UK - England, Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland

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The Great Lie - UK version

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Migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel are flown 1,500 miles to Albania

Migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats will be flown to Albania as part of the government’s plans to tackle illegal immigration.

Those attempting to apply for asylum would be held in a processing center in the Balkans – 1,500 miles from the UK – while their applications are being processed.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is under mounting pressure after the number of migrants detained by Border Force reached record highs this year, said she hopes the new measures will deter people from crossing the road.


Migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats are flown 1,500 miles to Albania as part of government plans to tackle illegal immigration

Officials in London and the Albanian capital Tirana are reportedly close to an agreement on the new centre, The Sun reports.

Figures released late last month showed that the number of migrants detained by the border force crossing the Channel with small boats reached 16,299 on September 23 this year – almost double the number arriving in all of 2020.


https://usmail24.com/migrants-arriving- ... o-albania/

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or maybe not

'We won't do the duties of those who are bigger and richer than us': Government officials in Albania DENY claims that migrants arriving by boat to UK will be detained in new offshore asylum processing centre in Balkans

• Albania has denied it is in talks with the UK to detain illegal Channel migrants
  Official spokesman branded reports about a processing facility 'untrue'
  It comes after record numbers of migrants have been stopped by Border Force
  Home Secretary has previously vowed to make Channel crossings 'unviable'

By STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIES and JACK WRIGHT FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:17 BST, 3 October 2021 | UPDATED: 16:40 BST, 3 October 2021

The Albanian government has today denied that it is in talks with Britain to detain illegal migrants crossing the Channel in small boats while UK authorities handle their asylum requests.

The Albanian Prime Minister's Official Spokesman branded reports in the Sun that London and Tirana are in talks to establish a new processing centre in the Balkan nation 'absolutely untrue'.

The newspaper had quoted an unnamed insider in the talks saying that Home Secretary Priti Patel 'has made it clear she wants this to happen' and 'we are down to the fine details'.

But spokesman Endri Fuga rubbished suggestions that Albania would host migrants on behalf of any third country and urged 'richer and bigger countries' to take in their share of migrants.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... bania.html

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A million unfilled jobs – and no one to serve the Tories in Manchester
The city’s hospitality venues blame Brexit for a lack of experienced staff as the Conservative party conference arrives in town

Robyn Vinter
Sat 2 Oct 2021 17.00 BST

For the swanky bars and restaurants that surround Manchester Central convention complex, Conservative party conference normally means being fully staffed to meet extra demand over the busy weekend. But this year is different. Huge shortages of pivotal workers in hospitality mean many venues are unable to fill their rota.

In the 30 years since Dimitri’s first opened on Manchester’s Deansgate, the restaurant has employed hundreds of European staff, but not now. “We’re a Mediterranean restaurant so we used to have a nice mix of people from Greece, Spain, Portugal or Italy, but all of a sudden that’s gone,” said Susie Benson, duty manager.




https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... manchester

[RTH10260]

I bet all those Brit expats returning from the balmy European places will queue to offer an authentic feeling to the customers

[tek]

"nobody could have predicted this!"

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That's what you get when you elect a real estate mogul journalist as prime minister / president

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People are beginning to notice something - where there is smoke there must be a fire

Tetchy Boris tries to play down shortages as bumps on the Brexit road
John Crace
Sun 3 Oct 2021 20.08 BST

Rejoice. Queues at petrol stations. Food shortages. Gas price rises. If you thought they were a sign of the country falling apart then think again. They’re actually a pointer to just how well things are going. Rather than moaning about people panic-buying diesel, we should be thrilled so many want to make sure they’ve got enough fuel to get them to the HGV training centre. Same with empty supermarket shelves. A symbol of just how much everyone is now eating. As for the gas price rises? Perhaps it would be best to ignore them as they don’t quite fit the new normal. An outlier.

Not that Boris Johnson seemed that thrilled to be given the opportunity to explain how everything was going entirely to plan on the Andrew Marr show in the traditional leader’s interview on the first day of the Conservative party conference. Rather he seemed tetchy and defensive, as he so often is these days. His self-confidence is a paper-thin veneer that can’t disguise a man with no self-worth.

