UK Energy Crisis

(26-09-2021 11:28 )elgar1uk Wrote:  What's a reservist?

I think he means the Home Guard

How do you feel about pitching in?

(26-09-2021 11:13 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  

(26-09-2021 08:25 )Charlemagne Wrote:  The governments going to visa's to 5,000 lorry drivers.
How are they going to fill the other 95,000 vacancies

Are there enough reservists with HGV skills to fill them?

It’s time to face up to the fact that we have “Government by Tweet”.

Which is to say that they are not interested in solving problems — they only want to be seen to be solving problems. They want the right headline, not the right solution.

In the last two years alone, we’ve seen this with hospitals, parks, housing and high streets. BIG headlines and triumphant tweets about the many millions of pounds that they are “pouring into” a particular problem. But when you stop and do the maths, it actually amounts to peanuts — a middle finger in a crumbling dam.

And now it’s HGVs.

5,000 hastily arranged visas is a bandaid on a gaping wound. What are they doing, in the meantime, to increase the supply of UK drivers. Yes, it will mean higher pay (…which means higher prices for us, as the glittering prize for “taking back control”).

But pay isn’t the bottleneck. It is wretched working conditions. Lack of respect. Lack of infrastructure. Poorly regulated employers. It’s the crippling cost of insurance, especially for younger, more inexperienced drivers. It’s the lack of any work/life balance.

It is a huge structural problem that needs concentrated effort and thoughtful, long term solutions. But why bother, when “5,000 visas” will get you safely through the Andrew Marr show.

It’s the same theatre, again and again. Morons. We are governed by cynical, careerist, selfish morons.

How has Grant Shapps avoided being removed from his job at transport. He's now blaming the problem on the road haulage Association.

Just read a tweet which says that a mate queued for 3 hours outside a petrol station, only to find out that they had run out of flowers.

As someone who has the skills to drive a hgv, but who's eyesight doesn't measure up to a stupid EU rule (being able to see without glasses ) I'm finding all of this fookin hilarious

(26-09-2021 15:02 )Charlemagne Wrote:  How has Grant Shapps avoided being removed from his job at transport. He's now blaming the problem on the road haulage Association.

Just read a tweet which says that a mate queued for 3 hours outside a petrol station, only to find out that they had run out of flowers.

Yep, Grant's played the Boris Johnson's Tory Government "Let's blame anyone else and not us" playbook again. Way to get the lorry drivers and their associations onside.....not

I hope and trust that no self respecting european (EU) drivers will answer the sos call from the govt. What a damn cheek to advocate and support brexit which forced out these drivers, than go begging them to stay longer or come back on manufactured visas of convenience simply because you find yourself up shit creek without them!!

A two fingered salute and a shout of 'foreign office' is all they deserve.

(26-09-2021 12:14 )Goodfella3041 Wrote:  But pay isn’t the bottleneck. It is wretched working conditions. Lack of respect. Lack of infrastructure. Poorly regulated employers. It’s the crippling cost of insurance, especially for younger, more inexperienced drivers. It’s the lack of any work/life balance.

One of my mates has a daughter on HGVs. He's been out with her a few times. The motorways aren't so bad, if you can avoid the roadworks, but the built up areas are horrendous. He says once they get off the motorway she "takes no fucking prisoners" because it's the only way she can get the job done. She has her transport manager on her back the whole time (because he has customers on his back). One hold up and she's not where she's supposed to be at an allotted time. Then she'll run out of tacho 30 mins from home and the company has to send another driver down in a van to bring the lorry home, and she drives the van home
So that's two drivers not where they're supposed to be, and a transport manager tearing his hair out, because of one hold up. And so it goes on...

He honestly doesn't know how she does it. And she might not be much longer. She's thinking of going to Australia to drive the road trains in the outback
I hope she goes for it. She's in her 20's. If she doesn't do it now, she probably never will

Her boyfriend's on cross channel haulage, and he's going to be chucking that because because of all the hassle and paperwork at the ports.

An electric cars looking like a decent option the next time around. Or after looking at my finances an electric bike.