How I Wrote Elastic Man- Registered: 5 Dec 2020
- Posts: 105
Sue Nicholas wrote:What I find awful is the fact pigs are slaughtered and pig farmers going out of business because they cannot get the work force also fruit and veg no one wants to harvest the crops .Still we need food banks etc ...?Why don’t some of these unemployed get back work.Why should we continue to support those who will not look for a job.They say there is a shortage of bus drivers.where has the sense of pride gone .
in the few years prior to covid we had our lowest rate of unemployment for decades
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#5489
Usual BS. A one off strike by drivers totally unrelated to the issues in the UK and lasted one day. No attribution on the image. Been used many times already to make a false point and hide the facts. Are you a Daniel Hannan fan by chance?
https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/913618d6ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Sue Nicholas wrote:What I find awful is the fact pigs are slaughtered and pig farmers going out of business because they cannot get the work force also fruit and veg no one wants to harvest the crops .Still we need food banks etc ...?Why don’t some of these unemployed get back work.Why should we continue to support those who will not look for a job.They say there is a shortage of bus drivers.where has the sense of pride gone .
Maybe you aspire to the 'Singapore on Thames' vision of the UK, Sue? I don't know.
What I can tell you is that you'll find precious few Singaporeans employed in food processing or recycling waste or hospitality work. They rely heavily on foreign labour. Our productivity is the lowest in Europe and people just refuse to work conditions they regard as sub-optimal - slaughter houses, food processing, fruit picking, trucking etc. Freedom of movement has compensated for that to a certain extent but we're now paying the cost for the cliff edge anti-immigation Brexit your former (?) party was so hell bent on under the charlatan Johnson.
The situation in UK agriculture is awful but there is such a thing as cause and effect. BBC's Farming Today is available as a podcast. This past week's broadcast would make sobering listening to anyone concerned about the facts. Despite concerted efforts, 'useless' Eustice was not available for interview. I recommend it to anyone concerned about the facts.
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Neil Moors- Registered: 3 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,295
Sue Nicholas wrote:What I find awful is the fact pigs are slaughtered and pig farmers going out of business because they cannot get the work force also fruit and veg no one wants to harvest the crops .Still we need food banks etc ...?Why don’t some of these unemployed get back work.Why should we continue to support those who will not look for a job.They say there is a shortage of bus drivers.where has the sense of pride gone .
Brexit in a nutshell, Sue. Brexit can only work if UK workers fill the vacancies left behind by our EU friends. If UK folk would prefer not to work, and leave those jobs unfilled, we are in a whole lot of trouble. And that, I fear, is what's happening.
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,018
Yes Neil .I do feel sad for those who struggle to feed and cloth their children,however I was brought up when people worked to pay their bills.The days when then was no NHS .Dad had a job then worked in the evenings in the fields .After his work as a milkman he would single sugar beet and i as a young girl of twelve was expected to help him after school.Weekends I had to help deliver the milk the days of glass bottles.I t was cold at 5.00am in the morning.
Helped my Mother with fruit picking etc.There is work out there but it’s easy to expect to receive handouts.I will have to watch my fuel bills this coming winter.When as young Mother I recall when we could not afford our rented TV so it had to go back .
A different world .
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Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
The really sad thing now is that far to many of those 'on the dole' do not have any kind of work ethic. They have grown up having known how to work the system that manages to give them the large TV etc and think it is their right to be spoon fed.
I feel sorry for those who work but still struggle because their take home pay is so low. I can remember that struggle all to well, our 'luxury' Sunday roast being stuffed breast of lamb which I boned myself as that was the cheapest form of meat back then.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,932
Hi Sue, it certainly is a different world to the one we knew!
It was refreshing to read such a positive post on a thread that seems to have become a pit for depressing anti British views since Brexit was voted for. Instead of making efforts to make it work some would rather play the blame game.
Not having experienced the conditions and struggles that you relate to concerning your early life, the expectations nowadays seem to be based on what many feel should be provided for them. All this without having to put in any effort themselves most times.
Much of this I feel sometimes is due to us oldies struggling in the past to provide our families with a better life, which is now seen as an entitlement by many…………so maybe we are partly to blame for their attitude after all!
I can empathise with much of what you have written and was almost tempted to do a Vic Matcham and join him on the forum with extracts from my ramblings in ‘Looking back!’
Or perhaps this thread might be worth resurrecting to provide some nostalgia:
https://www.dover.uk.com/forums/general-discussion/do-you-remember-2
Do nothing and nothing happens.
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,018
Hullo Bob.My childhood was lovely such wonderful memories.Like Jan when I was first married we had rolled lamb with sausage meat .I cooked with what we could afford.Perhaps we have indulged our children still,all mine work hard studied and got good jobs .Im not clever but I have instilled in them to work.They live in houses I only dream to of.
