UK has gone to shit.

[Ilovegreentomatoes]

What is happening to the uk? No food on the shelves, the cost of living has become extortionate coupled with stagnating wages it seems this is a country where unless your in the higher income bracket you really can't afford to live anymore.
Poverty is going to be rife I dread to think the amount of people who will be choosing between food or heating this year.
Aibu to think this country has gone to shit of the likes we have not seen for a long time.
I am lower income and feel like I can't afford to live anymore.

It’s a case of since the mid 2000s, cheap foreign labour has been in abundance. Now businesses have to actually pay living wages to people instead of cheap labour, people are starting to realise : oh shit, that's why wages are actually so shit.. because foreign labour was cheap, now employers have to pay living wages to brits but don't want to.

Again, this isn’t the case. Foreign Labour came at the same minimum wage as U.K. labour. The rates being paid, particularly in construction, were eye watering in the early 2000s. Site labourers earring more money than construction professionals. Not because it was a fair wage, but because there just wasn’t enough resource. Migrant Labour plugged that gap and rates came down to a more appropriate level.

The issue now isn’t that wages aren’t high enough, it is that there aren’t enough people to fill the roles. There is a hotel near my hometown, quite rural which had a good mix of local and migrant Labour, probably about 70% of staff were local. They have been trying for months to get staff, they are offering good pay and conditions (they were always the best payer in the area) but they cannot get enough local staff and their main restaurant remains closed, they can only let 3/4 of their rooms. If it doesn’t pick up soon, they may have to close. Prior to 2000 they had a lot of local teens working there but the restrictions on them working really put them in a difficult position back then and the hotel was in a similar situation.

Tempting as it is to blame employers using migrant Labour, with us now at what is pretty much full employment in the U.K., where are the extra people to fill jobs going to come from?

@vickibee

If inflation rises a lot there will be pressure to raise interest rates so that will not be good for those who have over stretched themselves with a mortgage in the recent buying frenzy. The housing market could crash and that would be a disaster for a lot of people.

Was that not the aim of the stamp duty holiday?

@Tilltheend99

Again, in South. BP garage near me had no petrol for seven days. They had a couple of operational pumps today but still about half out.

BP are the muppets that caused the petrol crisis. They are the only ones that didn't have fuel. All other garages did.

hulky yes, your comment was clear.

[quote luckylavender]@ThirdElephant - you're swallowing the propaganda I see.[/quote]
Nah, I don't watch the news so see no propaganda. It just makes sense to me. Zero hours contracts and bringing people over to pay them a pittance, not forcing businesses to pay their taxes properly, it's not sustainable. The idea that British people won't work is ludicrous. British people won't work for an unfair wage. The solution is to pay them more. What governments need to do is make sure that happens.

Now, the problem is that I can't see a political party that's both willing and able to address those problems.

Was that not the aim of the stamp duty holiday?
Which part of the post that you quoted were you referring to?

JC running a fictional government as he was never voted PM. I thought my comment was clearly tbh

Well it is clear that Boris isn't governing anything, so isn't his government also fictional?

@Kendodd So is it not a fact that the pounds was weaker against the dollar two years ago….or did I imagine only getting 1.23 to the dollar in August 2019?!!!!

@BoredZelda

b) if wages go up then businesses logically will pass costs onto the consumer - so prices will go up. So how is that improving matters?

You’re right about the public sector but loads of research shows this isn’t an issue. If prices go up, that’s ok, as long as people’s wages go up with them, which, if you pay enough people a living wage, is what actually happens.

Also, a lot of what we buy isn't essential. If the price is too high, people will cut back. For many business it's not a simple as raising prices, they will have to take the cut in profit - and many (I'm not saying all), can afford to.

To put the cat among the pigeons slightly.

DH (French) has just told me that EDF are thinking of cutting electricity supplies to Jersey and the UK if the Boris keeps playing silly buggers.

Sorry misread. Just cutting supplies to Jersey.

