Babak Belurs

Sabtu, 02 Oktober 2021

'A really big problem': Petrol retailers chief warns fuel crisis getting worse in some parts of UK - as army to be deployed - Sky News

Fuel shortages are getting worse in some parts of the UK, the Petrol Retailers Association has warned - as the army prepares to step in to ease the crisis.

Health secretary Sajid Javid said the situation was "stabilising" in most parts of the country and that the military was only being deployed as a "precaution".

But Brian Madderson, chairman of the PRA, said a lack of fuel remained a "really big problem" in London and the south east.

"In London and the South East and possibly parts of eastern England, if anything it had got worse," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He said the deployment of the military to help would improve the situation but would not be "the major panacea".

Mr Javid looked to allay fears, however, telling Sky News: "I think it is right that as a precaution that the government has asked the military to help.

"I think that is the right measure to take to make sure that people have all the confidence that they need.

"I think that will further stabilise the situation and give more confidence."

Senior ministers have been alarmed at how slowly the fuel supply disruption is improving, Sky News understands. After a week of forecourt chaos, motorists are still being forced to queue for hours at petrol stations around the country.

Announcing the plan to bring in the army, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: "Across the weekend over 200 military personnel will have been mobilised as part of Operation Escalin.

"While the situation is stabilising, our armed forces are there to fill in any critical vacancies and help keep the country on the move by supporting the industry to deliver fuel to forecourts."

Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay - who is in charge of the government's response to the fuel crisis - appealed to motorists to stop panic buying at the pumps

"The government has taken decisive action to tackle the short-term disruption to our supply chains, and in particular the flow of fuel to forecourts," he said.

"We are now seeing the impact of these interventions with more fuel being delivered to forecourts than sold and, if people continue to revert to their normal buying patterns, we will see smaller queues and prevent petrol stations closing."

The government has also announced a temporary visa scheme for nearly 5,000 foreign food and haulage drivers that was due to expire on 24 December will now be extended to the end of February following criticism of the scheme.

Sir Keir Starmer said the temporary visa scheme would not be up and running "for weeks", and that the Prime Minister should recall Parliament if necessary to rush through legislation to ensure shop shelves remain stocked in the run up to Christmas.

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The decision to send in the army came as Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, warned shortages of goods could last until Christmas, with "real disruption in supply chains" not just in the UK but around the world.

One petrol forecourt owner, Mike Stayte told Sky News that deliveries were still unreliable, adding: "It's peaks and troughs - one day you're flat out or you'll be taking three times as much as you normally do.

"The next day you run out of fuel and you're sat there looking silly at each other, and things like sandwiches and food don't get sold because people don't come in."

Mr Stayte, who owns John Stayte Services in Gloucestershire, said the chances of him receiving deliveries were "50/50".

Applegates Coaches in Gloucestershire stores a week's worth of fuel, but the rising cost from suppliers has left them out of pocket.

Owner Ceri Taylor said: "We quoted for work 12, six months ago, even a week ago at a fuel rate we thought we were going to get - and it has gone up by about 20, 25% so we're running at a loss really."

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2021-10-02 09:22:06Z
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Tory party conference: PM will try to turn a troublesome backdrop to his advantage - Sky News

The golden rule of Boris Johnson's Conservatives is that an otherwise disparate party is at its most happy when it's talking about Brexit and its consequences.

At times of stress, it's the trump card the PM routinely reaches for. Given the stage of the country, expect it to feature heavily during the party conference.

As the prime minister heads to Manchester in what would conventionally be an extraordinarily troublesome backdrop - fuel shortages, supply line disruption, containers mounting up at ports, food shortages for months, lack of medicines in pharmacies culling pigs where they live rather than in slaughter houses due to a lack of labour meaning they become pet food not pork - he will seek to turn this to his advantage.

Mr Johnson wants to boil this down into an argument over migration he believes he can win - the Tories will continue to control numbers coming in from overseas in the hope competition drives up wages, Labour would let in more workers from abroad to fill the vacancies, undercutting domestic workers.

It is a bold gambit, not without its risks. No matter the argument doesn't fix the problems at hand or fill empty shelves. No matter that his government has had to increase visa numbers and relax conditions to entice migrant labour twice in a fortnight. No matter that Labour is not actually proposing a return to free movement or unlimited migration, though he is helped by their line being inconsistent. No matter that some economists would argue constraining labour supply when inflation is rising could lead to a stagnant economy.

