Chaos, inflation: nothing must stop Brits from having their holidays!
This is not a good image. The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Bank Holidays, a.k.a. ‘Very Long Weekend’, starts on Thursday June 2nd – and her subjects are fleeing the country. That is the impression one gets when scanning the MSM print edition headlines this morning (link).
There’s ‘chaos at airports’, children are weeping, some people had to sleep on the floors. Flights are cancelled, luggage is lost – aren’t you glad you’re not there! To crown it all, filling your car’s tank with diesel will now cost you over £100. There’s also the unsavoury image of readers of the DT congratulating Ukrainian ‘resistance’ for using car bombs – on their own civilian population. More on that below.
Airlines and airports, being blamed for this ‘chaos’, are providing the now customary excuse: there’s a severe staff shortage. They had to reduce their staffs because of the covid years. These ‘frontline staff’ couldn’t WFH, see – and during that time, many found new jobs, with better pay even. Of course, now ‘teh people’ demand that government ‘must do something about it’ while ‘government’ blames airlines and airports:
“Ministers have been urged to intervene to prevent trips being ruined as airports and airlines struggled to cope with a sharp increase in demand. But last night a government source blamed the aviation sector. “The sudden cancellations of flights and airport delays are completely unacceptable,” the source said.” (link, paywalled)
These ‘ministers’ and ‘government sources’ – why are we never given their names? – know precisely who the culprits are:
“The simple fact is that airlines and airports overcut staff during the pandemic, ignoring the fact that the billions of pounds of aid — including furlough — handed out by the government was meant to protect those very jobs.” (link, paywalled)
Hm. Does this mean that airports and airlines received those billions of pounds in aid exclusively? Didn’t those billions also go to other industries? Did ‘government’ check that these ‘billions of pounds of aid’ were used properly? I seem to recall that a lot of this aid was claimed fraudulently.
Certainly, airlines and airports ought to have foreseen that, when let off the leash, Brits would stampede to get away! But is it really unacceptable that “large numbers of workers left the industry”, thanks to covid, lockdowns and travel restrictions, and that “they have since secured more stable jobs in other sectors and have settled into new working lives with new routines.” (link, paywalled)?
How dare people get new jobs! Didn’t lorry drivers do the same? Must government now intervene when people choose another job? Has Whitehall, have the Westminster denizens now imbued socialist doctrine to such an extent that dictating where people have to work seems unremarkable?
And how should ‘government intervene’? Perhaps by nationalising airlines and airports and run them like the NHS? Would that really prevent ‘travel chaos’, given that our beloved Sacred Cow has managed to shed 25,000 beds during the last decade, despite the annual budget rises:
“A damning report found that Britain has fewer hospital beds than all European Union nations apart from Sweden. Owing to staffing shortages there are 2.42 beds per 1,000 people in Britain, compared with 8 per 1,000 in Germany and 5.9 in France. Analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found there were 163,000 hospital beds in the UK: 24,863 fewer than in 2010. “ (link, paywalled)
The operative expression, just as for airports and airlines, is ‘staffing shortages’. Of course, the NHS sez it’ll need more money to alleviate these shortages. Funny how they never seem to have shortages for admin staff and top managers. Here’s a thought: might it have something to do with pay?
Is it too far-fetched to assume that all those ‘managers’, of airports, airlines, NHS hospitals, have been WFH and are still WFH while the minions, the ‘frontline staff’, has to be content with getting ‘furlough payment (80% of their salaries) and wait gratefully, forelocks tugged, to be called back, disregarding better job offers?
And so to the price of diesel at the forecourts, just as the Brits remaining in the UK are gearing up for their travels and the ensuing ‘chaos on the motorways’:
The price of a litre of diesel averaged 182.59p on Sunday, according to the AA, taking the cost of filling a 55-litre tank to £100.42. Diesel’s average price was 131.64p a litre a year ago. Petrol prices have also risen to a new record high of 172.73p a litre, up from 129.31p a year ago, taking the cost of filling up a typical petrol vehicle to £95.” (link, paywalled)
This is, of course, only due to Putin and the sanctions which sadly had to be imposed on Russian oil, innit like. A barrel of crude, we’re told, is now ‘above $115 per barrel’ – that’s simply too dreadful! However, I recall times ‘before sanctions’ when the price for a barrel of crude was as high as that, but diesel and petrol prices weren’t. Check out the graph of oil prices here, and check out the graph of petrol and diesel here, looking at the years around 2008.
Why, I ask naively, have prices risen so much now when the raw material costs the same? Might our beloved government be to blame for imposing more stealth taxes on everything, from labour to material costs? Why are well-paid ‘economic opinion piece writers’ not looking into this but ‘go with the flow’ instead, demanding “more government” for which we taxpayers have to shell out?
I leave you with a sickening report in the DT. According to the writer, a car bomb injuring civilians could be the much desired beginning of the Ukrainian guerrilla war against Russia (paywalled link). The ‘justification’ for bombing those civilians was that they were ‘Russian collaborators’, or related to one such:
“Ukrainian media identified one of the casualties as a niece of the Russia-appointed head of the Zaporizhzhia region” (paywalled link).
