I Don't Believe It

[gulliver1]

Andrew Bridgen MP. ( CON) Blames the shortage of lorry drivers on Tony Blair, for encouraging youngsters to follow higher education and going to University When he was PM.. Thats whats causing todays empty supermarket shelves. Anyones fault but the Tories.

[bobbinwales]

yes I did say some parts are goverments responsibility.
But not pay and conditions

[bobbinwales]

or recruitment and training.
Bad planning by road haulage.

Theres no simple answer tho, my point is theres lots of factors. They should work together not try to find someone to blame for the whole thing

[gulliver1]

12.12 jno ," People still get cross when Blair says or does anything ",
Amost like Thatcher then.

[jno]

bobb, yes, the fact that drivers are being paid bonuses just to sign up is capitalism in action, supply and demand at work

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/27/tesco-offers-lorry-drivers-1000-signing-on-fee-due-to-shortage

and the supermarkets will be competing among themselves for drivers. I suppose we have to accept the possibility that this will push prices up a bit, but if we want to make the demands, we have to pay for the supply. Either that or grow our own food - but the squirrels ate all my strawberries this year :-(

[Gromit]

Gulliver,
Thatcher has been dead 8 years. She isn’t going to say or do anything anymore.

Bobbinwales,
The Government is preventing drivers from returning to their jobs. So they are making the problem far worse than it need be. They could relax the rules for EU and EEA drivers today, but their anti-immigration ideology won’t let them.

[naomi24]

I think he has a point when he talks about Blair’s one size fits all education initiative. That led to a dearth of school leavers going into, among other things, the trades - and a whole load of young people wasting their talents and ending up with useless degrees.

[youngmafbog]

This problem has many facets.

There is the low pay, meaning HGV drivers dont want to do it.

There is Brexit, although many EU drivers were going back to their own counties before that as the economy in their countries were picking up due to EU investment.

There are the additional rules for HGV drivers.

And of course COVID, there are something like 80,000 driving tests outstanding, plus the so called 'pingdemic' has caused many issues with bin drivers etc.

I'm not sure pinning it Blair is really on for this one although I do agree with him that the 'everyone must have a degree' does cause problems. It was after all only so His Tonyness could get the unemployment figures down.

So it's just a perfect storm. No point in pointing fingers someone just needs to get on with sorting it out.

[ToraToraTora]

TBF St Tony did encourage everyone to do a degree in something, many of them were nonsense degrees with zero job prospects so It's not unreasonable to conclude that other trades have suffered as a result.

[ToraToraTora]

gromit: "Thatcher has been dead 8 years" - and she still has more influence than most of the living.

[bobbinwales]

Its not often we can say this but our posts say almost exactly the same thing youngmafbog

[bobbinwales]

jno the companies are trying things now but havent been doing enough before to prepare for this or deal with past shortages

As gromit said-"whilst there are 600,000 HGV licence holders in the UK, only half of those are active in the industry and for many, it is the reasons that have been cited above why they have left the job, the drivers have voted with their feet"

They should be creative and look for ways to get them back just like teh NHS did with bringing back doctors and nurses

[jno]

I think a lot of doctors and nurses returned to work because they felt it was a professional duty, one that didn't necessarily cease if you retired. Drivers are unlikely to feel the same way, as Gromit says: it's just a job, and hard work; they don't get much respect, they're just people who get in the way of BMW drivers on the motorway.

I suspect there may be more to the Brexit angle too: increased British border restrictions will be making it even harder work to drive here, and heighten the appeal of driving in a largely border-free Europe.

My job was nothing like driving, but I didn't feel any call to return to it because of Covid; but I can imagine NHS people feeling very differently.

[andy-hughes]

bob - // Yes its a bit of a stretch and not the main problem but hes got a good genral point- we'er encouraging far to many to go who are'nt right for uni and would be better learning a trade. In fact am sure alot of children from age 14-18 would be better off doing trades like bricklaying, joinery rather than GCSEs and sixth form. //

Absolutely - Blair's nonsensical ambition for fifty per cent of school leavers to go to university was motivated by exactly the same thinking as Boris's obsession with cycle lanes - a personal crusade based entirely on personal experience, and having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

When you consider that the drop-out rate for students in their first year is around one third - and that's students who actually did want to go to university, it should be abundantly clear to anyone who actually looks at the issue realistically, that university is not the holy grail it was in the 1960's, and the notion that a degree is a golden pathway to riches and security has long been exposed for the complete myth it always was.

Education should be about finding potential occupations that actually suit the students being steered towards them, and for the vast majority, that is not further education and academia, it is practical skills that will enable them to find work regularly throughout their lifetime.

From my experience, finding a graduate with no skills whatsoever in trhe real world, is like finding a grain of sand on a beach, but finding an electrician who can visit in the next three months is like finding life on Mars - potentially possible, but don''t hold your breath.

The ludicrous system that allows universities to make money depending on the number of admissions should be scrapped, since it makes them take anyone and everyone, however manifestly unsuitable they are.

Education needs reform from top to bottom, but reform costs money, and they are only interested in making money, so no chance there.

[ichkeria]

Very sensible answer by ymb @13.12

Lots of contributory factors