I think it's supply chain failures rather than panic buying. Our just-in-time logistics worked well in optimum conditions but there's no margin for error, whether it's pingdemic, Brexit, CO2 shortage or gas price rises.

And we're suffering the fallout from Gove's disease of not caring what experts say any more.

Meanwhile, there's a different gap in the supermarket shelves every time I go. Today it was whole UHT milk, that I use for making my own yoghurt in a green way, avoiding single use plastic pots. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Not the end of the world, but it certainly feels like the end of the way the world used to be.

Also, a lot of what we buy isn't essential. If the price is too high, people will cut back. For many business it's not a simple as raising prices, they will have to take the cut in profit - and many (I'm not saying all), can afford to.

Yes this is also true. But it doesn't sound very good for economic growth does it?

My job involves working with people who are struggling and when you sit down to look at their finances, there are astronomical sky tv packages, mobile phone packages, personal ‘grooming’ costs, cigarettes, alcohol, constant minor home improvement costs (new rugs, sofas, colour schemes etc.) Brand new cars, designer clothing… maybe I’ve been in the field too long!

I don't usually rise to this crap but.....really??

It is, arguably, getting worse. But it has been shite for years.

I think a lot of stuff has been well hidden and it's only now getting seen by people.

Take poverty.
It's going to get worse for millions, there's going to be huge number using food banks, struggling to stave of the cold, getting mold in homes due to poor heating etc.
"Heat or eat"

But this isn't new, not at all.
I was raised this way in the 80s.
Thing is, before, you'd point it out and people would dismiss it and label people scroungers and believe that it was 'just' a sub section of people...
Now they're seeing it starting to affect people they know, it's not just a guy on Benefit Street Struggling, it's people in their lives getting impacted, so now it's an issue, now it's real...

It's easy to ignore 1 foodbank and 30 users in your town... It starts getting hard to ignore when there's 20 food banks and 1000s upon 1000s of people reliant on them.

I couldn't find pellets for my guinea pigs. Took me a week to find any at all.

@Wallywobbles

Sorry misread. Just cutting supplies to Jersey.

Jersey gets 95% of their power from France.

Brexit.

If only people knew what they were voting for.

@NewlyGranny think you have hit the nail on the head.Not the end of the world but the way the world used to be.

NewlyGranny is right about just in time supply chain. Cost is king in the UK, with very sophisticated ordering systems, people who work 24 hours, drivers who defy the odds. It's designed to cost as little as possible, partly by having the lowest inventory possible. Which is great until you have a fuel shortage, a Brexit customs nightmare and a European wide shortage of drivers who especially don't want to work in Britain due to the shitty facilities and visa complications. That's when just in time becomes nowhere near in time.

Its only just starting. Tbh we are lucky we've had it so good thus far and we are in a better position than many going forward. It's hard to argue that we deserve to continue to enjoy immense wealth and ease whilst the rest of the world burn.

@Wallywobbles

To put the cat among the pigeons slightly.

DH (French) has just told me that EDF are thinking of cutting electricity supplies to Jersey and the UK if the Boris keeps playing silly buggers.

Why would they do that? Jersey isn't part of the UK

Global warming is not short term, unfortunately.

I am in Ireland. No food or fuel shortages. Energy bills have gone up particularly gas but we are part of the internal energy market. The UK isn’t any more so energy prices will go up even more. Family living in the South East of England and Scotland are reporting food and shortages at petrol stations. They all want to move to here as are sick of it.
We don’t have crops left to rot in fields or slaughtering pigs for incineration due to worker shortages.

We are still a sovereign country( with a constitution) along with 26 other sovereign countries, have freedom of movement and control immigration into the country.
Oh and we can get GP visits etc and even if couldn’t it is a domestic problem.
Our Covid track and trace worked and our elected representatives didn’t hand out dodgy contracts to donors or mates. We wear masks in shops and use hand sanitiser and social distance. We also have Covid passports which we bring to restaurants to eat in doors.

Jersey is refusing fishing licences and it’s connected to Brexit. I don’t really understand much more about it.