26th September 2021

 So now it’s a massive shortage of lorry drivers. Cars are snaking around the block near every petrol station. Soon, we’re told, there’ll be empty supermarket shelves. “I remember people pushing full trolley loads of loo rolls,” said one woman on the news, not realising that the people buying so many loo rolls back then were almost certainly small shopkeepers unable to secure supplies from their usual wholesaler! Listening to truck drivers on BBC local radio, it’s clear what’s causing much of the problem: very low pay, appalling conditions (no water/loos in their cabs), having to sleep in their lorry overnight, being forced to attend, at their own cost, useless mandatory training courses - in some cases after having been in the job for 40+ years, no younger drivers being recruited etc. Driver conditions in the EU are apparently far superior. In a panic, Boris has introduced 5000 temporary lorry driver visas for EU applicants. My urgent suggestion to all UK truck companies: improve pay, truck facilities and conditions immediately, at least to EU standards, so that recruitment becomes attractive enough to interest younger UK drivers. And for the rest of us - amidst erupting volcanoes, global warming and pandemics - when’s the world gonna return to normal?