The Brexit Effect.

[dave m]

So if all of the huge costs of lockdown, free school meals (under protest) furlough schemes and state support for those at the bottom, plus loads more money for the NHS (though not, apparently wage increases) could be afforded at zero harm to the economy, what was the point of "Austerity" and cutting back on social spending?

[Frank Blank]

So if all of the huge costs of lockdown, free school meals (under protest) furlough schemes and state support for those at the bottom, plus loads more money for the NHS (though not, apparently wage increases) could be afforded at zero harm to the economy, what was the point of "Austerity" and cutting back on social spending?

I think you've answered your own question.

Or to put it another way, Osborne's slash and burn philosophy has now been consigned to the dustbin of history. Sunak is more creative (and intelligent) than Gideon and his 130% 'super deduction' on plant and machinery investment for the next two years, for example, may prove to be inspired - even if it unfortunately benefits the likes of Amazon too.

[dave m]

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/polit ... ow-269300/

[MickEdge]

As the UK economy continues to recover, there is an ever increasing shortage of HGV drivers, because it is no longer possible to recruit them easily from other countries and we have lost 20,000 foreign drivers who used to work here. On top of that, recruiting young UK drivers is proving hard, and with the age profile of trained drivers leaning towards retirement (half the 300,000 are over 50), the problem may get worse.

[THC]

Good news for drivers wages then

[dave m]

Which means the cost of goods in the uk will rise.
Everything from loo roll to freezers is delivered by truck

[Spicy Norman]

Then we should definitely have tolerated the purposefully engineered suppression offair wages, just so long as the cost of the eu's cultist adherent's wiping of backsides weighs in at less than a penny a sheet.

Any similarity between economic viability and wilful exploitation of any persons - living or dead, is purely coincidental.

[Voiceoftreason?]

As the UK economy continues to recover, there is an ever increasing shortage of HGV drivers, because it is no longer possible to recruit them easily from other countries and we have lost 20,000 foreign drivers who used to work here. On top of that, recruiting young UK drivers is proving hard, and with the age profile of trained drivers leaning towards retirement (half the 300,000 are over 50), the problem may get worse.

The shortage of hgv trained drivers is indeed a problem, exacerbated by, as you say, the current age profile of the existing drivers. Whilst it may be possible to attract and recruit younger drivers, you also have the retention problem. There are cases, as there have always been in probably every walk of working life, of younger folk coming into the industry and having their HGV training paid for by their employer, and then either not liking the lifestyle, or leaving to set up on their own, taking the expensive HGv training with them. That will account for a small proportion of course, but if numbers coming into the work are low in the first place, that is significant.

IME drivers in one organisation o know of, do just that. Drive. They don’t load or unload or anything else. They also have tight timescales and other restrictions on now long they can drive for, which also constrains them. As always, a decent living wage should be paid, but the existing drivers know they are a valuable commodity, and aren’t above playing on that as leverage.

It’s a push me pull you situation.

[piwacket]

Presumably students and refugees are OK because they're the right type of wogs

Ahem! Whilst the word is/was apparently an acronym in Its CAPITALISED format -it is still not permitted! It has been replaced, and this post will be deleted once you’ve been seen to have read it.

[THC]

Which means the cost of goods in the uk will rise.
Everything from loo roll to freezers is delivered by truck

It's a shame you don't want drivers to be paid a fair wage. Day rates on sites are going up according to mates. A good thing that trades can earn a decent wage, and not have their pay undercut by Eastern Europeans willing to work for less.

[KeithW]

Which means the cost of goods in the uk will rise.

It's a shame you don't want drivers to be paid a fair wage.

Massive logical fail.

[MickEdge]

Which means the cost of goods in the uk will rise.

It's a shame you don't want drivers to be paid a fair wage.

Massive logical fail.

It’s a double-edged sword. One person getting a fair wage may result in another finding their wages insufficient, because of inflation. Not always the case, because productivity increases and technology can mean more for everyone. Tricky with transport costs, if there has to be a real person behind the wheel, or at your bedside in a hospital.