Terrorists bombing civilians is obviously ok when ‘our terrorists’ do it. Killing relatives of an assumed ‘collaborator’ is also ‘acceptable’. The sickening readers’ comments posts are fine with this. Does it not occur to them that therefore all the IEDs killing our soldiers in Afghanistan were fine as well? It’s the hypocrisy, the attitude of ‘it’s alright when we do it’ which I find so disgusting.
And finally: the good old DM is at it again, providing much needed fear porn using scare numbers and ‘guidance by UK health chiefs’. The headline says it all: “UK monkeypox cases jump 70% in just three days to 179 as health chiefs say anyone who develops a new rash should abstain from SEX” (link) – oh dear!
Holidays, chaos or not, and ‘no sex’? That’s harsh, that is! I’m now waiting for demands that government install a proper bedroom police in order to ‘combat’ monkeypox, especially since ‘experts’ believe monkeypox could be transmitted to our pets.
Stay safe over the Platinum Jubilee Holidays and better not have any sex whatsoever. We don’t want to infect our cats and dogs, do we!
Evil is as evil does. Let’s hope the heat they feel is the fires of hell and soon.
“filling your car’s tank with diesel will now cost you over £100.” All going according to plan then.
in reply to Lisa on 31/05/2022 at 9:57 am. Seems to be an issue with links.
I didn’t post a link Jack it was just a section of the petition response.
Airline and airport staff cannot start until they pass security checks which rely on civil servants. As with most branches of the civil service the service these days is very slow with actual work being optional it seems or, at least, begrudgingly part-time. The luxury class with its luxury ideas serves only itself. Working families with their chav holidays in Spain are viewed with contempt.
A bit of good news for you!
“WHO Forced into Humiliating Backdown”
https://www.onenation.org.au/who-forced-into-humiliating-backdown
The sheep in Wales will be in danger!!!
In April, Gazprom suspended gas to Bulgaria and Poland, and in May, Finland was cut off. Denmark faces a supply freeze after refusing Russia’s rouble payment demand. Last night Netherlands was cut off.
Earlier this month Germany and Italy allowed companies to open rouble accounts with Gazprombank. Two dozen European national companies have so far opened rouble accounts.
Now we know why the Moth Eaten President (No, not plastic haired vander Lying) wants to ban 9 mm handguns.
Meanwhile, I’m off to Tessie Cohen’s for more popcorn.
All of the above, as well as the constant fear-porn is just a prequel to the proposed vax-pass and digital IF which the WHO are determined to to and this Government is meekly signing up to regardless of what people think or want. Here is the first paragraph of a long waffle which is all you need to know. I keep having fitful dreams of something drastic happening to change these evil despots’ minds as until they feel the heat nothing will change.
“Government responded:
To protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally-binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”
It is somewhat ironic that ‘the WHO’ (musicians) had a line in a hit song of theirs called ‘wont get fooled again’.
IThe lyric runs ‘new boss same as the old boss’. Title and lyric say it all.
(Unelected common market punters replaced by unelected health punters).
Lisa………..the buck stops with the person in charge, and we all know who he is. He is the numpty who has signed us up to all this. Still, I can’t mention his name as it upsets some people on here. Besides which apparently, huge numbers of people are joining UKIP. The big problem there, is that these huge numbers are not transferring to votes. Ho hum…
CH- For info / interest
British Politics
Next Conservative Leader Betting Odds
Jeremy Hunt 11/2; Liz Truss 33/5;
Tom Tugendhat 37/5; Ben Wallace 9/1
Next Prime Minister
Keir Starmer 32/5; Jeremy Hunt 7/1
Liz Truss 44/5; Tom Tugendhat 9/1
Next Labour Leader
Andy Burnham 26/5; Wes Streeting 32/5
Rachel Reeves 8/1; Lisa Nandy 41/5
Tom Tugendhat, you’ve got to be jesting. The man is an utter plonker, and what’s more is a confirmed ‘Remainer’. No political conviction whatsoever and sits on the fence on just about everything. As bad as Johnson is, this man would be the pits..
How depressing those lists are!
I agree with you Colin but I have no problem with naming and shaming the despots in charge.
Colin ‘.Besides which apparently, .huge numbers are joining UKIP’ Now, now, that is not what I said. Here is exactly what I said.
“But if people like you from up and down the country become members then, sooner rather than later, that charismatic person you speak of (no not Farage, he’s burnt his bridges) may note the groundswell of support and throw in his/her lot and lead the party”
Jake…..yes I did say that, but I used the word ‘apparently’ which to my mind at least sows a seed of doubt in the mind of the reader. So in terms of an increase in members of UKIP that could probably be measured on no more than two hands, if that. The problem that UKIP has is that it never re-branded itself when it had the chance to, but apart from that it was initially trumped by the creation of The Brexit Party, and that party was driven by one person, namely Nigel Farage, the same person who motivated us under the UKIP flag. UKIP will never again re-visit the days of its heyday before the 2016 referendum, and even then it couldn’t quite cut through. Insofar as Reform UK is concerned, well, its already a lost cause. I just don’t know what it stands for and nor do most people for that matter.