Petrol shortage

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by Seeker

Conservative logic.

1) We're not short of petrol but short of HGV drivers (ok)
2) This is not caused by Brexit (Grant Shapps)
3) 14,000 EU HGV drivers went home because of pandemic and Brexit (just a minute...)

The driver shortage affects the whole of Europe, Poland and Germany especially - so if all the lorry drivers that used to work in UK went back home because of Brexit there should be an oversupply in Europe... but there is not.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

The driver shortage affects the whole of Europe, Poland and Germany especially - so if all the lorry drivers that used to work in UK went back home because of Brexit there should be an oversupply in Europe... but there is not.

yes, if they were just short of a few drivers. However, the EU is short of 400,000 drivers.

https://www.ti-insight.com/briefs/eu...00000-drivers/

Given that the UK has spent the last few years telling EU workers they aren't welcome and given the fact the £ is now only worth 1.17 € (it was about 1.4 € in 2017) and the fact that the visas runs out Christmas Eve and the fact that last year many drivers got stuck at Dover, I doubt whether hordes of EU drivers will be returning.

We are not short of petrol but it's located at the refineries and since no one trusts this government, people panic buy. I've ordered a rechargeable LED lantern and a butane camping stove because the energy minister said the lights will remain on over Christmas.

We saw a similar debacle during the pandemic, the government had been warned about the virus, they ignored the warnings, refused to quickly implement a lockdown and took 11 months to control the incoming passengers.

We stumble from one crisis to the next, this government doesn't pro-actively make plans it reacts to a disaster. A clown got elected and we got a circus.

[redtrummy]

Have to agree with that Seeker!

[garynortheast]

Spot on Seeker. Neatly sums up the situation.

[svenrico]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Spot on Seeker. Neatly sums up the situation.

Hear, hear.

[svenrico]

Latest - government 'thinking of' calling in the army to deliver petrol. Might as well do it then because the driver situation isn't going to improve in the near future.

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by Seeker

yes, if they were just short of a few drivers. However, the EU is short of 400,000 drivers.

You kinda contradicted yourself trying to refute what I said, is the shortage of 400,000 drivers in EU due to Brexit then, same as it is supposed to be in UK ( if you believe the partisan media) ? The media would like us to believe that everything that is happening in UK is down to Brexit. Our businesses had plenty of time to wean themselves off cheap free-movement labour and start training people, they obviously couldn't be 4r55ed.....

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

You kinda contradicted yourself trying to refute what I said, is the shortage of 400,000 drivers in EU due to Brexit then

No, the loss of the 14,000 EU HGV drivers is partly down to Brexit. We, as a nation, made it unpleasant for them to be here, then the weakness of the £ made it financially unattractive, too. The EU driver shortage for the EU is their problem.

The government was warned about the forthcoming driver shortage months ago by the RHA. Partly the hold up was the DVLA, partly it's not an attractive profession, partly it's because more profit can be made by using EU drivers.

Belatedly (as is typical), the Tories are trying to speed up the testing and/or reduce standards but the visa scheme is laughable and is a direct result of the split in the Cabinet with the anti-EU tribe not wanting any EU workers versus the more realistic members seeing that it's necessary. What we get is a compromise which helps no one. Listen to what BoZo is saying - he is considering using army drivers. What is there to consider - too little, too late, but we only have a few hundred Army tanker drivers. Might make good headlines but that's all. His other plan is a begging letter asking recently retired drivers to return, You want them to return - offer them a reason, a (financial) incentive.

Partisan media? Yes, the media in the UK is mostly right leaning:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics...uks-newspapers

We keep hearing excuses why each problem UK society is facing is not caused by Brexit yet go back a few years and the only problems we seemed to be having was how bent a banana should be and the onerous rules that the EU imposed for Health and Safety.

Given the choice I'd take the way society was functioning then compared to the way it's (not) functioning now. Whether you (or I) believe that it is Brexit that is at fault is immaterial. Things are undeniably worse now than the way they were.

Will things get better? I was reading an article a couple of days ago that was saying pharmacists are still waiting for the goverment to tell them how the drug supply is going to work since Brexit is slowing deliveries.

[Craig380]

Brexit is certainly a factor in the UK's shortage of trained HGV drivers: the agency drivers who would take up much of the slack are no longer here.

And as you say, UK businesses have happily participated in the 'race to the bottom' of off-loading salaried staff and outsourcing, because we all want cheap stuff. So are we prepared to pay more for goods and services so that companies can start to hire staff and retrain them? Of course not.

Then you have unintended consequences of the poorly thought-out IR35 scheme, which is hitting freelancers across all sectors, not just drivers.

It all highlights just how much of a house of cards our economy is. None of our political parties has a solution, and nor do individual cabinet members care as long as they can take their cushy consultancy jobs in the private sector when they are sacked or reshuffled.

The country needs a proper proportional representation system in which parties have to work together for the good of the country, not just to cling to power and satisfy the demands of their extremist members. Having lived in Denmark for several years, where they have proper PR, and excellent health and social services despite a low percentage of earners/tax-payers relative to the population, the system works, as it does in Sweden and Norway.

[SV650rules]

Just about every country in the world is having problems just now, it is by no means confined to UK. We are in fact one of the luckier ones, but don't tell rejoiners that !


@seeker - you are still fudging that EU has a problem, and avoiding saying what caused their problem, you just glibly say 'the EU driver shortage is their problem' while focusing on UK end of it, so both the EU and the UK have driver shortages, but ours is 'definitely caused by Brexit' - sorry but it doesn't make any sense at all.