Comments by "Dale Crocker" (@dalecrocker3213) on "" video.

@markargent4962 There are around a million holders of HGV licences in the UK who currently work in non-driving occupations. A substantial cash initiative and a good salary of £60,000 plus should certainly entice some of them to get back behind the wheel, as well as persuading others to train for the job. (In my head socialism SHOULD be concerned with the business of improving pay and conditions for the unpropertied classes. It is a great shame that middle-class pseudo-intellectuals have taken it over and turned in into something else.)
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I do find it rather odd that a Conservative Prime Minister is calling for higher wages to be paid to HGV drivers, while socialists seem to want to undercut them by importing foreign labour.
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@davidharris5736 Which were low. If it should happen that foreign drivers are again enabled to work freely in the UK the million or so UK drivers with unused HGV licences will not be enticed back behind the wheel with offers of higher wages, will they?
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@markargent4962 I refer my honourable friend to my previous answer.
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@davidpryle3935 The ones I know rather welcome the idea of earning £70,000 a year.
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@markargent4962 That's the number of letters the government is sending out to persuade LGV licence holders to get back behind the wheel. And blaming Brexit for the shortage is pretty silly. The problem has been going on for years with tens of thousands of licence holders quitting every year.
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@markargent4962 The departure of the European drivers has certainly tipped the balance - because they quit all at once. But this could turn out to be a good thing for drivers as a whole in this country since employers (and agency sharks) will be forced to vastly increase wages and improve conditions in order to attract former drivers and encourage new ones to train.
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@markargent4962 Stop paying them badly. Which was my original point. Workers are now in the position of being able to insist on higher wages because cheap labour from the continent has been removed. If businesses can prove they can't afford to pay such wages then the government will simply have to subsidise them to do so. Prices and taxes will increase of course, but as long as the labour market is active wages will have to increase to keep pace. Immigration from poor countries is simply a way of keeping wages low in richer ones.
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@teddyboysdontknit810 Surely it is you who is being xenophobic by suggesting that British people are inherently unwilling to do certain jobs? You are also incorrect. Many of the jobs you mention are efficiently carried out by British Asians, and if they were not here native white British would certainly do them, as they have done in the past. HGV drivers are another case. It is a highly responsible, highly skilled occupation with several social disadvantages. Long before Brexit drivers were leaving in droves due to over-regulation and poor wages. Cheap labour from Europe has enabled the situation to continue. Wages will now have to find their right level and a figure of around £70,000 a year should be attractive enough and eminently justifiable. I do not see any reason why in a free market there should be less choice in the shops or even price hikes in real terms. The cost of higher wages will be passed on of course, but a lessening of regulations will compensate to some degree. You speak of history. Do you realise how much your arguments resemble those of 19th century industrialists who objected to education reforms and reductions in working hours because it meant their wages bills would be higher - and, shaking their heads, warned this would mean inflation, higher prices and reductions in output?
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@markargent4962 I didn't actually vote for Brexit as it happens, but now it is here we should do our best to take advantage of it where we can.
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@markargent4962 My view is that there will be short term economic difficulties and problems, such as the present one; but they will inevitably be overcome. Describing Brexit as the "worst economic disaster in history" just goes to show the absurdity of an extreme view. In the long run the EU is doomed to fail because it seeks to create a political unity in Europe which can never be viable. Europe is not a place. It does not exist. Only the countries within it do. Sensible trading relationships between these countries is one thing; attempting to forge them into some kind of federal nation is a process which is neither practical nor desirable. The EU will have to collapse at some point and at least if Britain is out first it gives us the chance to recreate our place in the world.
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@markargent4962 It's not that I couldn't be bothered, it's just that I was undecided on whether the immediate and inevitable short-term difficulties would be compensated for by the fact of our escape.
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@markargent4962 Tories care about having a peaceful and prosperous nation. Unfortunately some of them don't care quite enough about how this achieved. Which is where you lot come in!
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