UK Politics - We Don’t Want to See Your Papers, Please

[Spockydog]

This from Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary.

Quote

“There are even worse fuel and driver shortages in Germany and Poland, for example.”

Are there? Not according to any news reports I've seen. 

 

[Zorral]

You all can say whether this is anywhere near the money or not, but here is thoughtful piece about BREXIT and the UK shortages, put up this morning on the WaPo. This explains why I at least, could never make sense of what BREXIT was supposed to do for Britain during the endless run-up to the votes, after the votes, and it going on and on about leaving w/o leaving.  It wasn't about anything real bu about perception of nationality and blame for, well, I don't really know. So like the USA's deranged base.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/30/brexit-food-gas-shortage-predictable/

Quote

 

.... This became the core idea of the Brexit agenda: a systematic attempt to reject any notion of disadvantage while obsessing over perceived advantages. Brexit was never approached as a typical policy item, with weaknesses and strengths. It was treated instead as a crusade for patriotic meaning, in which support demonstrated national commitment. To be for Brexit was to be for Britain. To be against it was to be against Britain. Those pointing out potential problems in the Brexit project were, therefore, dismissed as traitors, “enemies of the people,” or out-of-touch metropolitan elitists.

This led to a severe deterioration in the quality of British political debate. But it also did something that would prove much more devastating to those who wanted to deliver Brexit: It prevented them from seeing the obstacles heading their way. And now they are being buffeted by crisis after crisis — all of which could be foreseen, but none of which were prepared for. We are witnessing the failure of post-truth politics not on a moral level, but on a practical one. ....

 

As might be seen from paragraphs like the above, the piece is at least as much a critique of the US and the deranged who have deranged every agency and in institution in the US as it is about the UK, in many ways. This same issue has another, different, very long report on our own broken supply lines, the why, how and what it means for the country (the US) as a whole in the present and future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/supply-chain-issues/?itid=hp-top-table-main

The embedded video and photographs make impression all right of what a mess the supply chains are.

BTW. something I haven't seen in years: Everywhere I look I see signs posted, "We're hiring!"  "Help Wanted!". Even retailers with online presence for ordering and shopping have "Help Wanted" notices interspersed.

 

[JoannaL]

5 hours ago, Spockydog said:

This from Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary.

Are there? Not according to any news reports I've seen. 

 

No, not any fuel or driver shortages in Germany - and full supermarket shelves as well. But I have heard that the price for gas and heating in general this winter will be rising, not sure if this is true, in the moment our gas price is the same.

[BigFatCoward]

3 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

No, not any fuel or driver shortages in Germany - and full supermarket shelves as well. But I have heard that the price for gas and heating in general this winter will be rising, not sure if this is true, in the moment our gas price is the same.

I've just had my projected bill through and my gas and electric combined has increased 53% a month. 

[Spockydog]

Jonson better call his election soon. The CBI are saying we can expect the supply chain crisis to last another two years. People are going to tire of this shit long before then. 

[polishgenius]

7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Are there? Not according to any news reports I've seen. 

Life in Germany is basically completely normal apart from having to wear masks in shops.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Jonson better call his election soon. The CBI are saying we can expect the supply chain crisis to last another two years. People are going to tire of this shit long before then. 

Is this mostly a fallout from Brexit? 

[A wilding]

Prediction: Johnson is only going to call an election soon if he gets some sort of bounce out of having been perceived to have beaten Covid. Otherwise he will hang on for as long as possible in the hope that things will improve somewhat after another few years.

[Spockydog]

45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is this mostly a fallout from Brexit? 

Well, depends on who you are talking to. If it's anyone from the Government, then no. Anyone else, it's hell yeah. 

[Filippa Eilhart]

9 hours ago, Spockydog said:

This from Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary.

Are there? Not according to any news reports I've seen. 

 

no, there arent.