[windrush]

Wages paid to drivers in road transport can vary considerably; the best money has always been in 'own account' companies such as supermarkets etc who do not need to show a profit with their transport as the money is in the product. Those in general haulage and tipper work have always been fighting rate cutting and have had the rough end of the pineapple, I was chatting to two former work colleagues this weekend who run their own tippers and they are having a hard time of it. Daywork rate, the money paid by the customer for keeping the vehicle on site for tarmac laying etc, was paid from the minute the load was due on site at £30 per hour (back in 2002 when I finished it was £19 and I got 27% of it as a driver) but the rate has now dropped to £11 per hour and only chargeable from an hour after the delivery time. Other things have been chipped away at as well to get work for the quarries, some folk have just given up and cut their losses and sold their vehicles. Things certainly haven't improved in that sector of transport.

Pete.

[Frank Blank]

Good to see Macron has finally recognised reality by getting French taxpayers to cough up for the rescue of Eurostar.

[Pooneil]

I see Cheesewoman Liz Truss (and indeed the rest of the government) is crowing about the new trade agreement that we've negotiated with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - although they're steering well clear of the fact taht it's not as good as the deal we had via the EU. Thankfully, at least the FT has picked up on this:

Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, described the UK-EEA deal as “necessary” and a “good thing” but said its success depended on the baseline of measurement. "...if you are comparing the new trade deal to the pre-Brexit relationship, with both the UK and the EEA members in the single market, then the new deal doesn’t come close to offering the same levels of economic access and benefits.”

Norway’s government said the deal was not as good as the previous agreement with the UK... “A free trade agreement can never be better than the EEA agreement [with the EU],” trade and industry minister Iselin Nybo told a press conference in Oslo on Friday. Erna Solberg, Norway’s prime minister, added that two aspects of the deal were still problematic: that rules changes are not “dynamic”, as they are with Oslo’s deal with the EU, meaning they are automatically updated if they are changed; and veterinary rules at the border will lead to extra costs for some companies.

Hmm, I thought that one of the Brexiteers' promises was that we would negotiate better trade deals, not worse...

[chris_j_wood]

Hmm, I thought that one of the Brexiteers' promises was that we would negotiate better trade deals, not worse...

At the time I thought they were deluded thinking that.

Since then it has become clear that they were not deluded at all, but were simply lying through their back teeth in order to get the result they wanted.

[mikejee]

What else could you expect. even without opening his mouth Farage was the quintessential snake oil salesman who anyone in their right mind should avoid else he would steal the disinfectant blocks from the urinal

[MickEdge]

The EU and most rational arguments will continue to struggle against attention grabbing comments like this. George Eustice, the environment secretary, said there was an “outright ban” on chicken nuggets and sausages being sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. “Clearly that is bonkers,” he complained. Sadly, it seems impossible to discredit the snake oil salesman.

[dave m]

Interesting interview on the Today programme this am

One of Teressa May's advisors was on saying that it was "impossible" for Johnston to not understand the NI Protocol and the issues with Brexit as it was discussed in depth at Cabinet. TM was tied up in knots about it and it was clearly an issue.

Johnston tried to prorogue Parliament in order to force a crash Brexit, overruled then fought an election with his false "oven ready" deal that didn't exist.

[Mayfield]

So he lied - again

Hold the front page

[MickEdge]

I see the NI Protocol talks with EU have broken down, and so Frost is accusing the EU of being too “purist” about what’s in the signed agreement. Well more fool the EU for expecting the U.K. to stick to the arrangements, when it doesn’t suit us. Of course it all works in the Government’s favour, as they can say, look we were right about how dreadfully bureaucratic the EU is. Rules are for fools in Boris and co’s fairy tale world.

[Pooneil]

I see Ian Dullwit Smith's report on "scrapping pesky EU legislation" suggests getting rid of GDPR and allowing shops to advertise in imperial measurements without also advertising in metric. So after at least 45 years of educating children in metric measurements, we'd now like to disadvantage everyone under 50 by allowing you to only sell goods in quantities they may well not understand. Not so much taking back control as taking us back to the 1950s; I presume he'll also be lobbying for the return of pea-soupers and widespread tuberculosis deaths...

[Voiceoftreason?]

For some reason, I read that as pea shooters.

Funny old day today.

[Pooneil]

And once again the government fails to keep promises. Michael Gove on the Today programme in July 2017 said ""I made it perfectly clear, and indeed this is something on which all members of the government are agreed, that we are not going to dilute our high animal welfare standards or our high environmental standards in pursuit of any trade deal". He also said that chickens that have been washed in chlorine will not be allowed in the UK as part of any trade deal, once the UK leaves the European Union. He's also on record since as saying there will be absolutely no dilution of our standards, and imports must meet our standards.

