BBC question time

[Bo Diddley]

Just listening to BBC Question Time, and a blonde bint has just been ranting about the rotting crops in the fields because we haven't got the numbers of "pickers" anymore, and people are starving in the country because of the cost of living..... am I missing something?

 

[Freeforester]

The forests here are full of flattened and broken trees, but nobody can buy firewood for winter fuel, the forest tracks are still blocked here and there, since Arwen; meanwhile the thrown trees moulder away, day by day, and the gas begins to flicker as the berries ripen and the shadows grow…


Meanwhile, in Italy, events begin to unfold, and Euros head back over the Brenner pass…
Anyone know what happened to the hand-cart maker?

 

[mealiejimmy]

Re the aftermath of storm Arwen in North East Scotland.
I was speaking to a self employed guy who does odd jobs - but who has a chainsaw and the relevant certificate to use it professionally
After the storm, Scottish and Southern Energy - who maintain the pylons and cables, were using their own people during the day on fallen tree removal irs and had contractors like the guy I met doing the same thing at night.
They were paying him £100 per hour!!
He made £32k clearing fallen trees
So, Storm Arwen wasn't such an ill wind after all (for those with a chainsaw)

Cheers

Bruce

 

[Freeforester]

Aye, the ‘foresters’ with the tap-tappy fingers dinna use sic things as saws hereabouts noo, so their fallen stocks get left, they must be gey weel aff nae tae need sticks for the fire. ‘Tae Hell’ wi’ them that want sticks for the winter, yet canna buy, even though the same folk pay their wages..


left to rot, rather than bother to sell…

 

[User00035]

Re the aftermath of storm Arwen in North East Scotland.
I was speaking to a self employed guy who does odd jobs - but who has a chainsaw and the relevant certificate to use it professionally
After the storm, Scottish and Southern Energy - who maintain the pylons and cables, were using their own people during the day on fallen tree removal irs and had contractors like the guy I met doing the same thing at night.
They were paying him £100 per hour!!
He made £32k clearing fallen trees
So, Storm Arwen wasn't such an ill wind after all (for those with a chainsaw)

Cheers

Bruce

That's what I'm hoping to be doing this winter. In fact I'll be ready to start in August. No shortage of windblown timber in the north east.

 

[Basil H]

"a blonde bint" - that will be Minette Batters, President of the National Farmers Union.

 

[User00035]

On the subject of labour shortages, has anyone on here tried applying for a job lately? I've been self-employed for a good 25 years. I haven't applied for for a PAYE job in all that time but since my move and a shortage of work, and struggling to find a store to keep my tools and gear so I could return to the building trade (which I don't really want to do except as a last resort), I've applied for all sorts of jobs with all sorts pf employers from huge civil engineering companies, to the Home Office and the National trust. And I've applied for menial minimum wage jobs too.

The hoops you have to jump through is crazy. There are umpteen checks and documents you have to provide to prove your not an illegal immigrant (that's working then..), that you're not a criminal or a child abuser. All this is done on-line through third party vetting agencies, often based overseas. There are frequently bugs in their system where you cannot get documents to load or answers it won't accept. You cannot phone anyone, there are no postal addresses to send documents to and you cannot contact the employer directly. You need your camera and microphone working on your computer and have to keep signed in to the employer's "dashboard" or portal and then you have to proceed through multiple "levels" of the application process, which takes weeks and weeks during which time you hear nothing whatever. Sometimes you're sent trite on-line aptitude tests to complete and if you do manage to get as far as the interview stage, it'll be on zoom.

And that's just to drive a van round on the minimum wage delivering groceries.
A combination of wokeness, stupid and intrusive government regulation and Covid hysteria has turned the process of job seeking into a negative and mistrustful bureaucratic nightmare that seems designed to be as difficult and discouraging as possible. I'm not surprised people can't be bothered.

The days when you applied in writing and were interviewed across a table like an adult are long gone.

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Just listening to BBC Question Time, and a blonde bint has just been ranting about the rotting crops in the fields because we haven't got the numbers of "pickers" anymore, and people are starving in the country because of the cost of living..... am I missing something?