The argument over the involvement of Brexit will be nuanced, and he won't say the shortages are a consequence of it. Instead he will make clear Brexit allowed the ending of free movement which stops overseas low-wage migration being part of the solution under his government.

Mr Johnson believes he has found a politically-winning dividing line up to a 2023 or 2024 election, so expect to hear variations of it from the conference podium and fringe events through the week. If he can show by the time of the next election wages have risen, he believes voters will thank him.

The prime minister's business secretary gave a foretaste of the argument in a pre-conference interview with Conservative Home.

Kwasi Kwarteng put the supply line crisis, flashing amber and red in different sectors in the briefings for minister, down to a "transition" as the UK "rejects a low-wage high immigration economic model".

He goes on: "You're quite right to say people are resisting that, particularly employers that were benefiting from an influx of labour that could keep wages low," in remarks that will leave many industry associations reeling.

And what if the shortages cause disruption? "All you can do, other than take various emergency measures, is tough it out," said Mr Kwarteng.

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Faced with a crisis, this prime minister loves nothing more than to try and "tough it out", so expect little backing down at conference, but if Christmas retail is disrupted in the way some predict, it could still be a choppy autumn for the Conservatives. But first he wants to use the extraordinary platform which Manchester affords.

The prime minister is entering Tory conference in as strong a position as any Conservative leader since David Cameron in October 2015. The Conservatives are eight percentage points of Labour in YouGov's latest poll. The party enjoys huge leads in everyone over 50, with three times as many over-65s voting Tory as Labour. Almost nobody who voted Tory in 2019 says they will vote Labour now (at 2% this figure is within the margin of error of zero) with four times as many voters deserting to Richard Tice's right-wing Reform party.

That does not mean that Mr Johnson is in an unassailable position. Slowly Sir Keir's ratings have been catching up with Mr Johnson's in the YouGov tracker. Some 52% said they disapprove of the government compared to 26% approving. It would not take much volatility for 'red wall' MPs, elected because Labour got the worst defeat since 1935 in the 2019 general election, to start to wobble. Politics can spiral.

This is not happening yet, and almost certainly will not happen in the confines of the Manchester Conference Centre. Tory MPs I've spoken are asking little more than that the prime minister empathises with cost of living pressures in his speech. Mr Johnson's reshuffle confirmed he rules his party now, beholden to no one, hearing little meaningful dissent and happy to promote potential future rivals who can all compete to succeed.

So expect Manchester to be an Instagram beauty pageant, of Rishi Sunak's diffident one-liners pitted against Liz Truss intoning to the ideologically faithful, all beautifully presented in picture form. Try and spot the work being put into the brands of people who consider themselves contenders to the Johnson throne while also waiting for Michael Gove to hit the dancefloor again.

With the lobbyists cooing complements and the faithful cheering, the Tory party conference is a long way from the real world. Mr Johnson will want to enjoy it.

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2021-10-02 02:23:44Z
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Jumat, 01 Oktober 2021

Sarah Everard murder: Boris Johnson says 'infuriating' police aren't taking violence against women seriously enough - Sky News

Boris Johnson says "infuriating" police forces don't take violence against women seriously enough and are "not doing enough help victims".

In the aftermath of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by former Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, the prime minister blamed the failure on the slow progress of those types of cases in the criminal justice system - adding "we need to fix that".

In an interview with the Times about Ms Everard's case, Mr Johnson said the problem "is partly caused by the failure of the criminal justice system to dispose of these (cases)".

"Are the police taking this issue seriously enough? It's infuriating. I think the public feel that they aren't and they're not wrong," he added.

Mr Johnson said that officers seem to be losing hope in the justice system, saying: "The police are realising when they arrest someone they're not getting through the system fast enough.

"Very sadly that may well be one of the reasons why they're not doing enough to help the victims that report and we need to fix that."

But he defended the police as trustworthy. "Do I fundamentally believe the police are on our side? Yes absolutely they are.

"Can you trust the police? Yes, you can. But there is an issue about how we handle sexual violence, domestic violence, the sensitivity, the diligence, the time, the delay, the confusion about your mobile phone. That's the thing we need to fix."

His outspoken words come after broadcast interviews in which he backed Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, who has faced calls to resign.

A YouGov poll found 38% of adults in the UK think she should quit (27% said she should stay and 35% didn't know).

