Brexiteers- your time to shine

Sorry being furloughed means I am legally unable to take a second job.

Which annoyingly will cost me potentially around £500 a month as while still ‘working’ I already lined up weekend evening work in a couple of supermarkets in town.

 

I'm not a NHS worker but I wouldn't want people clapping for me. As I see it it's patronising and is more for the benefit of the clapper than the NHS workers. It allows people to feel smug and post on Facebook as if they have contributed, rather than doing anything to actually help which might cost time or money.

And the only time I'd want Tory voters to clap for me would be if they shat in their hands first.

 

So you don’t think the benefit of a 7 year old child clapping because it’s the only thing they can do is worthwhile?

There is no need to be so bitter and twisted about it. If it uplifts the community too, then where is the harm? I look forward to hearing your heroic actions you have performed to help our NHS...

 

It's not heroic but I think it might be more useful than my applause...

 

I very much doubt my neighbour's who i saw clapping the other night are tory's, not thought for one minute that their applause was allied in any way to the tory party. My next door neighbour is a retired nurse and 3 houses down another one working: both were out. It's not my bag but it clearly appeals to them

 

I think one of the problems with fruit and veg picking is time and location. I read somewhere that spring moves north in the UK at about 1km an hour, so crops are ripening/maturing roughly, from South to North. So you need a workforce that can travel with the harvesting or is prepared to be brought in for just a brief period and then move on to something else. Like tatey picking holiday at school - was it Spring Bank? I can't remember. I read they had a calamity in Scotland when unseasonable good weather ripened the Raspberry crop too early and pickers were busy down South, so a lot of the crop was lost.

 

What do you want? Me to clap for you? I hope it made you feel good.. and hope you’re not bragging on social media.

Seriously though, we all are trying our best in these times. The clapping to some may appear ineffectual to you, but it is helping many. The old, the young, the infirm, the nurses and doctors who I know appreciate it, etc... so whilst some are intent on being miserable about it, maybe just accept it as some people’s only way of saying thank you... or interacting with other people, albeit for 5 minutes per week.

 

Clapping need not have a practical use. Football has no practical use.

I believe that clapping the NHS workers serves to bring the country together in a time of great trouble and anxiety. It has, down my street, brought people out who might not otherwise be seen, people who we might not have appreciated that we had something in common with. Showing a solidarity you wouldn't otherwise see behind your curtains.

The government did not come up with this gesture. It seems to have grown out of social media. The government have encouraged it - what were they supposed to do? Boris and the others couldn't just stay indoors and ignore it. It is not their "policy".

Anyway clapping the NHS and thus showing your appreciation seems to me to have nothing to do with who picks our crops. Or Brexit.

On a separate note, there's something (to me) a bit distasteful about perpetually having to import foreign workers from poorer countries to do a job that your average Brit wouldn't do himself because its too hard and grubby, too poorly paid and where you're often in substandard accommodation and a long way away from your family.

As for paying NHS workers more because there's a national emergency - do we pay soldiers more when there's a war on? Firefighters get more for the day or two they tackled the Grenfell fire? What about Tesco shop floor workers, breathing in lord-knows-what on a daily basis?

Surely the answer is to provide the greatest protection for these workers, and have a strategy that minimises holistically the effects of this horrible virus. That is obviously not happening sufficiently at present.

 

First time I've mentioned it to anyone anywhere, and only in response to a direct question.

I agree that the clapping can have some benefit, but most of that benefit is for the people clapping rather than NHS workers. I hope that clapping them for their efforts doesn't divert attention from questioning why they were in such a sh*t situation in the first place.

 

A war is usually good for a pay rise believe it or not! that horrible woman gave the forces a 12% rise after the Falklands, many in the forces, who are generally right wing anyway loved her for it and conveniently forgot the hardships endured beforehand.

 

That was tongue in cheek pal. I can understand you’re trying your best to help, as are many others. The time for chucking questions about “why” is later when we have got some light at the end of the tunnel. For now, we have to support each other and the NHS/key workers however we can.

 

Some good points made there. Someone put a post on here last week asking if you had 2 choices would you prefer nhs staff to get paid more or have more staffing. All those who responded who work in the nhs and those who asked their partners who do all stated 'more staffing'. More money never enters my head seriously but staffing issues, bain of my life!

 

This in spades.

 

You did ask what they'd done other than clap and that was the answer.

 

When coming to power one of the first things she did was give a pay rise to the police and the forces, the ones she would be calling on to tackle the enemy within.

 

Sorry did you not read the post... it was tongue in cheek and pointing out the irony... the 2nd part was more to the point.

But thanks for pointing out the obvious.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...o-rot-as-farms-struggle-to-recruit-eu-workers

The above article isn't anything to do with Covid-19, it's from October last year.

While you could argue that we have the numbers in the UK to fill those positions, the reality is it's not happening. Crops that were once picked no longer are and Brexit has had a very real impact on that.

 

Thanks but you don't really need to explain it the OP's thought process.

 

Tongue in cheek is always a bit hard to read on here!

 

It’s not happening.... maybe because something else is on peoples mind at present. Please enlighten me on current restrictions of people travelling to work, and why they are in place.