And now we've just reached a trade deal with Australia (which even the government concedes will only add 0.02% to our GDP), and here's what we're allowing in:

If you want some more details of what these practices entail (some of which are quite unpleasant, read here.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Yep, that’s me out of buying any Aussie meat or eggs. Mulesing - that’s vile enough on its own!

[OLDMAN]

TBH we’ve only ever bought British meat so no worry for us as not changing

[MickEdge]

And once again the government fails to keep promises. Michael Gove on the Today programme in July 2017 said…..

And you don’t need to go as far back as 2017 for broken promises. The much more recent promise to protect farmers for 15 years because of the Aussie trade deal has been quietly dropped.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 66496.html

[Mayfield]

The only Australian meat I ever buy is the odd leg of lamb, frozen…and as that’s only a couple of times a year I can easily forgo it ( it’s not OHs favourite )

Not very keen on their cheese ….and I think the wine I like from that part of the world is actually from `New Zealand ….

Watched a guy yesterday say that most of their meat goes to Asia anyway….

[MickEdge]

One might prefer U.K. reared meat, but how long can you afford it? Cheaper foreign meat, combined with meat processors cutting production by around 10%, because they can’t recruit sufficient U.K. residents to fill the gap left by foreign workers, will push up prices and likely force some farmers out of business. Most of this will go unnoticed by the general public, because it’s not headline stuff, but it’s part of the dripping tap Brexit effect.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Mick - do you ever wonder that if foreign workers were interested in more than making money, that they would have applied for citizenship and stayed to make a life here rather than return? Perhaps they could have been sponsored by their employers if they were so keen to keep them. Even, and here’s a more radical idea - maybe employers should pay a wage that means uk workers can live in it, rather than cheap labour.

I buy meat that i believe is reared to good standards. I wouldn’t knowingly touch chlorined chicken or any meat that doesn’t come from decent husbandry, transportation if needs be, and slaughter. If it means it costs me more, then I’ll eat less.
Brexit is done. Get over it.

[chris_j_wood]

TBH we’ve only ever bought British meat so no worry for us as not changing

That is fine until we do our trade deal with US.

US trade deals usually include clauses to limit country of origin labelling, which they describe as "unjustified trade restrictions or unjustified commercial requirements (including unjustified labeling)". If that comes in you will have little way of knowing whether the meat you buy is British or not.

I buy meat that i believe is reared to good standards.

You will probably still be ok provided you buy directly from the farmer who raised and slaughtered the animal. But, without origin labelling, as soon as you put any kind of distribution chain in the way your belief becomes no more than a wild guess.

Reference: https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/06/wh ... rade-deal/

[mikejee]

And there will probably be much less chance to buy from the farmer as there may well be less of them and those that remain might choose to send their product direct to selected customers

[Voiceoftreason?]

I just read what you said about the US labelling. That’s very sneaky isn’t it. I can see why they’ve done it, but I’d have thought it was more likely that, for example, meat or fish of Asian origin would be more likely to be subject to ‘commercial restrictions’ ? What does ‘unjustified’ mean in that context - pretty good catch all isn’t it. Oh we’re not labelling our meat in case someone somewhere objects for some unspecified reason and might or might not buy it if we did. Alrighty then.

I buy meat exclusively from animals that I know are reared on British farms - it says so on the label. So AFAIK, my belief is on firm foundations. If something doesn’t have an origin label, I don’t buy it.

[chris_j_wood]

I buy meat exclusively from animals that I know are reared on British farms - it says so on the label. So AFAIK, my belief is on firm foundations. If something doesn’t have an origin label, I don’t buy it.

That is fair enough. Nobody can force you to buy something that doesn't have an origin label. But if we do have a trade deal with the US, then there is a good chance that means you won't be buying anything from a supermarket or other retail outlet. The US rules (at least as applied in the US) don't seem to preclude farm shops and the like saying "everything grown here" so they will still be available.

I suppose the good news is that until the Northern Irish situation can be sorted to US satisfaction (which really means to the satisfaction of the Irish diaspora in the US) then there probably won't be a trade deal with the US. I'm certainly not holding my breath.

[Voiceoftreason?]

Looks like you know very angle and I’ll starve then. Fair enough