[Filippa Eilhart]

There is a shortage of lorry drivers in Europe in the sense that most people willing to do the job are getting close to retirement age and it isn’t a very attractive job to younger people. But it’s not an imminent shortage. 

[DaveSumm]

I used to be a delivery driver in my 20’s, and I enjoyed it, but I’ve been saying for about a decade that I’d be foolish to go back (or get higher class licenses) due to the prospect of self driving vehicles. The technology is already there, we could get a lorry from warehouse to warehouse in the UK today with no driver. Once that gets approved, and I’d be surprised if it was longer than five years time, I don’t see what prevents that spreading like wildfire through the larger companies. The cost benefit of buying the vehicle is immediately offset by sacking the driver.

Whether that’s a factor for lorry drivers and why there’s a shortage, or whether it’s fully explained by other factors, I’m not sure.

[Soylent Brown]

Society resists small changes, never mind huge changes like switching haulage driving to robots.

If/when it happens, it'll happen very, very gradually. I doubt the prospect has much of an impact on the current situation.

[Spockydog]

 

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Jonson better call his election soon. The CBI are saying we can expect the supply chain crisis to last another two years. People are going to tire of this shit long before then. 

Seems unlikely he's going to be able to call one before Christmas, and if Christmas as people remember it gets cancelled again because people can't get the things they always do for Christmas then I am thinking Johnson will want as much time as possible to pass before needing to call an election, and will hope like hell that next Christmas is a whole lot better than this one.

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Once that gets approved, and I’d be surprised if it was longer than five years time...

I think that timeframe is extremely ambitious for HGVs. I'd be amazed if we even have fully autonomous cars on the road in that time period.

There are still too many unresolved challenges around safety. EV market leaders, Tesla, are being rather shady, with some even accusing them of misleading regulators over failures of their autopilot systems.

And it's one thing safely automating a car, let alone an eighteen-wheel-truck. And in the absence of a completely automated road network, populated entirely by autonomous, networked vehicles, trolley-problem-type incidents involving ten-tonne-trucks will likely see carnage on the roads, regardless of any safety systems they put in place.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

"The True and Fair Party" has a horrible ring to it, not least because it sounds a whole lot like how Fox News used to try to portray itself as "fair and balanced". And if their positioning on the political spectrum is mostly going to be looking to bleed votes off labour it will only serve to help the Tories win the next election.

If it fails to live up to its name it will soon be lampooned as the Trite and Fatuous party, and that will be the end of it.

[Luzifer's right hand]

18 hours ago, Spockydog said:

This from Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary.

Are there? Not according to any news reports I've seen. 

 

Maybe he had too much Schnaps?

8 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

There is a shortage of lorry drivers in Europe in the sense that most people willing to do the job are getting close to retirement age and it isn’t a very attractive job to younger people. But it’s not an imminent shortage. 

Well shit would hit the fan quickly without drivers from Eastern Europe... wait a 2nd that sounds familiar!

[BigFatCoward]

Met police response to Sarah Everard abduction 'we will no longer do something which we literally have never ever done (single crewed plain clothes officers)'. 

Violence against women task force set up, yet men are far far more likely to be victims of violent assault.  It should be a violence by men task force, that is something we should be throwing money at (obviously both would be better bit we have finite resources).  

[mormont]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Met police response to Sarah Everard abduction 'we will no longer do something which we literally have never ever done (single crewed plain clothes officers)'. 

The Met also advise that vulnerable individuals confronted by someone claiming to be an undercover officer should challenge and vigorously interrogate that person. This is incredibly stupid advice. The ex-officer who advised running away can at least be dismissed as a lone idiot. This is official advice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58757375

 

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Violence against women task force set up, yet men are far far more likely to be victims of violent assault.  It should be a violence by men task force, that is something we should be throwing money at (obviously both would be better bit we have finite resources).  

As you must surely know, the two are very, very different issues. Violent assaults on men and women typically take place in different circumstances for different reasons with different consequences. The main thing they have in common is that the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male.