Asked if he has confidence in the Met Police given vetting failures over Couzens, Mr Johnson said: "Yes I do. And I think that needs to be looked into.

"And I think that (Home Secretary) Priti Patel is absolutely right, we've got to get to the bottom of what on earth happened with Wayne Couzens, we need to make sure that nothing like that happens again.

"But what we're doing is now not just putting more, a lot more money into safer streets, into CCTV... but recruiting more female police officers. And I think that can make the most fundamental change of all."

Mr Johnson said hundreds of thousands of officers will be "heartsick" by the "appalling murder of Ms Everard".

"I think there will be hundreds of thousands of police officers, let alone myself, up and down the country who will be absolutely heartsick by what has happened, the appalling murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer," he said.

"And what I would really urge the public, I want to make it clear, I do believe in the police."

Are women safe on our streets?

The murder of Ms Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer has triggered an outpouring of concern over women's safety in the UK.

We want you to share your experiences, and your questions for our panel of experts. We'd also love to hear your solutions.

Email thegreatdebate@sky.uk to get involved.

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2021-10-01 22:29:45Z
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Sarah Everard: Does the police need institutional change? - BBC Newsnight - BBC News

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2021-10-01 22:36:29Z
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Sarah Everard murder: Boris Johnson says he backs Met commissioner Cressida Dick and urges public to 'trust the police' - Sky News

Boris Johnson has said he backs Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, who has faced calls to resign for her handling of the Sarah Everard case, and urged the public to "trust the police".

But the prime minister acknowledged "there is a problem" with how cases of rape and violence against women are handled.

"I do believe in the police. I do think that we can trust the police. And I think the police do a wonderful, wonderful job," he said.

"But there is a problem. And there is a problem in the way we handle rape, domestic violence, sexual violence and the way we handle the complaints of women and girls. And it's overwhelmingly women and girls.

"And, although the incidence of some of these serious crimes is not actually going up in the way that you might think - we are having success in getting many crime types down - the problem is we have too few prosecutions for rape and too few successful prosecutions, too few convictions."

It comes as a YouGov poll found 38% of adults in the UK think Dame Cressida should resign.

Of those, 44% of men surveyed thought she should resign compared to 32% of women.

Asked if he has confidence in the Metropolitan Police given the vetting failures, Mr Johnson said: "Yes I do. And I think that needs to be looked into.

Mr Johnson said hundreds of thousands of officers will be "heartsick" by the "appalling murder of Sarah Everard".

"And what I would really urge the public, I want to make it clear, I do believe in the police."

Are women safe on our streets?

The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer has triggered an outpouring of concern over women's safety in the UK.

We want you to share your experiences, and your questions for our panel of experts. We'd also love to hear your solutions.

Email thegreatdebate@sky.uk to get involved.

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2021-10-01 17:26:15Z
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Poland and France keep turkeys on Britain’s Christmas dinner menu - Financial Times

Millions of British Christmas dinners are to be saved by turkeys imported from Poland and France after UK farmers were forced to slash production because of fears of labour shortages.

UK supermarkets and restaurants will have to import hundreds of thousands of the birds from the EU for Christmas after British farmers reared at least 1m fewer birds, the poultry industry has warned.

Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, said big turkey producers belonging to the group had slashed production by about a fifth this year after Brexit cut off their supply of cheap labour. These producers normally rear about 5.5m of 8m to 9m turkeys consumed at Christmas annually, he said.

Imported turkeys would likely come from Poland and France, said Paul Kelly of the KellyBronze free range turkey farm in Essex. “The supermarkets have supported British turkey over the past 15 years and we have been able to supply 100 per cent [of the demand],” said Kelly. “Now we will be forced into buying turkeys from the EU.”

The warning came as the government reversed its policy of limiting 5,500 emergency work visas for the poultry industry to the turkey sector in an attempt to “save Christmas”. The visas, announced last weekend, would be available to any poultry workers, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Friday.

The visas were announced after poultry producers, which previously relied on labour from eastern Europe, warned of threats to Christmas and potential overcrowding on chicken farms because of a lack of workers.

A shortage of butchers has created a backlog of 120,000 pigs on farms, The pig industry said it was on the verge of an “acute welfare disaster” © Paul Faith/Bloomberg

The industry is pushing for ministers to fast-track issuing the visas, which will expire at the end of the year.

