{"id":59678,"date":"2021-10-05T07:37:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T12:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59678"},"modified":"2021-10-05T07:37:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T12:37:23","slug":"what-then-are-we-to-become","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59678","title":{"rendered":"What then are we to become?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What then are we to become?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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According to Boris Johnson, the economic dislocation which appears to be gathering pace across the UK is\u00a0merely<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca period of adjustment after Brexit.\u201d In Johnson\u2019s formulation, those who would turn the clock back are tacitly in favour of the low-pay and poor working conditions which were encouraged when the UK was a member of the European Union.\u00a0 There is, for example,\u00a0no shortage<\/a><\/em>\u00a0of lorry drivers in the UK.\u00a0 More than 230,000 of us hold valid Heavy Goods vehicle licences.\u00a0 Unfortunately for those who like turkey for Christmas dinner and petrol at any time, the pay and conditions in the haulage industry are so poor that most prefer to work elsewhere.\u00a0 Cheap Eastern European drivers living out of their cabs and engaging in\u00a0cabotage<\/a>\u00a0helped to paper over the cracks until the lockdowns began and some 20,000 of them opted to be quarantined at home rather than stay in the UK.<\/p>\n

In the anti-Brexit narrative, the shortage of drivers, agricultural workers, natural gas, garden furniture and anything else which turns out to be in short supply, is the unintended consequence of an ill-conceived withdrawal from the EU.\u00a0 But in Johnson\u2019s formulation, the dislocation is no more than the\u00a0intended<\/em> first phase of a transition from the low-paid and low-skilled economy of the past to a new, high-paid and hi-tech \u201cglobal Britain.\u201d\u00a0 It is not \u2013 his supporters claim \u2013 the government\u2019s fault that these shortages are materialising now.\u00a0 It is the fault of employers who \u2013 despite having had five years to prepare for Brexit \u2013 have failed to train enough workers and offer them decent enough pay and conditions to retain them in their respective industries…<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What then are we to become? According to Boris Johnson, the economic dislocation which appears to be gathering pace across the UK is\u00a0merely\u00a0\u201ca period of adjustment after Brexit.\u201d In Johnson\u2019s formulation, those who would turn the clock back are tacitly in favour of the low-pay and poor working conditions which were encouraged when the UK […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5582,93,4053,31091,3237,30640,31360],"class_list":["post-59678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-shortages","tag-supply-chain-disruptions","tag-supply-chains","tag-the-consciousness-of-sheep","tag-tim-watkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59679,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59678\/revisions\/59679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}