This is not incompetence..
I don’t normally return to the same subject the next day but I feel I must today. The Government’s temporary visa for HGV drivers is just such an important matter, because it tells us so much.
The fact is that after telling the rest of Europe that it didn’t need or want any of them, the Government has now proposed the pettiest, most pathetic and inadequate response to this crisis, predicated on the same flawed philosophy.
Just listen to the message the Government is sending.
Its consistent theme has been for years “We want nothing to do with you, you are unskilled, undercut UK workers, take their jobs and we are free for ever from the obligation to let you come and work here.”
To now saying “We are desperately short of skilled workers like you, our logistics system is collapsing without you, but our policies are so ideologically driven that we will only let the bare minimum necessary in, for the shortest possible time and only to ensure that Christmas is not a disaster. Which is why you must leave on Christmas Eve and not a day later. Or you will be thrown out on your ear and by the way we will never need you again, you are now dead to us.“
Incompetence means you are not up to the job but this is far worse. Any sensible sane body, let alone a well run Government would offer generous terms for 3 or 6 months with the option to increase numbers and the duration if necessary. If only because it sends an encouraging message, is easier for business to use and plan around and because the future is unclear.
This is not incompetence it is a deliberate policy driven by the fact this Government and PM and his Brexit supporters can never admit that any part of their fantasy is clashing with reality.
As I have said already, the calculation that Brexit would cause Britain to lose 6-9% of economic growth, was not based on these measures, but sensible ones that most experts would assume any sane Government would pursue.
I take with a pinch of salt the story that British people trying to recruit drivers in Dutch and Belgian lorry parks are being mocked and laughed at. It has the whiff of wishful thinking, we will just have to wait to see whether it is true.
But Britain is being laughed at, mocked and pitied and not just in the lorry parks.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.