“We can’t start applying for the visas until mid-October and if it takes three to four weeks before they come through, it’s mid November at the earliest, and that’s too late,” said Griffiths. “That’s even if the labour is out there and waiting to come to the UK.”

George Eustice, environment secretary, said last week: “We have listened to concerns from the sector and we are acting to alleviate what is a very tight labour market.” But in a briefing to industry on Friday the government said it would not extend or repeat the scheme.

“These measures are specific, time-limited and one off. This scheme is not a medium or long-term solution for labour supply issues and they will not be replicated in future years,” Defra said in a presentation.

Recruiters had hoped to reassign workers already in the UK under the six-month seasonal workers’ pilot scheme aimed at fruit and vegetable pickers, but have been told this will not be allowed, Griffiths said.

Kelly said he had managed to recruit 62 of the 100 workers who normally pluck and process his farm’s 35,000 Christmas birds. As a smaller farmer, he worked to secure settled status for people who carried out seasonal work in previous years at KellyBronze. “For the wider industry, relying on agencies to fill the gaps, it is very tight,” he said.

A supermarket executive did not rule out importing birds but rejected “scaremongering” about overall supply levels, adding that frozen birds were likely to account for a larger proportion of sales this year.

Kelly said households were ordering turkeys months ahead of time. “Sales are 230 per cent up on last year, which was 150 per cent up on the year before. Everyone is ordering their turkey earlier,” he said.

The warning on turkeys came as the pig sector said it was on the verge of an “acute welfare disaster” caused by a shortage of butchers that has created a backlog of 120,000 pigs on farms.

Rob Mutimer, chair of the National Pig Association, said conditions had grown “considerably worse” in the past three weeks and that a mass cull of pigs, involving animals being shot and incinerated or rendered, could be needed within weeks.

“We are all pushing our ability to keep pigs to the absolute maximum. No one wants to see a cull. It was horrible during foot-and-mouth,” he said, referring to the disease outbreak in 2001.

The British Meat Processors Association said production of Christmas products such as “pigs in blankets” could be cut by one-third. The UK consumes 40m packets of the bacon-wrapped sausages every year.

“We should have started laying down pigs in blankets and netting gammons in July for party food for Christmas . . . we are just way behind,” said Nick Allen, BMPA chief executive.

The food and drink sector, which employs over 4m people from farm to fork, estimated last month that it now has over 500,000 vacancies, a situation exacerbated by Brexit and EU workers returning home in the pandemic. Food industry groups called for a one-year “Covid-19 recovery visa” to help.

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2021-10-01 17:35:02Z
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Petrol shortage: Army will begin delivering fuel to station forecourts from Saturday as crisis continues - iNews

Soldiers will start delivering fuel to petrol stations from Saturday as ministers seek to gain control over the ongoing fuel supply crisis, i can reveal.

Senior government sources confirmed that the Army will begin transporting fuel to station forecourts after it became clear that the situation was improving too slowly.

The decision comes after a week of major disruption that has seen motorists forced to queue for hours to fill up their vehicles.

Whitehall sources said troops have been training with haulage firms for the past few days, learning how to fill up tankers and petrol pumps.

Ministers have now decided to press ahead with plans to mobilise 150 military personnel who can drive fuel tankers to parts of the country that need it most.

A senior government source told i the Army vehicles would hit the road from Saturday.

The Government has attempted to play down the ongoing shortage in fuel supplies, repeatedly claiming that the situation was “stablising”.

But while the overall picture has improved significantly from last week, vast swathes of the country are still seeing acute shortages in petrol and diesel.

Earlier in the day, policing minister Kit Malthouse admitted the disruption being seen across the country could continue for “another week or so”.

It meant Downing St was given little choice but to give the order to mobilise troops.

The decision is still a major embarrassment for Boris Johnson, who was forced to give the order on deploying the Army on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference.

It also came after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on the Government to utilise the Army to help petrol station “in areas of the country most in need now”.

“The Prime Minister should be taking emergency action today but yet again he’s failed to grasp the seriousness of the crisis. If it needs legislation, then let’s recall Parliament to get these emergency measures through urgently,” Sir Keir said.

According to officials, London and the South East is seeing the most acute shortages, while vast swathes of the Midlands and the North West are also facing supply issues.

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2021-10-01 15:27:00Z
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Sabtu, 02 Oktober 2021

More on Boris Johnson

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Jumat, 01 Oktober 2021

More on Sarah Everard

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