Or self-awareness, for that matter. It’s hard to tell if he’s merely a pathological liar these days or if he just has a desperate need to reconstruct reality to accommodate his narcissism. Earlier that day he had been photographed going for a run in a white shirt and black walking shoes. We now have to accept that he’s possibly not just a fun-guy oddball but someone having a breakdown before our eyes

Marr looked understandably perplexed. Not only had the Road Haulage Association written to the prime minister warning of problems back in June – their letter had been ignored – but almost everything Boris was saying was total doggybollox. He talked of cheap overseas labour not being the solution, seemingly unaware his own government had offered emergency short-term visas. Anyone who wanted a Christmas dinner was advised to go abroad to buy some mechanically reclaimed turkey.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rexit-road

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opinion piece

For his sake, and Britain’s, now is the time for Boris Johnson to ride off into the sunset
He could resume his career as an entertainer and we might get a PM worthy of the office

Max Hastings
Sun 3 Oct 2021 12.00 BST

At the end of The Magnificent Seven, most delightful of all westerns, there is a scene in which the elderly Mexican village sage says to Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen: “Your work is done.” It was time for the farmers to take over again. Following which, the two gunfighters rode away, to massacre evildoers elsewhere.

We shall dismiss scepticism about whether Boris Johnson can plausibly be compared to either Brynner or McQueen, but suggest that this is a good moment for the prime minister’s chums to put to him the old Mexican’s proposition: “Your work is done.” We might then return our governance to people willing to be interested not in farming, but instead boring stuff such as keeping the gas on and making sure children attend school.

What’s more, how do we keep Britain functioning between today and Christmas, when the foreign lorry drivers’ and turkey-feeders’ temporary visas will expire? There is no immediate prospect of evicting the incumbent from Downing Street against his, or perhaps Mrs Johnson’s, wishes.

It may be possible, however, to start convincing the couple that their interests would be well served by an early bath. The prime minister could tell his host of admirers that he has delivered Brexit and the Covid vaccination programme and averted a Corbyn premiership.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... the-sunset

[tek]

but almost everything Boris was saying was total doggybollox.

Word for the day!

[Uninformed]

Not holding my breath for the day the media calls it what it is - lying.

[RTH10260]

more side effects of missing drivers

Import container storage fees at British ports shoot up; forwarder says “industry is f****d”

Danish shipping giant Maersk has announced a 20% rise in import storage fees for each shipping container that is held for between 8 and 14 days at UK ports - excluding Northern Ireland. A 12.5% increase has also been announced for storage of 15 days and beyond. The price rise is a consequence of Britain's HGV driver shortage making it difficult to get containers transported from ports. Reacting to the situation, freight forwarders have told the Loadstar that the situation is affecting ports in Britain and mainland Europe, though it is more severe in the UK. Worryingly, one forwarder added: “To be frank, the industry is f****d.”

Gregor Gowans
Gregor Gowans Journalist Trans.INFO
29.09.2021

Those rather blunt words caught the eye of shipping and sea freight expert Lars Jensen, who noted on LinkedIn that Maersk had increased its import storage fees at British ports.

Interestingly, Jensen also pointed out that Northern Ireland, which is still part of the EU single market, has not been subject to the increase:

It is worth noting that Maersk has today announced a change in import storage fees per container specifically for the UK. And – not surprisingly – it is an increase for all import container types. It should be further noted that this only applies to mainland UK. Import storage fees in Northern Ireland (Belfast) are not increasing (apart from reefers).

As Jensen goes onto explain, this is because the driver shortage in Northern Ireland is not as severe as the rest of the UK:

I.e. in the locations where shippers have severe challenges in getting trucks, and hence face additional delays, the daily import storage fees are increased, but in locations where the trucking issue is not as severe, the fees also remain unchanged.

The shipping expert then went on to say that from the perspective of carriers/terminals, the aforementioned rise in fees increases “make sense”. This is because, as Jensen puts it, “the increasing delays worsen congestion at the terminals and remove equipment from the market – which in turn makes it even more difficult to get the full supply chain back to normality.”

Thus, as Jensen explains, the fees are used as a means of encouraging shippers to get their cargo moved faster.

Even so, given the current situation with driver shortages across the globe, particularly in Great Britain, Jensen warns that the fee increases may just add “more fuel to the fire”



https://trans.info/en/import-container- ... d-256320ii

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someones alternate reality

Boris Johnson to brush off petrol queues as ‘change of direction’
Prime minister will tell Tory conference that despite the supply chain crisis a bright future lies ahead

“That is the direction in which this country is going – towards a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy that the people of this country need and deserve, in which everyone can take pride in their work and the quality of their work,” he is expected to say.

“We are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration.”

Towards high-wage high-skill? When London is losing its financial markets? When high-skill foreign workers are asked to follow red-tape before granting access to enable a knowlege transfer? When the Brit students have no longer access to higher education in the EU cause you dropped out of the Erasmus program to hone their skills elsewhere. High-productivity. When requiring the industry first to produce to new fangled British standards rather than largely accepted CE before bringing products to the market. A economy that "the people of this country need and deserve"? You may need it, but you don't just "deserve" it, it's hard work, you earn it, it's not a present.

