AIBU to think that the BBC and other news outlets are reporting that the lack of lorry drivers and care workers is caused by Covid alone and that they are deliberately ignoring Brexit?

[Aurorashields99]

And if you agree, why do you think this is the case? Surely Brexit is as much to blame for these issues so why are they not reporting this fairly?

I must have watched half a dozen news stories over the past few days in which reporters only mention Covid as being the cause of empty shelves in the supermarket and the shortage of care workers. If Brexit is referred to at all, it is only mentioned fleetingly.

Of course Covid has had a heavy impact on these sectors too but it's not the only factor is it? So why is Brexit being ignored?

I am not a journalist or a troll. I have been a member of Mumsnet since 2003.

And yes I know there is a Brexit topic elsewhere but (a) I am interested in people's votes and (b) not being able to discuss this in AIBU and confining this thread to the Brexit topic is the perfect example of the issue I am complaining about here.

And it is allowing Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to cover their tracks and not to have to face the consequences of their actions. Covid is providing the perfect cover for them both.

Why aren't reporters doing their job and reporting the facts fairly? Why is Brexit being swept under the rug? Is it because Johnson and Gove were former journalists themselves and know how to spin events in their favour?

Or is Brexit a dirty word now even though we are all living with consequences?

*food in shops

@Babdoc

I’m puzzled as to why these apparent shortages are not affecting me? My Sainsbugs delivery arrives every week, with at most one substitution and usually none. I have ordered goods online - everything from clothes and books, to plants, a radio and a lawnmower, and everything has arrived with no problem. The village Spar is loaded with stock, they are always clogging the aisles while unpacking boxes. Are the shortages patchy and regional? Because in my part of rural Scotland it seems to be business as normal.

I agree, I saw there were no Diet Cokes at Tesco last week, but they had piles of Diet Pepsi. Yesterday I went to Sainsbury and they had piles of diet coke. There may be missing stock lines but there aren't empty entire shelves. Rather than shortages, it's just minor supply hiccups which seem sorted within a few days. I've also noticed our village Spar shop doesn't seem to have shortages of anything so Spar must be doing something right. On the other hand our village CoOp is a joke - very sparse on the shelves and has been for weeks. I do think some people are making out things are worse than they really are - it's not the end of the World if one week you have to but Pepsi instead of Coke or a cottage pie instead of shepherd's pie.

@Badbadbunny. I don't know what's going on with the co op but pretty crap round here. ...Other than that I have seen no real supply issues round here. . (East England )

it's not the end of the World if one week you have to but Pepsi instead of Coke

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

Language in the media is everything.
There are no shortages of food in the UK , that gives the impression that people can’t eat. And in turns fuels panic in the population.

There are interruptions in certain product lines at certain times. Where I am there is enough on shelves to do a full shop. I might not be able to get a particular brand of a product on a Tuesday but it might be there on a Thursday. If not I buy a different local brand. Smaller shops sometimes have gaps on shelves probably because they can’t compete for orders.

I live in one of the poorest european countries, Croatia, and there is no shortage of food in the shops.

Also there is no problem with getting blood tests the day you need them and I can get GP appointment in a day.

But not everything is good.

I know for a fact that we have no polio vaccine in the country for at least five months, and there is a shortage of buliding material. And prices have been steadily going up for the past few months and inflation is now 3.1 percent, that is highest in eight years.

There are no shortages of food in the UK , that gives the impression that people can’t eat. And in turns fuels panic in the population.

Exactly this. The language translates through social media and becomes much more graphic. There have been several threads recently where posters are saying shelves have been empty for weeks. It is just rubbish. There are some lines that run low, but a day or so later they are restocked.

It is totally irresponsible and 100% leads to people turning to animals in the aisles. Some posters should be thoroughly ashamed.

Do you genuinely believe leaving the customs union and single market is going to have no effect on stocks and supplies in the UK?

There is actually an article about it in my antive country today. It appears that CoOp and Tesco openly say it's Brexit and covid. With some adding that another factor si aging population.

@Annoyedanddissapointed

There is actually an article about it in my antive country today. It appears that CoOp and Tesco openly say it's Brexit and covid. With some adding that another factor si aging population.

But why are Co Op shops struggling when other shops seem to have more or less everything available. It sounds more to be a CoOp problem.

Co op has always been pretty patchy, they're a smaller enterprise I suppose, much better than the others though, I do like their ethos but sadly not surprising they're probably going to be one of the biggest hit by logistics issues.

@Booknooks

Co op has always been pretty patchy, they're a smaller enterprise I suppose, much better than the others though, I do like their ethos but sadly not surprising they're probably going to be one of the biggest hit by logistics issues.

