Yes, but there is something particular ironic about someone who was quite so gung ho on Brexit moaning about the dearth of Strawberry Pickers, and then blaming the British working class for not leaping at the opportunity to do 12 hour days of back breaking labour for not very much money that they don’t particularly need to do.
I mean, what the fuck? Don’t these lazy bastards know that Brexiteers have an argument to win here?
British working class don’t live in fields, just a thought, there is a reason travellers do these jobs. If you stop the travellers what can you expect?
It’s fucking difficult to rent out your studio flat in a shit hole whilst you go off picking fucking strawberries!
In Brexit land it’s called an opportunity.
This rather assumes that any increase in price is passed on to the farmers, and they in turn pass it on to their pickers.
And poor pay, and dire working conditions are not the only negative factors. The work is highly seasonal i.e. summer / autumn, with barely two or three weeks work in any one location.
No job security, no transferable skills, no fixed abode.
Any wonder why becoming an itinerant, casual farm labourer isn’t high on most peoples list of desirable jobs.
There is another side to consider in this.
The supermarkets do not trade fairly with the producers - ever.
When you see for instance " Strawberries half price 1.99" that does not mean that the supermarket has reduced their margin as a gesture to the public. It means that they have shafted the producer on the wholesale price whilst maintaining their own margin. Profit from the back end as well as the consumer end. All the time charging the producer for shelf space in their store. Some supermarket contracts stipulate that producers of goods must reduce their prices every six weeks so that it can be listed as a “sale” item.
Here is another example of a common supermarket slight of hand - still “every little helps”.
Bang on. Milk is another example of this practice.
Do people think that the large supermarkets are real problem? They’ve completely wiped the high street of many small grocers, butchers, bakers etc.
You cant blame people going there. Everything in one place, there’s parking and the cost of a shop is often law is pretty much always lower.
Not as stupid as Final Salary Pensions.
I have basic UK pension but the people I know with FSP are absolutely coining it in .
Milk is a good example where there has been tentatives of price setting. The farmers don’t see any of the increase as the distributors and others mop it up.
Of course this is due to over production however I feel countries do need to protect their production of such a basic product, just think of the problems that could arise if 90% of milk was imported.
Strawberries traditionally are very different as they were seasonal and those that hit the market early commanded the highest prices. They are also weather dependant which really complicates the market.
Anyway with any harvest crop if you block travellers coming to work your asking for trouble. So all I can say to UK farmers is produce something, like milk, that requires a steady labour force (ok milk prices will plummet again but you could supply 1/2 the world). 
True. And what happens when two unmanned guided trucks travelling in opposite directions meet on one of your lovely long, winding, and very narrow lanes in the back of beyond?
Imagine those same guided trucks on a devonshire lane on a 12% slope splattered with soaking wet cow shit. 
As you say, there are many safety issues, not least what happens when the guidance system fails?
No change to the current status quo I guess.
2 minute stare off, a gormless look by one machine or both, followed by lots of mechanised arm waving, muttering under their mechanised breath hoping to disguise the fact that they are calling the other machine a c***. Angry reversing. Yet more mutterings as one car gets forced into a ditch. Fake thank you wave. Continue rant for a further 5 minutes afterwards.
Decided to stick this here but equally valid in the Climate thread as one of the prime reasons behind this is privatisation as well as Brexit difficulties.
I’m going to veer well off course from the topic and additionally there’s every possibility that I will not be able to make the point I intend to.
12-15 years ago a big/huge US trade union conducted a fact-finding mission on the RMG sector in Bangladesh and threatened to lobby for sanctions on our exports if wages, working conditions, etc. doesn’t improve drastically. Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of RMG.
After that the employers and the government proposed a price rise of 15-50 cents/units based on the category of the products. What happened next is unclear or been deliberately kept under wraps. The whispers say the consumers aren’t ready to pay that increased price and the trade union promptly backed off.
If the price of any commodity is unnaturally cheap, it’s because there’s some serious distortion somewhere along the supply-chain. You have to address that particular point of supply-chain and accept the cost up till the end-user level.
The global economy is slash & burn. Rather than addressing any distortion the employers will just move on to an untapped pasture and the consumers will be happy with the cheap prices.
FIFY!
In the end, I think people are just afraid of change more than anything else. One could make quite a strong argument for driverless cars right now if one wanted to but we won’t - more out of the potential problems it might cause rather than those it may solve.
Similarly, I wonder if we will ever switch to the metric system or drive on the other side of the road or push to all electric cars sooner - probably not.
Another Williamson bombshell
A quote from an article in the Evening Standard
“Many of his critics have been high profile, including Marcus Rashford who called for an urgent review of free school meals. Has he met the footballer? “We met over Zoom and he seemed incredibly engaged, compassionate and charming but then he had to shoot off. I didn’t want to be the one that was holding him back from his training.” Williamson goes on to talk about how at one stage during the pandemic he was scouring the globe for laptops to give to children who were falling behind. Later Williamson’s team tell me he actually met the rugby player Maro Itoje, who campaigned to bridge the digital divide, not Rashford. Rashford’s spokesperson confirms that he has never had any direct communication with Williamson, although the minister did have a call with Itjoe about equal access to education during the pandemic.”
At this point, this is at worst a minor indiscretion from this government…
I’m still waiting to hear why the billions of pounds wasted during the pandemic couldn’t have gone to fund health and social care instead…
Sure but this is the Secretary of State for Education, the guy that was responsible for the policy decisions on school meals.
That is exactly my point. Considering how major a problem this would have been in the past, the fact that this is a relatively minor indiscretion by this government tells you everything you need to know about them.