Brompton CEO warns of raw materials shortages hitting bike industry

Yeah, it's meant more as an indication of how skewed the world is. Realistically, you don't divvy up resources completely evenly, but according to where it's needed (e.g. metals going to factories), so you'd presumably want higher wages were the cost of living is more expensive. The important point is that development can then happen in areas that are currently neglected due to the people there not being considered important.

No.

But you explain why it is solely Brexit's fault.

Gimpl wrote:

No.

But you explain why it is solely Brexit's fault.

I don't think he claimed it was, did he?

He tried to change the agenda away to what the benfits of Brexit were - it's not about that but other, more contributing factors. 

Gimpl wrote:

No.

But you explain why it is solely Brexit's fault.

I don't think you've bothered actually reading what I wrote about driver shortage being caused by poor pay and conditions - maybe you have some kind of reading difficulty?

hawkinspeter wrote:

Gimpl wrote:

No.

But you explain why it is solely Brexit's fault.

I don't think you've bothered actually reading what I wrote about driver shortage being caused by poor pay and conditions - maybe you have some kind of reading difficulty?

I'm replying directly to your question to me, 'If you're getting tired of people moaning about Brexit, then rather than moaning about moaning, you could highlight the early benefits of Brexit instead.' Nothing about driver shortages in that, just you trying to change the agenda to suit yourself. 

Gimpl wrote:

I'm replying directly to your question to me, 'If you're getting tired of people moaning about Brexit, then rather than moaning about moaning, you could highlight the early benefits of Brexit instead.' Nothing about driver shortages in that, just you trying to change the agenda to suit yourself. 

You do seem to have a problem with reading and interpreting comments here as my reply to you was not a question, nor was it trying to change any agenda, but an attempt to change your simplistic complaining into something more useful and positive.

If you read my other comments on this page, you may see that I don't ascribe lorry shortages purely to Brexit - not everything is a simple black and white issue, you know, despite your attempts to polarise the issues.

Gimpl wrote:

Getting very, very tired of the continual 'it's all Brexit's fault'. Stirred up by the media all the time - remember it's little more than clickbait and yes I am most definitely pointing my finger at you Simon MacMichael.

FFS - can people not see what's going on around them or think for themselves? 

Lazy, lazy journalism backed up by lazy, ignorant readers.

You're absolutely right.

It is a consequence of Brexit, but you can't say it's Brexit's fault.

It's the fault of Johnson, Gove, Cummings, and of all those people who believed the lies peddled by them.

The problem is that articles like this just add on the Brexit angle when it's largely irrelevant to the content.

If there's no aluminium available how is this anything to do with Brexit?

If there's a 2 year lead on saddles how is that anything to do with Brexit?

The only part of this story that can be blamed on Brexit is the lorry driver shortage and even that is largely pandemic related.

13,400 lorry drivers have left after Brexit, 40,000 HGV tests were cancelled due to the pandemic. The pandemic effect is 3x larger than the Brexit effect.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/29/food-beer-toys-medical-...

This debate is great for historians. The landscape has now changed so simply saying "this wouldn't have happened before" OR "we wouldn't have been able to do this before" is beside the point - it's "what now?"

However I'm sure 10 years later it'll be: "problem x is because of Brexit" from Remainers * and "thanks to Brexit we are free from the shackles of EU regulation so can deal with this problem more effectively" from Leavers.

* which might well be true - some experts estimated the time to work through all the consequences as decades.

This exactly!

Simply ignoring the much wider issues and focusing in on one thing becasue it suits their political agenda. 

Ignorant!

Gimpl wrote:

This exactly!

Simply ignoring the much wider issues and focusing in on one thing becasue it suits their political agenda. 

Ignorant!

Yeah, because Brexiteers don't have any political axe to grind... 

Try and open your mind - it's much bigger than simply Brexit. 

You're right of course - its (arguably) our civilisation which is on the slippery slope to us all fighting it out in the Thunderdome...

Gimpl wrote:

Getting very, very tired of the continual 'it's all Brexit's fault'. Stirred up by the media all the time - remember it's little more than clickbait and yes I am most definitely pointing my finger at you Simon MacMichael.

FFS - can people not see what's going on around them or think for themselves? 

Lazy, lazy journalism backed up by lazy, ignorant readers.

The irony is that at no point in this article does anybody claim 'it's all Brexit's fault'.

The only lazy one was the reader who chose to believe that claim had been made, that was you.

Just to help you out:

'That is exacerbated in the case of the UK – where the bikes are made at the company’s factory in West London – by Brexit, with the shortage of lorry drivers now leading to massive backlogs at major container ports.'

That's the only reason mentioned - not the myriad of others that are more appropriate. 

For the record, I believe Brexit has an influence certainly, my issue is the way things are being reported and the influence that has on the wider public. It's exactly the same as the way cyclists are portrayed in the negative (see the excellent Close Passes In Cardiff article yesterday).

Gimpl wrote:

That's the only reason mentioned

No it isn't. You've just ignored all the paragraphs before that cite other reasons. The phrase 'that is exacerbated' wouldn't even make any sense if there weren't other factors mentioned first.

Like I said.

"That is exacerbated in the case of the UK –...– by Brexit" is NOT  'it's all Brexit's fault'.

Brexit is undoubtedly a contributory factor in many of the problems UK businesses are currently experiencing. The only one here claiming those problems are entirely caused by Brexit is still you. It's an accurate and honest piece of reporting that you chose to misinterpret and misrepresent.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

From 2018 - https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2018/dec/truck-driver-shortage-crisis....

But yeah Brexit - chimes in with the rest of the fake news.

Of course the answer is to raise terms, conditions and pay for truck drivers and train more home grown drivers - but all those things go against the modus operandi of middle class Remainers who are addicted to cheap Eastern European labour.

As was famously campaigned for by a Remainer back in 2016: "Vote Remain, otherwise who is going to serve my Pret sandwiches every day?"

If ever there was an over-simplified response to a complex situation, this is it.

Brexit is here, its ramifications are kicking in & are only going to get worse. Yes the ability to import goods should improve long term, but whether the improvements compensate for the loss of European free trade & movement is highly unlikely.

I was told by someone in Ireland that they have now opened lots of haulage routes from Ireland direct to France, bypassing the UK so any deliveries to or from there don't have to worry about border checks. Of course this means drivers who used to do multi stops, including to the UK along the old routes now don't bother. So like with the current energy price crisis, the issue might not be a UK one alone and is happening elsewhere, but the UK decided to double down on the effects by having Brexit. 
 

Nigel Garrage wrote:

From 2018 - https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2018/dec/truck-driver-shortage-crisis.... But yeah Brexit - chimes in with the rest of the fake news. Of course the answer is to raise terms, conditions and pay for truck drivers and train more home grown drivers - but all those things go against the modus operandi of middle class Remainers who are addicted to cheap Eastern European labour. As was famously campaigned for by a Remainer back in 2016: "Vote Remain, otherwise who is going to serve my Pret sandwiches every day?"

Oh do FO you twonk.