Lots of other small and independent chains are doing OK with deliveries/stock though. Our village Spar has been absolutely fine, even did OK at the start of covid with the panic buying. In the next villages we have a Londis and a One Stop, both of which are well stocked.

I wonder if the big chains, i.e. Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury etc rely too much on just in time because they tend not to have stock rooms etc. Our village Spar has a huge stock room, but that's probably from the old days when shops did have as much stock in their stock room as they had on their shelves. Maybe Co Op do the same - I noticed on the planning permission plans that they didn't have a stock room as such - just a staff room, an office and a loading bay. Perhaps the chains without stock rooms in stores are now realising that folly!

I don't know if it makea difference but cash and carries have been moaning too. Ao were some independent shops to us. I do believe it's locality dependent as well. Seems like one county is fine, another not so much

They were the same about “austerity”. “Austerity” was a necessary movement in response to curbs on public spending caused by “the credit crunch” of 2008, and all curbs on public spending are because of that.

Everyone who has ever worked in the public sector should be able to remember that cuts and attacks on the public sector go back to before 2008 and Blair’s record in this area was very mixed, but it is a fairly well established myth now. Media hasn’t been doing its job very well for decades.

@ShouldersBackChestOutChinUp

Do you genuinely believe leaving the customs union and single market is going to have no effect on stocks and supplies in the UK?

That's not what the above posters were saying. They're saying that having the odd substitution and a couple of gaps in the shelves is not the end of the world. Certainly we're not seeing the scenes from March '20 when shelves were stripped bare en masse.

Only thing I've had trouble buying when I needed it has been cement but that's because HS2 is using huge quantities at the moment.

Wow if anyone wonders why carers often feel undervalued, this right here.

Well, IMO its supreme arrogance, to think that thousands of parents with children with LD, autism, physical disabilities, medical conditions, etc; have looked after after their children from babyhood, through toddlerhood, puberty, the teens and adulthood for maybe 18/25/30 years before the young adult goes into a care home; and those parents don't know how hard it is looking after their child!

As if, its only when the grown up child has gone into a care home as an adult, and then hypothetically the care home has closed, and the adult goes back home to live with their parents; that the parents realise how hard it is looking after their grown up child and they should have had more respect for how hard the care workers had it, looking after their child?

It is also just pie in the sky thinking, that it would only be then that those parents would lose their career and lifestyle - both of them managed to keep their career going through all those years of the child under 5 and in school, attending all the appointments, dealing with all the paperwork, and fighting for every bit of input for their child from education, the NHS and social services, when there is practically no state child care for disabled children?

Have look at the figures for poverty for families with a disabled child!

@Intercity225

Wow if anyone wonders why carers often feel undervalued, this right here.

Well, IMO its supreme arrogance, to think that thousands of parents with children with LD, autism, physical disabilities, medical conditions, etc; have looked after after their children from babyhood, through toddlerhood, puberty, the teens and adulthood for maybe 18/25/30 years before the young adult goes into a care home; and those parents don't know how hard it is looking after their child!

As if, its only when the grown up child has gone into a care home as an adult, and then hypothetically the care home has closed, and the adult goes back home to live with their parents; that the parents realise how hard it is looking after their grown up child and they should have had more respect for how hard the care workers had it, looking after their child?

It is also just pie in the sky thinking, that it would only be then that those parents would lose their career and lifestyle - both of them managed to keep their career going through all those years of the child under 5 and in school, attending all the appointments, dealing with all the paperwork, and fighting for every bit of input for their child from education, the NHS and social services, when there is practically no state child care for disabled children?

Have look at the figures for poverty for families with a disabled child!

That's not what the comment said though was it, so not sure what that response has to do with it.

@londonrach

Shortages are worse in the EU. M&s closed shops in France due to no delivery.

I know other people have commented on this by now, but M&S themselves have said this was a result of Brexit as they were trying to deliver British M&S food to their stores in France and then they couldn’t, because Brexit red tape. If a company that big couldn’t sort it, imagine tiny companies. “Marks & Spencer blames Brexit as it closes 11 French stores” www.bbc.com/news/business-58582860 There are no food shortages in France, neighboring parts of Switzerland, or Germany, that I’ve heard about from friends and family spread out and traveling for work.