I read a post today think of things you can be grateful for .I sat in the garden and thought how lovely it is.When my husband died and I still had a very young Son fifteen years after my other children.Someone said he was Gods gift.How true as now I have his children who delight me.Harder to run and play these days but I love listening to them.Im sure my husband would have loved them .?How lucky one is .
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How I Wrote Elastic Man- Registered: 5 Dec 2020
- Posts: 105
Times change
There were more local jobs available even when I was a boy (1970's). Many of the villages where I come from in South Norfolk had several shops, now they are lucky if they have a post office.
If anyone had told me back then I would be commuting 3 hour round trips in Kent and the south east 40 years later I would have wondered what I must have done wrong (no longer doing this, thankfully)
I was unemployed for a couple of years in the late 1990's, I lived on £90 a week, £50 of that went on rent. No big TV. No TV at all. Its not easy trying to find work when you struggle to find money to pay for bus and train fares
Post brexit, how we thought that we could get what unemployed that we do have out of the towns and cities to rural locations with no public transport to do seasonal jobs, I don't know. How we thought we would suddenly train up people to drive lorries around a country with inadequate facilities for parking, performing ablutions etc, I don't know. How we thought we would fill positions that need certain skills, even if some people don't recognise those skills, with people that don't have those skills, I don't know
We knew we were short of workers in many sectors before brexit, it was obvious even back before the vote that it would be difficult to replace any workers that we lost
I voted remain, but I'm happy to accept Brexit implemented with a clear plan. Looking at the calibre of people that were promoting Brexit and the proposals that they were making at the time, looking at the PM saying its down to business to make this work, looking at the car crash of the NI protocol, it is absolutely clear
There never was a plan
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Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
I think a large number of farmers around in the sixties are partly to blame for the labour problems that modern day farmers seem to have.
They sold off the tied cottages driving their labourers away to the towns, they then replaced the local skilled workers with cheap foreign labour housed in caravans or bunk houses.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,018
Good response there Jan
Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,225
In this area -Deal- Local pickers we’re invariably women who having dropped the children to school were picked by vans & taken back later. They were organised by one of their own. It was all year round. That was the 70’s prior to joining EU & just after. They formed their own child minding arrangements amongst themselves for those with pre- school children. It worked well.
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,018
Yes back in my younger days it was woman who picked the fruit.Had to work as there were no hand outs .I can hear them now singing and talking amongst them selves.I think the word is pride .I see Buses again cancelled due to shortage of drivers .
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Talking of food, here's today's latest example of pre-Brexit fiction and post Brexit reality. For all Express readers everywhere.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
Food, fuel and almost any other household bill, ever since I got married and realised I had to seriously plan our limited budget, are items that have always gone up over the years, some very fast some more slowly.
Those of us with a modicum of brain have ignored anything the extremist pro or anti Brexit spouted before or since the vote. The only difference between then and now is that the anti Brexit fanatics are still full of sour grapes about the result.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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How I Wrote Elastic Man- Registered: 5 Dec 2020
- Posts: 105
No sour grapes on my part
What Brexit did was give me the push I needed to emigrate
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Jan Higgins wrote:Food, fuel and almost any other household bill, ever since I got married and realised I had to seriously plan our limited budget, are items that have always gone up over the years, some very fast some more slowly.
Those of us with a modicum of brain have ignored anything the extremist pro or anti Brexit spouted before or since the vote. The only difference between then and now is that the anti Brexit fanatics are still full of sour grapes about the result.
Nothing like a bit of homespun, nostalgic superiority to close down a discussion, eh? So much better than an analysis of the facts or a finely honed presentation of one's case.
Must be one of the benefits of being liberated from being told what to think and what to say, I suppose.
Well, in these days of rising prices, labour shortages, distorted supply chains and creeping inflation, here's some nostalgia from Ken Clarke. Remember him? Holder of various government high offices and a Tory. Oh and generally thought to have a modicum of a brain too!
"Things haven’t been this bad since before the UK decided to join the European Economic Community in 1973."
All just sour grapes, I know. Nothing whatsoever to do with common sense, experience and honesty.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,796
ray hutstone wrote:Nothing like a bit of homespun, nostalgic superiority to close down a discussion, eh? So much better than an analysis of the facts or a finely honed presentation of one's case.
Must be one of the benefits of being liberated from being told what to think and what to say, I suppose.
Most definitely Ray experience is so much better than having to trawl the internet for quotes and articles when attempting to prove a point and keep this thread going.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Paul Watkins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 9 Nov 2011
- Posts: 2,225
I wondered whether the UK was making any financial contributions to EU because of Northern Ireland protocol & aspects of NI presence in signal market?
