Good points
@reddragon.
Certainly this is
NOT all (or even mainly) due to Brexit.
The problem with Remainiacs trying to fit everything into the "due to Brexit" lens is that it prevents a proper fix of a big issue, which is why their blinkeredness annoys me so much.
For those of us who are older and have longer memories, when Blair immediately opened up to Free Movement for new Eastern European EU members (unlike most other EU states), the availability of cheap HGV drivers who would put up with exploitative conditions went through the roof.
What that did was disguise and delay some fundamental problems in UK HGV driving which started then and grew over 15-20 years and include:
- Supermarkets (and others) driving down supply chain prices and the whole sector becoming casualised with logistics companies using cheap agency drivers
- Lack of basic HGV license training paid for by employer- why should they when they could get cheap labour from abroad?
- Youngsters not coming into the trade- it is not only unglamourous and by then badly paid and deteriorating conditions, but Blair was behind the push to get loads of kids into second-rate "uni" education which did nothing much for them but did a LOT to enrich those in the Educational establishment. (Same for other trades).
- Older drivers retire and others leave as conditions worsen.
- CPS training came in which is extra cost for the Driver
- Poor conditions as
@reddragon describes
- Extra tracking and monitoring by agency staff employers as part of just in time delivery- which is in effect low-cost storage on a moving truck
- Demand from the better off middle classes and office workers for "free" next-day delivery.
- IR35 which meant that drivers effectively get a pay cut (Gordon Brown loved contractors using IR35 loopholes because it kept up-front prices down. I was contracting in the early days- I remember). Thing is, the HGV Drivers didn't choose those conditions of quasi-self employment, they had to take them or leave them (the same way agency track workers did until Network Rail stepped in a few years ago and put a stop to the worst of those practices). This was all about keeping transport costs down so that you, the consumer, can have an item a quid or two cheaper.
Then, some 15-20 years on, the perfect storm breaks as the holes in the slices of cheese all line up.
As Eastern EU countries get better standards of living, as UK standards of living are more difficult (think house prices) and we get a COVID pandemic, and we had Brexit, some EU drivers went home. We also have a DVLA meltdown and a lack of ANY HGV tests for a year making it difficult for new drivers to get a license. However, the number who went home was far smaller then the number of HGV licence holders in UK who don't use the category. But that last issues of a bunch of drivers departing for home was the tipping point- the last later of protection removed. It was A cause- not THE cause.
Fact is, we've enough drivers holding HGV Class 1 in the UK, but many don't want to drive as the conditions so bad- apparently it's better conditions driving an Amazon van (which according to the Graun is hell on earth). Those conditions became so low due to a big labour supply so there was always someone else to take the job for a pittance. Basically, UK logistics exploited oversees labour to keep prices down- is that acceptable or moral? I think not!
Blair has a lot to answer for in this. He casualised a whole swathe of previously skilled trades by immediately allowing a huge number of Eastern EU nationals in without ANY restriction (whilst other big EU countries including France and Germany put in initial controls). That made those trades unattractive and the UK dependent on a constant stream of cheap labour to be exploited. With Thatcher having destroyed the Trades Unions, and Blair the true heir to Thatcher, where was no-one to push back. The loopholes in IR35 allowed many employers to reduce their costs by pushing staff onto "self-employment" with poor conditions. Blair was a Labour PM who seemed to hate the skilled working class- which makes it much more egregious than the Tories doing it- and Starmer is another one cut from the same cloth unfortunately.
Think what would have happened if at privatization of the railways we'd had the European Train Driving License. Rather than train new Drivers, I'd bet that the newly private sector TOCs would have imported cheaper Drivers from EU. And the Train Driver grade would have suffered the consequences. However thanks to late introduction of the TDL, Aslef, and helped by something of a natural monopoly due to different philosophy of rail operations in GB vs EU (route-based vs speed-signalling), train driving is still a good (and hence desirable) career. As it was, there was a migration of train Drivers to the best paid TOCs with some smaller TOCs like the original Valleys franchise effectively being a Driving school for the bigger TOCs for a while. And train driving conditions remain good enough that drivers often stay beyond retirement on a part-time basis. That's what happens when there is a strong and not over-supplied skilled labour force- conditions and wages must be decent. (There is a strong Socialist argument for Brexit).
This storm has been a long time brewing and the solution is not to continue to mask the structural issues by calling "Brexit we told you so" rather it's to look honestly at the last 20 years of heir-to-Thatcher-Blair and his successors, and sort the mess out. We have got to get beyond this culture of importing low-wage labour to exploit so that the Guardianistas can have their cheap Uber and latte whilst they check how well their AirBNB properties are doing.
The quickest interim solution would be to persuade a bunch of the existing licence holders to drive again- maybe guarantee some decent conditions and suspend CPS as a starter for 10. Give us a bit of time to sort the rest out. Then- when there's a properly controlled and structured fair playing field, we could allow others from overseas to apply but only if the conditions are maintained and the same standards are met. Just like with train Drivers in fact.
My issue with the BBC is that it's become another edition of the Guardian. Whereas it should be unbiased as it is funded by the taxpayer via a mandatory levy. If I want to take the news from the perspective of the champange-socialist metropolitan elite I will read the Graun (or the New Statesman). If I want a traditional conservative slant I will read the Spectator. If I want to understand the level of sleaze etc I will read Private Eye. If I want a tory equivalent of the Graun I will read the Times or Telegraph. As it happens I regularly read the Guardian, Spectator and Private Eye and try to understand issues from more than one perspective. I don't indulge in FB or Twitter and I recognise that the tabloids are just playing clickbait games with the sector of the population they target.
The BBC should be a distillation of that; respectful but not indulging in wokery, balanced and analytical- not playing the emotional clickbait game the way they have been wont to do in recent years. The BBC could have kept things much calmer if they chose, lets face it most of the population will believe pretty much anything they are told by authority (look up the Milgram experiment....). The BBC has historical respect, so it should behave responsibly as only a national state broadcaster should and be factual and analytical rather than taking sides and pursuing stories from that slant. Only in recent days has the initial Remain-perspective coverage moderated slightly- maybe someone reminded the news editor of the BBC charter?
TPO