Most large fruit and veg farms used to supply caravan/mobile home type of accommodation for the foreign pickers. I don't know if they still do but they certainly did when the wife and I were earning our living picking (We used to own our own caravan and towing vehicle). If they do then why not get a load of the displaced war torn families from Ukraine over to help with the picking. That would serve a two fold purpose - They would be helping the war torn Ukrainians, and they Ukrainians could earn their money and keep so they would not be a "burden" on the UK government or tax payer - It could be a win win situation all round!

 

[Freeforester]

Most large fruit and veg farms used to supply caravan/mobile home type of accommodation for the foreign pickers. I don't know if they still do but they certainly did when the wife and I were earning our living picking (We used to own our own caravan and towing vehicle). If they do then why not get a load of the displaced war torn families from Ukraine over to help with the picking. That would serve a two fold purpose - They would be helping the war torn Ukrainians, and they Ukrainians could earn their money and keep so they would not be a "burden" on the UK government or tax payer - It could be a win win situation all round!

Quite, but In the nat forest estate context this would mean that the privatisation of profit made at the expense of the socialisation of the debt/cost ratio would be upset - and thus none too popular with the overlords… brr!

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Quite, but In the nat forest estate context this would mean that the privatisation of profit made at the expense of the socialisation of the debt/cost ratio would be upset - and thus none too popular with the overlords… brr!

Yes, but I was thinking about the original post where fruit and veg pickers were mentioned, but I take your point!

 

[lochty]

There's lots of fruit farms around here, who have large "villages" of huts and caravans for seasonal workers. About half full this year, something to do with visas apparently.....but I'm sure Nicola will fix it. Not....

 

[User00035]

Most large fruit and veg farms used to supply caravan/mobile home type of accommodation for the foreign pickers. I don't know if they still do but they certainly did when the wife and I were earning our living picking (We used to own our own caravan and towing vehicle). If they do then why not get a load of the displaced war torn families from Ukraine over to help with the picking. That would serve a two fold purpose - They would be helping the war torn Ukrainians, and they Ukrainians could earn their money and keep so they would not be a "burden" on the UK government or tax payer - It could be a win win situation all round!

For decades, if not centuries, this was how the seasonal migrant labour market worked. Employers shipped in people from poorer countries temporarily. They were housed on the premises, effectively getting free, or at least highly subsidised board. They worked long hard hours for low pay but they had next to no outgoings and paid little or no tax so, as long as they kept their heads down and got on with it, they kept most of what they earned and when the season ended they went home taking their earnings with them where it would be worth many times it's UK value.
That's the whole point of migrant labour. They come from poorer countries, their employer gives them bed and board and then they go home with their money where they find themselves relatively affluent. The employer gets a stable labour source that isn't effected by economic fluctuations, his crop gets picked at low cost so UK consumers get affordable food on the shelves and the labourers themselves do well because they go home afterwards taking their money with them making the drudgery well worthwhile. Everyone wins.
Before WW2 gypsies often did a lot of this work. They brought their accommodation with them and were paid cash. That was a good arrangement too. They had a stake in society, a source of legal income, safe places to camp while they worked, an incentive to have good relations with farmers and the crops got picked.

EU freedom off movement and endless tightening of employment and tax regulations has killed that. While EU migrants were able to send their money home, it was worth their while doing this work. After Brexit six million of them (twice the number we were told were ever in this country at any one time) took up permanent UK residency under Boris Johnson's EU resettlement programme. We don't have a shortage of available labour. They're all still here. But we have a shortage of willing labour because suddenly, the option of swelling their income by sending it to Poland or Romania has gone and they find they can't afford to pay UK living costs on minimum wage jobs any more than British people can, so they don't want them and we're back to square one, but with six million people to house and feed added to the population. And so the cry goes up we need more migrant labour, the Ponzi scheme grinds on, the housing crisis worsens and productivity spirals ever downwards.

 

[thorneyglatt]

On the subject of labour shortages, has anyone on here tried applying for a job lately? I've been self-employed for a good 25 years. I haven't applied for for a PAYE job in all that time but since my move and a shortage of work, and struggling to find a store to keep my tools and gear so I could return to the building trade (which I don't really want to do except as a last resort), I've applied for all sorts of jobs with all sorts pf employers from huge civil engineering companies, to the Home Office and the National trust. And I've applied for menial minimum wage jobs too.