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The U.K. desperately needs European truck drivers to fix its fuel crisis, but they’re not coming

DAVID MEYER
October 5, 2021 12:43 PM GMT+2

The U.K. government’s urgent appeal for European tanker drivers to come and help alleviate the country’s fuel crisis has largely fallen on deaf ears. A mere 27 (or 127, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson) drivers have applied for the temporary work visas that were on offer. The government was hoping for 300, and that’s before it tries to attract another 4,700 truck drivers to save the holiday season.

Britain does not have a fuel shortage as such, but it does have a significant shortfall of truck drivers. This has caused serious supply-chain problems for retailers in recent months, and the past week and a half has also seen gas stations run dry as fuel companies struggle to get the stuff from refinery to pump. The fuel problem has eased somewhat over the past few days, but around a fifth of gas stations in and around London are still dry.

To ease the supply-chain worries and ensure empty gas stations don’t become endemic, U.K. trucking companies have made repeated pleas for the government to offer visas to attract foreign drivers—something which Johnson’s government has been loath to do. The government finally relented last week—but to no avail.

“What we said to the road haulage industry was, ‘Fine, give us the names of the drivers that you want to bring in, and we will sort out the visas, you’ve got another 5,000 visas,’” Johnson said in a BBC interview Tuesday. “They only produced 127 names so far.”

The Times of London reported that there had only been 27 applications. Asked by Fortune to clear up the confusion, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy confirmed that figure.



https://fortune.com/2021/10/05/uk-hgv-t ... ortage-eu/

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How fast does the UK government think that potential drivers react to the visa offer? They are not queuing up in rubber dingies accross the channel to land on the coast of England. Drivers first need to hear the news. Especially that they will not be kicked out by Christmas but can stay six months Did the UK government publish the visa offer in the EU media? Did they make it easy by publishing the contact addresses of the embassies and consulates that issue the visa? Or are they simply waitinh for the haulage companies to search for the specialists? Did the UK government relax the red tape, like health insurance requirement, like proof of funds by the driver?

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Undocumented migrants with HGV licences are sent official letters encouraging them to work
Exclusive: Ministers accused of ‘staggering incompetence’ after foreign nationals with no right to work told their ‘valuable skills and experience have never been more needed’

May Bulman Social Affairs Correspondent


Undocumented people who hold HGV licences have been sent official letters encouraging them to help stem the fuel shortage - despite the fact that they have no right to work.

Migrants who have overstayed their visas have been told their “valuable skills and experience have never been more needed than they are now” and asked to “consider returning” to work in the HGV sector.

The letters, sent by the Department for Transport (DfT), were part of the same mass mailout that also asked ambulance drivers and paramedics to become HGV drivers.

It comes afterThe Independent revealed that thousands of Germans residing in the UK had also received the letter, even if they had never driven an HGV vehicle before.



https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 31837.html

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‘Economically illiterate’: PM’s Tory conference speech gets frosty reception
Next boss, thinktanks and unions criticise Boris Johnson, saying ‘shortages cannot be blustered away’

Heather Stewart and Julia Kollewe
Wed 6 Oct 2021 19.12 BST

Business leaders rounded on Boris Johnson for lacking a coherent economic plan after he delivered a boosterish conference speech that made barely a mention of the supply chain crisis.

The address was condemned as “bombastic but vacuous and economically illiterate” by the free market Adam Smith Institute, while the Conservative thinktank Bright Blue issued a stark warning.

“The public will soon tire of Boris’s banter if the government does not get a grip of mounting crises: price rises, tax rises, fuel shortages, labour shortages. There was nothing new in this speech, no inspiring new vision or policy,” its chief executive, Ryan Shorthouse, said.

The prime minister closed the Conservative conference in Manchester with an upbeat, campaign-style address interspersed with jokes and delivered from a specially created stage to a packed hall of the party faithful.

He failed to mention supply shortages, petrol queues or the £20-a-week reduction in universal credit that came into force on Wednesday for more than 5 million families – the biggest overnight cut in benefits ever.

Instead, the prime minister set out an optimistic vision of a high-wage, high-skilled economy, promising to “unleash” the “unique spirit” of the British people.

He dismissed current “stresses and strains” as side-effects of the economic recovery and said firms could no longer “use immigration as an excuse for failure to invest in people, in skills and in the equipment, the facilities, the machinery they need to do their jobs”.



https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... is-johnson

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Yes - the BBC published this on their Pidgin English website - what qualification HGV drivers and tanker drivers does this attract?

How to apply for UK truck driver visa scheme for foreign lorry drivers

5 October 2021

Only 127 fuel drivers from overseas don apply for temporary visas to work for UK, di prime minister tok.

Sake of di current fuel scarcity wey dey happun, UK goment dey offer immediate visas for 300 foreign tanker drivers to work for di UK from now until di end of March.

Dem go join hands wit oda drivers wey dey on ground to deliver fuel across di kontri.

