrico]

Originally Posted by ethariel

People complain the government knew about the shortages and did nothing!

However most of the same people would be moaning if the government started making dispensations/investing public money for lorry drivers a few years back to keep numbers up.

As a politician you have to be able to lie out of your **** while keeping a straight face and having skin thicker than a whale.

At the end of the day there are 3 ways of dealing with politics

1- Vote
2- Don't vote, stick your head in the sand and mumble idontmatterwhybothervoting over and over.
3- Get into politics and change it from the inside out (tho i'll lay odds that you will be just as corrupt as the rest a few years down the line)

If you are a 1 or a 3 then good on you, if your a 2, well its your choice to ignore things just stay quiet about it.

- or have politicians who know what they are doing !

[SV650rules]

John F Kennedy had a sensible mother, she said 'John, I have no problem with you becoming President, but the trouble starts when you become a politician'..... ( or something similar ). Most of our politicians studied either law or finance, hence the reason for the absolutely massive number of laws we have on statute book in UK, and the huge amount we borrow every year. There is zero chance of a scientist or engineer becoming a politician ( OK maybe Maggie T who was studied Chemistry, but she was a rare case ).