The main thing stopping me going back is the complete lack of respect and consideration, shit wages and piss poor conditions. Everyone wants the goods but noone wants a truckstop in their town, so your choices are either kip in the cab on some shitty industrial estate, waking at every noise incase you are being robbed or pay 30 notes to stop at the motorway services, with one shower for 50 drivers and being ripped off for the privilege, add in the distribution centres that won't let you use the facilities, won't let you stay in the cab whilst it's being unloaded, but want you to spend 3 hours in some poxy sweaty waiting room on some moulded plastic chair, feck it.
Westminster Politics
- Thread starter altodevil
- Start date
I realise there has been a shortage for years, but something has tipped the balance in the last few months and the people I speak to in the Food Manufacturing industry where I work all say the 20% that has tipped this over the edge and led to the empty shelves is Brexit. The recent gas issues haven't helped for some of the firms I work with, but the empty shelves were happening before that.
I get there's been an issue for years, but to go from full shelves with some clever logistical planning to empty isles in a few months is not a coincidence.
As @Sparky_Hughes says, conditions for drivers are appalling too, so if we really want to replace drivers with UK workers we're all (rightly) going to have to pay for the wage and condition improvements.
Don't worry guys, we are reassured now not so Cleverley has clarified:
We've had tory or tory-lite in charge for the last 42 years. Perhaps that should give us all a clue.
If 'we' keep voting for the right wing, who completely coincidentally are funded by the mega rich, then we won't see any change for the next 42 years either. With the tories, it isn't just incompetence that makes them seem so bad at the job, it's a simple fact that they have to pay the debt incurred for those that help them get elected every time.
So you might think that Labour were a turd sandwich last time out, but they were still the better choice, clearly. Anyone who thinks that a group who are possibly not fully competent are as bad as a group who are definitely malicious, has probably been scared into that position and should try to look at the situation more objectively.
Drive for us! Longest drive is a 9 hour round trip; guaranteed no overnight stay and the people you deliver to are our key customers with whom we ensure there's a mutual respect.
What people don't realise is that Covid has been a factory reset. It's been a hard reset for so many people and none more so than drivers. Tens of thousands of people of would be drivers haven't been able to pass a test since tests haven't been available. Add into that the past several years of perpetual regulation telling good drivers that they can't drive because they don't have a stamp and you have a problem.
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As an employer of HGV drivers I think something fantastic is happening. Drivers are starting to get paid a good salary and employers like myself can pay them a great salary without my competitors undercutting me.
The best thing about the last 12 months is I've given all my staff great pay rises knowing that I can still be competitive in the industry.
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Who was your last competent UK government?
Well it's all relative. Actually objectively competent... Thatcher before she went completely mad? Harold Wilson? All the way back to Attlee?
Competent relative to the current corrupt shitshow? Gordon Brown.
Blair and Brown were mostly competent. Certainly in comparison to the last 3 tory PMs. If only they'd listened to Corbyn over Iraq. Of course they made many other decisions with which I disagree. But they at least had the gumption to enact schemes to help immigrant integration, instead of using them to sow division to help them get elected.
I wasn't really old or interested enough to follow John Major's tenure, but he seems to have been far more competent and less ideologically destructive than the 2010-2021 mob have been.
I wouldn't disagree which is really quite sad.
The industry needs more people like you chap.
In fairness as much as I'd like to take credit it's the industry that allows it at the moment. We are UK only hence the shorter drives and the shortage of lower skilled workers and also HGV drivers has meant we can pay more and increase our prices (meaning no loss of profits,).
The only way I'd go back now would be as an owner driver, I long thought about trying to organise a collective of owner drivers, to allow for tendering of bigger contracts, better deals on fuel and kit etc.
That makes sense. I know IR35 has hurt a lot of self employed drivers as well which hasn't helped (a driver we employed would have earned £7k less net as an employed driver on an identical wage compared with what he earned self employed).
Thank god Labour didn't get in...
Suckers for punishment. It is becoming more apparent why the Tories ruin the education system.
Where the feck is Johnson? Haven't heard from in days.
Dereliction of duty
Dereliction of duty
The solution the government are proposing is simply not workable. I can't see a queue of drivers in Europe leave their present jobs and travel the UK on a temporary 6-month visa with all the implications of looking for accommodation leaving their families and then return back?
Do these guys think before making these decisions?
Do these guys think before making these decisions?
Gotta kill critical thinking.
Suckers for punishment. It is becoming more apparent why the Tories ruin the education system.
no
Tanker drivers are highly trained in health and safety due to delivering highly flammable liquid. The army will have to undertake this training.
This government are shameless
Just saw that too. Any other ways the young can be fecked over?
Expect a tirade of headlines with "is this the worst generation of young people ever" to appear from the usual suspects if anyone complains.
Why does the Tory party hate the young so much? What's the benefit for them?
In Australia the "Tories" just doubled the course prices of BA's (average BA is now over AUD$40k) and any degree that seemingly did not fit into a conservative narrative about whom deserves higher education. This was after debt repayment thresholds were lowered a few years ago. If you get a whiff of "uni fees have to increase so the country is better prepared for the post-covid economy"....fight like hell
Christ, my nephew in Melbourne will have to face this down the line. The Tories worldwide taking the anti-intellectualism 'people are tired of experts' to the nth degree.
They don't hate the young as such but they look to tax the people that don't vote for them rather than the ones that do. I do think that they're playing a dangerous game in the medium to long term. There are more than a few political scientists that predict the UK will start returning left wing governments in a generation or two.
Because in the words of Eddie Cochran's classic 'Summer Time Blues' ..."I'd like to help you son...but you are too young to vote", and those that can vote, don't; and when they do they vote, its for anybody but the Tories... its not difficult to work out!
That’s a given, the problem is that the Tories are doing everything they can to pull the ladder up behind them. By the time it gets to that point, the electoral system will have been crafted even more in their favour.
Labour should get fully on board with the progressive alliance for election reform
Lab, Lib, SNP, Greens, Plaid agree to only have 1 candidate stand and to support that candidate and al candidates have in their manifestio that they will pass immediate electoral reform for a PR system then call a new election
Probably delivers a big majority and a government is formed.. Passes PR then dissolves
Finally allows Labour to fragment, Greens will likley get much more than 1mp under a PR system... SNP probably extract some agreement for indy ref 2
All achievable if Lab and Lib sign up to this for the next election
Because the young will never vote for them. The Tories have nothing to lose.
I mean army drivers move highly explosive erm explosives so I would guess this isn't an insurmountable issue ... that said how many drivers can the army free up - 500? 1000? ... it might be enough to help with fuel deliveries in the short term but wont address the longer term shortage and associated supply chain issues
They vote 70%-80% Labour.
If that was to ever happen, looking forward to them all being condemned by the press as traitors to democracy..
Dam they've just done a communism.
Whilst ignoring that the tories and the brexit party did the same thing in the last election without so much as a peep.