Di goment dey also offer to give 4,700 visas for foreign food haulage drivers, e go last from late October to di end of February.

Di move na to avoid oda supply chain issues. E no dey clear yet how many pipo don apply to dis scheme.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, di prime minister say di haulage industry don "only produce 127 names so far" in response to di goment scheme.

Meanwhile UK goment don release guidelines on wetin pipo need and how to apply for di visa.

Dem say dis concession go allow non-visa nationals wey dey come to work for di UK as HGV fuel tanker drivers to seek permission to enta di UK for di border.


https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-58806662

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Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic
Exclusive: Report from planning exercise in 2016 alerted government of need to stockpile PPE and set up contact tracing system

Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent
Thu 7 Oct 2021 20.32 BST

Senior health officials who war-gamed the impact of a coronavirus hitting the UK, warned four years before the onset of Covid-19 of the need for stockpiles of PPE, a computerised contact tracing system and screening for foreign travellers, the Guardian can reveal.

The calls to step up preparations in areas already identified as shortcomings in the government’s response to Covid, emerged from a previously unpublished report of a health planning exercise in February 2016 that imagined a coronavirus outbreak.

It was commissioned by Dame Sally Davies, then chief medical officer, who attended alongside officials from NHS England, the Department of Health, Public Health England, and observers from the devolved administrations.

The participants imagined cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) arriving in London and Birmingham and spreading rapidly resulting in “a large scale outbreak”. Like Covid, MERS causes potentially fatal respiratory illness and can spread asymptomatically; there were no known treatments or vaccines.

Government ministers have previously stressed that pandemic planning focused more on flu so did not prepare the UK for the demands a coronavirus placed on PPE, hospitals and care homes.

The disclosure of the 23-page report on Exercise Alice is set to trigger fresh scrutiny of the adequacy of UK preparations.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-pandemic

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you better also start an inquiry into the whereabouts of the Christmas turkeys, the next item on the short list of items with short supply

Petrol retailers call for inquiry into fuel crisis as problems continue
Petrol Retailers Association says shortages not easing quickly enough and should not happen again

Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden
Thu 7 Oct 2021 17.06 BST

The UK’s petrol retailers have called for an independent inquiry into the fuel crisis to ensure it does not happen again, saying the shortages are not easing quickly enough.

A lack of lorry drivers and panic-buying over the past fortnight left many pumps dry, and the problems are continuing mainly in London and south-east England.

The Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent forecourts, said 12% of filling stations in London and the south-east were still dry and 17% had just one grade of fuel. It said 71% of forecourts in the region had both grades, compared with 90% elsewhere.

The industry group said the shortage was proving harder to tackle in London and the south-east because there are typically more vehicles per station in the region due to the density of the population.

“The recovery is simply not happening quickly enough,” said Brian Madderson, the PRA’s chairman. “We are into our 15th day of the crisis. There needs to be an independent inquiry into the crisis so that motorists are protected from such acute fuel shortages in the future.”



https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... s-continue

[Lani]

Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic
Exclusive: Report from planning exercise in 2016 alerted government of need to stockpile PPE and set up contact tracing system

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-pandemic

Same here. Under the Obama administration, a department was created to monitor for new pandemics and stockpile needed items. Tfg shut it down as wasteful. The stockpile was not maintained. Then covid arrived, and - of course - tfg blamed Obama.

[keith]

Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic
Exclusive: Report from planning exercise in 2016 alerted government of need to stockpile PPE and set up contact tracing system

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-pandemic

Same here. Under the Obama administration, a department was created to monitor for new pandemics and stockpile needed items. Tfg shut it down as wasteful. The stockpile was not maintained. Then covid arrived, and - of course - tfg blamed Obama.

in spades.

And the Trumpista 'blame Obama' argument was made at the beginning of the pandemic and unceremoniously beaten down. I think thats when TFG got his knickers in a knot about the whole thing.

So now its coming up again?

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just for the laugh

HGV shortage: Government so desperate for help it asks 80-year-old retired driver to return to work
David Brown, from Ilminster, stopped truck driving more than 20 years ago. ‘I have to admit, I was a bit tempted,’ he said

David Parsley
October 7, 2021 6:00 am(Updated 1:23 pm)

The Government is so desperate for HGV drivers it has written to an 80-year-old former trucker to ask him to get back behind the wheel as Boris Johnson seeks tens of thousands of drivers to solve the UK fuel and food supply crisis.

As part of the Government’s campaign to plug the estimated 100,000 HGV driver shortage, transport minister Baroness Vere wrote to David Brown of Ilminster in Somerset, who retired from driving articulated lorries more than 20 year ago.

“I thought it was something about renewing my driving licence or road tax when I saw the letter with DVLA on the front,” said Mr Brown, who turns 81 in December.