Also, I read the thing BITA put out saying other places like Germany will face the 2nd most driver shortages to the UK, conveniently saying Germany is losing theirs to retirement age and leaving out why the UK suddenly lost all our HGV drivers. Yet despite the fact that Germany is losing 28,000 drivers a year (30K retiring, only 2K qualifying per year), they still have no food shortages, no product shortages. BITA might have put those numbers out JUST so drivers would stop getting the blame and we’d all go, “But Germany doesn’t have food shortages, so…”

So? I think we’d have to be idiots not to question whether it’s Brexit. Germany had COVID. Germany is apparently losing drivers. But Germany has no shortages. Shrug.

I don't claim to be the expert here, and there will be people who know more than me about supply chains but we have several factors making the situation worse.

To start, facilities for hauliers in the UK are shite.... there are too few pull ins for a quick, healthy-ish, inexpensive meal, a shit and a shower. Think of what's provided at most motorway service areas as a family of four going on holiday and consider doing it 48 weeks a year... No, I wouldn't do it either.

It costs about £2.5k to qualify as an HGV driver, and most companies have preferred to employ cheap labour from the accession EU countries rather than pay to train anyone.

The cost of learning to drive in the UK is astronomic; unless you live in the country, it's cheaper to use public transport. In the country, where there is no useful public transport, you learn to drive as long as your parents can afford you to. If they can't, sorry mate. Insurance is equally expensive: we paid £1300 with a black box telematics for DS who passed his test at 17.5 months. At 22, with four years no claims, he pays his own insurance for just under £500 on a £1500 old VW.

Every country in Europe and North America has an HGV driver shortage. The traditional picture of a lorry driver was a nice friendly bloke between 40 and 55, and they are all retiring thanks to the factors above. (I met loads, I hitchhiked thousands of miles in the 1970s, and almost every one was lovely, kind, helpful and respectful. They just wanted someone to chat to on a long drive, mostly).

So the older 55+ lot would prefer to be closer to home, see their wife and children and grandchildren, available for their mum's last hours when she's expiring, and frankly £30K per annum seems too little.

The current HGV driver 'shortage' is exactly what I voted for in the 2016 Ref; in the unlikely event that the Leave vote won I fully expected that there would be a few years of 'adjustment' including labour shortages and the knock on effects, including costs going up whilst the UK Workforce/Consumers adjusted. And we'd feel the pinch for awhile.

But, it will balance out for the lower-paid, UK workforce 'in waiting', it was never going to improve whilst employers knew there was always someone else to do the job, and they didn't even have to invest in any training or education of the local workforce.

Just hand them zero-hour T&Cs and when they can't compete with workers willing to live in temporary, dormitory conditions it's really easy to say "I can't get any UK workers to work for me".

It's such an unforgotten facet of the Brexit debate when the headline arguments always state that EU Workers were nett positive contributors to the UK Economy. Always at the bottom of these reports were the substantiated facts that there were negative impacts on the lowest-paid workers.

Yes I voted for shortages when I voted Leave and would do so again - if anyone has a problem with consuming less stuff then they suffer from a far greater dissonance than their Brexit complaints.

@TheHateIsNotGood

But even when we were in the EU there were massive staff shortages in many industries.

Yes I voted for shortages when I voted Leave and would do so again

What else are you expecting a shortage of?
Blood tubes?
Medicine?

I agree that until the cost of training staff is forced back onto companies who want/need the people to fulfil their promises to consumers, and to pay their staff properly to carry out their tasks, nothing will change. Unfortunately big employers have got hooked on the cheapo solution of employing people for 16 hours a week so they don't qualify for pensions or sick pay and UC/the taxpayer will top it up to almost liveable amounts. I have a real problem with topping up hours for UC; yes, I know it helps out lots of people and is convenient, but I also think it transfers the real, legitimate cost of doing business and employing people to get their overhead costs subsidized by people paying tax through PAYE.

KenDodd not sure what you mean by "blood tubes" but XingMing has added very well to my brief descriptions. And very much do I agree that it is socio-economically destructive for Employers to rely on Govt subsidies to top up the pay and T&Cs of indigenous workers, with very many unable to even afford the dwindling supply of somehere to live.

This beating up of the 'poor', which unfortunately after centuries is still a Pronoun, would still be an unceasing steamroller if it weren't for Brexit.

As for the BBC, I recall they were abjectly shocked that the Ref produced a Leave result, took em yeaars to get over it; so maybe they're televising to the wider electorate now, and not the 'intelligentia' who mistakenly thought they were in charge.

@RoseAndRose

Some shortages are international

Here's the current US advice

www.usda.gov/coronavirus/food-supply-chain

I think this thread is an example of confirmation bias.

Except that link says there are no national shortages of food in the US. It is in a section giving general advice about coronavirus and answering peoples concerns.