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Boris at it again and the contest to replace the lying c***

So it seems this was all caused by a leaked document from a government meeting.

The media have then run with it and the fucking bellends have believed them.
 
Seems surreal to me that the guy that they are blaming was the newsreader on the Simon Mayo breakfast show from back on the day
 
Paul said:
No that's not the case, yes Brexit has contributed to the driver shortage, that is indisputable but normally we have between 40 and 45 thousand new LGV drivers in the Uk, but in the last 18 months, due to circumstances beyond everyone's control we have only managed about15 thousand (going by memory so please don't quote me), trust me, with fuel, if there was a major supply problem the army would be out.
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There's probably a bit of people putting 2 & 2 together. Seeing food missing from shops due to driver shortages and then hearing fuel is going the same way. It's probably not a direct cause, but I can understand people making the leap to think fuel might be impacted. Especially when the media tell them too
 
The reason there are driver shortages Europe wide is because of Covid. The reason they are worse here is because of Brexit
 
I've spoken to a couple of tanker drivers over the last 3 or 4 days, and they claim there is no driver shortage in the tanker sector of haulage, in fact there is always a waiting list for people wanting to be fuel tanker drivers...no idea if that's true.
It's starting to drive me nuts with people blaming the media, don't get me wrong I despise the media, have not bought a 'newspaper' since 1980 but every TV or radio bulletin I've seen/heard since the beginning has said there is no shortage except what's caused by panic buying and imo that's in the individual.
 
sycophantia said:
I've spoken to a couple of tanker drivers over the last 3 or 4 days, and they claim there is no driver shortage in the tanker sector of haulage, in fact there is always a waiting list for people wanting to be fuel tanker drivers...no idea if that's true.
It's starting to drive me nuts with people blaming the media, don't get me wrong I despise the media, have not bought a 'newspaper' since 1980 but every TV or radio bulletin I've seen/heard since the beginning has said there is no shortage except what's caused by panic buying and imo that's in the individual.
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The guy from the petrol and service centres association on the TV this morning had the opposite view.

It was entirely the media fault and he did reiterate that there was no shortage.
 
Johnny75 said:
The guy from the petrol and service centres association on the TV this morning had the opposite view.

It was entirely the media fault and he did reiterate that there was no shortage.
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So the guy who knows said this morning there is no shortage via the media. I've personally not seen anywhere on the media that there is a shortage apart from that caused by panic buying....maybe I take the wrong media.
 
Not making light of all of the aforementioned factors, but I got out of the rat-race ten years ago (printing and publishing) because the manifestation of the ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing processes that were figuratively and literally killing me. I actually feared the extent of where we were heading in the ‘race to the bottom’ to the detriment of my own mental health.

We’ve been sleepwalking into this for years. Brexit, the pandemic and incompetent leadership have forced this centre stage, but the car crash was coming anyway - there’s only so far you can go when running a business by reducing margins to nothing in a forlorn attempt at remaining competitive - minimum wage and zero hours contracts, a strategy entirely dependent upon a willing supply of cheap labour, puts you right at the end of that coal seam and in an extremely perilous position.

Companies have often been accused of greed and exploitation (with good reason on many occasions), but many have been forced down that route in a desperate attempt to simply stay afloat - that is a miserable pathway to a slow death for all involved.

Appreciate that is a personal experience and wouldn’t want to underplay the other critical factors involved here, but I can’t help feeling ultimately this is capitalism running its course and coming back to bite us very hard on the arse.

I think we’ve all got to shoulder some responsibility here and not just business. The way we live our lives, click, track, deliver, complain, and strive to shave off milliseconds to save pennies and make our chaotic lives ever more ‘efficient’, has all contributed to this mess. If going without supplies and having no fucking turkey or shit plastic toys from China at Christmas is going to make people think about this and stop taking things and people for granted, then IMO it’s a price well worth paying.
 
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"Just in time" is not able to respond to unexpected demand, no matter what causes that demand, if there is no extra capacity in the supply chain. A well resourced, planned supply chain copes with the ebb and flow of demand "just in time" but we have found out that it is neither well resourced or well planned. We know that there was a shortage of suitably qualified drivers, we know that the average age of suitability qualified drivers was close to retirement age, we know that an influx of new/younger drivers had declined, we know that we lost a number of suitably qualified drivers post brexit and we know that training/testing of drivers took a hit in the last 18 months. We also know that people can be irrational, panic buying is nothing new.

We knew all this yet...the supply chain has fallen down - demand can't be met "just in time". Yes, lean production does cut down on waste but if you go too lean (and it is lean in the pursuit of profit no other reason) then shit happens.

But it is always somebody else's fault.
 
sycophantia said:
I've spoken to a couple of tanker drivers over the last 3 or 4 days, and they claim there is no driver shortage in the tanker sector of haulage, in fact there is always a waiting list for people wanting to be fuel tanker drivers...no idea if that's true.
It's starting to drive me nuts with people blaming the media, don't get me wrong I despise the media, have not bought a 'newspaper' since 1980 but every TV or radio bulletin I've seen/heard since the beginning has said there is no shortage except what's caused by panic buying and imo that's in the individual.
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A mate of mine, who is a lapsed tanker driver, got offered £62 an hour to work yesterday! Bonkers.
 
Tony Towner said:
Seems surreal to me that the guy that they are blaming was the newsreader on the Simon Mayo breakfast show from back on the day
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Rod Mckenzie at the RHA? didn't he get done for bullying in the newsroom ?
 
Elephant Pyjamas said:
Why has Covid produced driver shortages?
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Across Europe including the UK it hasn't been possible to deliver HGV testing due to Covid and on top of that you've got those who have retired, had to give it up on medical grounds etc etc

Specifically to the UK you can add in any drivers who have returned to their home resulting from Brexit. Everywhere is feeling it but maybe non more acutely than the UK.
 
Plus there is IR35 which means a nice little tax perk has gone. Makes it less attractive to be an HGV driver.
 
Apparently the government are planning to lower the salary level at which students have to pay back their loans. Fuckers.
 
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