SUPERMARKETS - BREXIT SCOTLAND'S CANARIES IN THE COAL MINE

 

Once upon a time things happened and the news reported them happening. It's a straight forward sort of concept.

And now? Now such a sequence of events seems like the so called 'Old Normal'.

Now we see stuff happening and it seems to take forever for any kind of explanation to arrive via the mainstream media.

In 1948 George Orwell promised this new world would arrive in 1984. His vision was right enough, he was just thirty years premature. Not bad, all things considered.

As the world around us changes, I tend to look to the supermarkets for clues.

They are the new canaries in the coal mine in Brexit/Pandemic Scotland.

Their very shelves became newsworthy in the early weeks of lockdown when the Dunkirk spirit morphed into a stampede to bulk buy toilet rolls.

The slow thinning out of the shelves in the wake of Johnson's woeful Brexit deal has taken longer to reach the pages of the press.

The mean reason of course is the dogged determination of the majority of our newspapers to maintain the Brexit fantasy Island story they peddled in 2016. And the BBC is a cowering dog trying to protect itself from the Tories yanking away its licence fee.

But they can only hide something for so long.

If you take 60,000 EU truck drivers out of the road haulage equation, well it's going to get a whole lot harder to deliver all the stuff you want to deliver. It ain't exactly rocket science.

Of course our gallant leaders in Westminster will spout all kinds of guff about training up an army of great British drivers, but I doubt any of them has ever had anything to do with a 38 tonne truck in their lives. To produce a new Class One HGV driver requires many things. A clean driver's licence, at least 4 years old. A few thousand quid. No problematic medications. And even when you've passed the test, there will be relatively few hauliers willing to put you in sole charge of sixty grand's worth of kit.

I was delivering to the people we work with in Kelloholm last week. Most of the food they distribute comes in through Fareshare. Every week they head up to Glasgow to fill up their long wheelbase van. Last week they drove home about 15% full.

Why? Did the supermarkets have no short date stuff for them to collect? No. Instead the supermarkets had no spare wagons to deliver the short date food to Fareshare. The only show in town was to fill up the skips round the back of the store.

Next up.

Supermarkets set great stall on what image they present to the customer. Which products are put at eye level on the shelves? What sits immediately outside the front door? What promotion is awarded the gold plated space at the beginning of the customer's journey through the store?

A couple of things hit me last week.

I expect Tesco are accustomed to doing deals to selling the first stop through the front door space for pretty big bucks. You wanna punt your new line of pot noodle? No problem. Cut us a nice fat cheque and the space is all yours for a week. Buy one get one free. Half price it. Whatever. Your call.

But not last week. Instead this most precious of retail space was given over to a large poster extolling the virtues of becoming a Tesco delivery driver.

As in no income whatsoever for Tesco.

A rather frantic job advert. Only a couple of years ago, one call to a local employment agency would have been more than enough to guarantee a queue at the door the next morning. Not any more it seems. Now they are having to use their best retail space in a frantic bid to attract staff.

How can this be? Unemployment is supposed to be rocketing? Why is there no queue at the Tesco door?

Once again, it is hardly rocket science. The British workforce is thirty million or so. The other thirty million of us are either too old, too young or too sick to deliver for Tesco.

The last eighteen months has seen the thirty million figure shrink by two million – all those EU Nationals who have departed these fair shores and don't seem overly keen to come back.

7.5%

One in fifteen.

Who are these people? Basically they are young, well trained, hard working and not sick.

As in not easy to replace. This kind of exodus would normally attract all kinds of news stories. We need a solution and we need it now! Let's get these people back!

Ahhh. Are the vote Leave Team about to throw the doors open to well trained and motivated young Europeans to come across the Channel to get us out of jail?

Hardly.

Instead the immigration goons are throwing Italian teenagers into Yarlswood and deporting them. It seems the Tories think this is what the good folk of Hartlepool demand. Maybe they do. Who needs fresh fruit and veg anyway?

Our press seems reluctant to report this kind of stuff. The press over in Europe have no such reservations. European papers are filled with all kinds of horror stories about how their young people are being treated at the UK border. They wonder if Britain is becoming the next Hungary?Maybe we are. It is hardly the best way to behave if we want the two million missing workers come back to fill in all the holes.

But what the hell. We have our treasured sovereignty, right? Who needs fresh fruit and veg?

Flags next. All of a sudden flags are everywhere. A few weeks ago Johnson said he wouldn't take the knee as he abhors such blatant gesture politics. Of course he does. Then England bury a few demons and beat Germany 2 – 0 and all of a sudden he is posing for the cameras standing on a Cross of St George flag, tailor made to fill Downing Street from gutter to gutter.

What a twat.

However, I best not be too hypocritical here. When the 'Yes' Campaign does it's stuff and fills whole cities with a sea of Saltires, I'm all in.

Flags are becoming an increasingly big deal in Supermarkets as they try to pander to their customers.

Morrisons put their true Yorkshire leanings on show for all to see. They use the area outside the front door to sell plants and every pot is wrapped in the Union Jack. No doubt this plays well in the retail parks of Dewsbury. Up here in Scotland? Maybe not so much.

Tesco are more pragmatic and they are canny enough to offer up a blend of Saltires and Union Flags. It is a rather fine demonstration of a corporation trying to keep the balls in the air and attempting to keep Scottish customers and the Tory Government happy at the same time.

Best of luck with that one guys.

Probably Aldi and Lidl are the most interesting on this front. These are stores where the decisions about flags are all made in Germany and they don't appear to be remotely conflicted.

They are wall to wall Saltires.

These are retailers who have been correctly guessing which way the wind is blowing for years. Right now, their car parks are always full whilst the car parks of the old giants empty out with every passing day. By choosing the Saltire over the Union Flag, it seems like they have taken a read on Scotland's future and made up their minds.

Let's hope they are as right about this as they have been right about everything else.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and it is probably fair to say most of the shows I listen to don't tend to spend much time on extolling the virtues of the Clown King in Number 10. But they have adverts which sometimes play a rather different tune.

Right now there is a Sainsburys ad which is popping up all the time. It's all about how they are the 'go to' place for Brits planning an all singing, all dancing barbecue. Fair enough.

Here's their catch phrase.

'Level up your barbecue with Sainsbuys!'

Seriously! Their focus groups must have promised them massive sausage sales as a result of piggy backing onto this particular piece of Johnsonian drivel.

Time for a few conclusions. A few bullet points.

Our supermarkets don't have enough people to drive the trucks to fill up their shelves.

They don't have enough people to drive the trucks to get rid of their waste food to Fareshare.

They are struggling to employ people to drive the vans to deliver their stuff.

Their food is 20% dearer and rising.

And their brains are well and truly fried when it comes to what flag they should fly in their Scottish stores.

And every day their vast car parks are home to fewer and fewer cars.

With the exception of the two German supermarkets.

Their car parks are full.

Their prices have stayed low.

And they are all Saltires.