The hoops you have to jump through is crazy. There are umpteen checks and documents you have to provide to prove your not an illegal immigrant (that's working then..), that you're not a criminal or a child abuser. All this is done on-line through third party vetting agencies, often based overseas. There are frequently bugs in their system where you cannot get documents to load or answers it won't accept. You cannot phone anyone, there are no postal addresses to send documents to and you cannot contact the employer directly. You need your camera and microphone working on your computer and have to keep signed in to the employer's "dashboard" or portal and then you have to proceed through multiple "levels" of the application process, which takes weeks and weeks during which time you hear nothing whatever. Sometimes you're sent trite on-line aptitude tests to complete and if you do manage to get as far as the interview stage, it'll be on zoom.

And that's just to drive a van round on the minimum wage delivering groceries.
A combination of wokeness, stupid and intrusive government regulation and Covid hysteria has turned the process of job seeking into a negative and mistrustful bureaucratic nightmare that seems designed to be as difficult and discouraging as possible. I'm not surprised people can't be bothered.

The days when you applied in writing and were interviewed across a table like an adult are long gone.

BLIMEY !!

 

[FrenchieBoy]

For decades, if not centuries, this was how the seasonal migrant labour market worked. Employers shipped in people from poorer countries temporarily. They were housed on the premises, effectively getting free, or at least highly subsidised board. They worked long hard hours for low pay but they had next to no outgoings and paid little or no tax so, as long as they kept their heads down and got on with it, they kept most of what they earned and when the season ended they went home taking their earnings with them where it would be worth many times it's UK value.
That's the whole point of migrant labour. They come from poorer countries, their employer gives them bed and board and then they go home with their money where they find themselves relatively affluent. The employer gets a stable labour source that isn't effected by economic fluctuations, his crop gets picked at low cost so UK consumers get affordable food on the shelves and the labourers themselves do well because they go home afterwards where their money inflates to many times its UK value making the drudgery well worthwhile. Everyone wins.
Before WW2 gypsies often did a lot of this work. They brought their accommodation with them and were paid cash. That was a good arrangement too. They had a stake in society, a source of legal income, safe places to camp while they worked, an incentive to have good relations with farmers and the crops got picked.

EU freedom off movement and endless tightening of employment and tax regulations has killed that. While EU migrants were able to send their money home, it was worth their while doing this work. After Brexit six million of them (twice the number we were told were ever in this country at any one time) took up permanent UK residency under Boris Johnson's EU resettlement programme. We don't have a shortage of available labour. They're all still here. But we have a shortage of willing labour because suddenly, the option of swelling their income by sending it to Poland or Romania has gone and they find they can't afford to pay UK living costs on minimum wage jobs any more than British people can, so they don't want them and we're back to square one, but with six million people to house and feed added to the population. And so the cry goes up we need more migrant labour, the Ponzi scheme grinds on, the housing crisis worsens and productivity spirals ever downwards.

I am in 100% agreement with you Finch! On most of the farms that we worked on the wages were paid on "Piece Work Rates" which meant that the harder you worked the more money you earned! That gave you the incentive to work hard rather than "skive" or sit around being lazy while others earned the money for you!

 

[VSS]

Most large fruit and veg farms used to supply caravan/mobile home type of accommodation for the foreign pickers. I don't know if they still do but they certainly did when the wife and I were earning our living picking (We used to own our own caravan and towing vehicle). If they do then why not get a load of the displaced war torn families from Ukraine over to help with the picking. That would serve a two fold purpose - They would be helping the war torn Ukrainians, and they Ukrainians could earn their money and keep so they would not be a "burden" on the UK government or tax payer - It could be a win win situation all round!

There are Ukrainian refugees who have previously been employed on UK farms as seasonal migrant workers who are now doing just as you suggest. But they are sorting it all out themselves. I don't think that there's a "scheme" as such to help them get those jobs.
Incidentally, we have a couple of Ukrainian refugees staying with us on the farm at the moment. Their work ethic is tremendous. You'd struggle to find "home grown" workers with the same mindset.

