Back to the seventies

Johnson said on Marr programme that the fundamental issue with haulage industry is that business model was broken, low wages, poor conditions and it has been ongoing “for years”…Marr failed to press home that the Tory party has been in power “for years”…eleven and counting.

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Yup, far too late for the old cry of “It’s all Labour’s fault!”

More rail freight?

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One would think so, but…

Sadly, trains don’t deliver to shops Nigel, or people’s front doors. They are good for long distance bulk transport where their loads are transferred to road, or large factories with their own branch lines.

Road trains though, now you’re talking. Infrastructure already in place, one driver with 3 trailers just using the motorway network and singling up at dedicated depots just off them. Already limited to 90 km/hr with between 30 and 46* fully fail safe air braked wheels on the road - safe as houses.

*3 x tri-axle trailers with either12 doubles or 6 super singles.

Never will happen though. Too many legislators frightened of ‘big’ lorries. Denby in Lincoln and Stan Robinson in Yorkshire have proved the concept in trials and been trying for years. Too many closed minds. ;-(

Not sure if this is best place to post this but it’s worth a read…told how it is from the desk of political commentator of a German tabloid …too true why should Europe be interested now given the attitude of much of the British political class.

[Oh, the delicious schadenfreude! Germans grin at Britain’s labour shortages and fuel crisis | News | The Times)

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Watched first episode of Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution on Beeb2 last night, brings back memories of Blair’s new vision for change, which could trace its roots in three day week and need for Labour to rebuild after that.
Johnson has a faulted vision based on bluster supporters by sycofantic lightweight acolytes and unfortunately Starmer seems not to have an electrifying vision with the ability to put the knife into the Tories and twist it !
…unfortunately UK hurtling to cliff edge?

Why would Labour need to rebuild after the 3-day-week? The programme makers did realise that was under Tory government, didn’t they?

I found this review interesting, not least because it reminds us just how popular John Smith was. The best PM we never had, maybe?

John Smith was President of ICOM (the Industrial Common Ownership Movement) when I was Treasurer in the early 90s - in fact, I was at an ICOM Executive Committee meeting in 1994 when one of the staff came in and told us he had died. We were just devastated.

I didn’t see the programme, but I was active in the Labour Party during the change to ‘New Labour’, which I strongly supported. There were, of course, many different views at the time (and of course the media always like to present it as a right vs left conflict - it wasn’t) but I came to understand it as a response to the collapse of the ‘planned economy’ models in Eastern Europe. It seemed, in the mid-late-90s, that capitalism was all there was, and our job was merely to mitigate its worst abuses. How wrong we were! Subsequently, the success (in conventional economic terms) of the Chinese model, the 2008 financial crash (and failure to recover from it), and most importantly of course the increasing evidence of climate/ecological breakdown, have all revealed that a decisive turn away from capitalism, at least in its ‘neo-liberal’ formulation, was - and still is - absolutely necessary.

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Yes I would say it’s a huge factor…with the previous firm there were many hours for which my son didn’t get paid….he was driving one of the newest HGVs which if I recall correctly was 2mph faster than older versions as all HGVs are restricted on mph

It’s also an unsociable profession in that many times he would be starting at 2 am to 3 am in the morning….

He stuck with it for 5 years and his previous firm tried everything to make him stay and he felt really bad about letting them down but I feel he was right to make the move…

The long distances, and thus days away from base, was the attraction for me as a young man. As time goes on and responsibilities like marriage and fatherhood arrive, it becomes much less attractive. I remained addicted for many years more than most and, in fact, when I retired early at 60 for other reasons, I was soon on the road again but in a voluntary capacity. Mind you, that was in France, where the social aspect is renewed in the excellent overnight facilities. The UK does not generally have that advantage.

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With the fuel shortage crisis still not over why is the opposition remaining silent when this represents a golden opportunity to show that there is an alternative to the current woeful management of the UK?

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Well it’s a bit far back…but I should have said after Callaghan’s government in the late 70’s, it was Heath in the 1970s

By overnight facilities do you mean the parking areas on autoroutes? If so I guess they are provided by the State, so Johnson’s claim that the haulage industry in the UK is responsable for poor working conditions is yet more blather?

@John_Scully If by saying autoroutes you mean France, then no, I don’t mean those. I mean the excellent private routiers restaurants throughout the country away from the autoroutes.
If however you mean the UK and motorway service areas they were sold off by the government many years ago and as far as I know are all privately owned.
Although it is many years since I was mainly in the UK, I only know of one or two transport cafes that come close to the facilities available in France, and, unlike all those, the UK ones all charge customers for parking, an idea rightly considered outrageous by all French drivers. The reason for the difference is the lack of resistance by hauliers many years ago when the transport cafes took their cue from the motorway service area operators who were allowed to charge for the first time when they changed from lessees to owners.

Just heard on the radio that there’s a hairdresser shortage in France. I’m going to stockpile.

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They must be all in our local town. I did a rough count a few years back - we have something like 15 hairdressers and beauticians. Mind you, you wouldn’t know it from the state of the hair cuts and hair colours in Leclerc’s. :grin:

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I am more worried about what looks to me to be a dentist shortage

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Yes - this is pretty well reported, eg…