 

[User00035]

There's lots of fruit farms around here, who have large "villages" of huts and caravans for seasonal workers. About half full this year, something to do with visas apparently.....but I'm sure Nicola will fix it. Not....

See my post above. As long as the visas are temporary, and the workers pay minimal tax and can take their money home,it works very well.
The entire area of migration is an utter mess and the debate around it toxic. We have human rights lawyers gaming the system under the sponsorship of the ECHR, fueling illegal migration and rendering it unstoppable. At the same time the liberal left have politicised migration and used it to paint any non-left government that attempts to control it as extremist and issuing temporary visas rather than open door citizenship (even if there was anyone manning the Home Office to issue visas) is somehow illiberal and racist.
While the globalist/corporatist elements of those right-leaning governments (like Boris and Rishi Sunak), claiming their hands are tied on migration, surreptitiously encourage more of it to swell the population which increases GDP at the expense of productivity and allows then to pretend they are reducing the deficit.
Meanwhile the remainer establishment in the media and Whitehall, in their yearning to turn the clock back complain this illusory labour shortage is all because of Brexit.

Everything that could be wrong, is wrong and on all levels. The population is soaring with the attendant unassailable housing crisis, productivity is plummeting, genuine seasonal workers who aren't looking for backdoor entry into the UK are disenfranchied, farmers are losing money, crops are rotting, and there is less food on the shelves at a higher price for an exponentially rising population.
The wiliest strategist couldn't have designed a bigger mess if he tried.

 

[User00035]

Incidentally, we have a couple of Ukrainian refugees staying with us on the farm at the moment. Their work ethic is tremendous. You'd struggle to find "home grown" workers with the same mindset.

Well of course you won't. That's the point I've been trying to make. The Ukrainians want to go home. When they will be able to is another matter of course, but they are working with the aspiration to return. Of course they are motivated. And they have much lower living costs so the low pay is far less of a disincentive to them. It isn't a question of work ethic. Try living on the minimum wage yourself with full UK living costs. And that means paying rent and astronomical household bills in a terraced house, not living mortgage free in your own property with few outgoings. If you are a migrant aiming to return home at some stage with the money you have earned, you get your head down and get on with it. You're incentivised. If you're a UK bottom-runger, living in debt in a sh*thole you can't afford to heat and you know you will never ever climb out of it through the job you are doing, you are not incentivised, you are demoralised. Hopelessness is not the same as laziness.

 

[VSS]

. If you're a UK bottom-runger, living in debt in a sh*thole you can't afford to heat and you know you will never ever climb out of it through the job you are doing, you are not incentivised, you are demoralised. Hopelessness is not the same as laziness.

I know, I've been there. The UK benefit system seems to actively discourage anyone from trying to better themselves. I can remember having to turn down work because it would have resulted in our household income going down as a result of lost benefits. Coming out of that system isn't easy, unless you're motivated. I tightened my belt to its last hole and diverted every spare penny of that support into buying land, to enable me to stand on my own two feet. Lots of people can't see a way out of it though, and aren't getting any guidance either, so apathy sets in and they're stuck in the rut for life.

. Try living on the minimum wage yourself with full UK living costs. And that means paying rent and astronomical household bills in a terraced house, not living mortgage free in your own property with few outgoings.

I don't know what "full UK living costs" amount to, but do people know how to be economical and to use their money wisely, or is the consumer culture simply driving people to unnecessary expenditure?
I live, frugally but comfortably, well below the minimum wage (and qualify for no social security benefits these days), but I do have all the advantages associated with owning a farm, so it's sometimes difficult for me to understand the points that people make re: income versus expenditure required for a reasonable standard of living. My own situation is far from typical, as I'm well aware.

 

[Woodsmoke]

There's lots of fruit farms around here, who have large "villages" of huts and caravans for seasonal workers. About half full this year, something to do with visas apparently.....but I'm sure Nicola will fix it. Not....

Remember the days (not so very long ago) where the 'berry bus' would travel around the schemes, picking up anyone willing to work a day in the fields for cash? Not a foreign worker to be seen, and it was a welcome financial addition to many a household, as well as giving countless kids a great introduction to a days work and its attendant reward.