Ed: Please read this update from our sister publication West Country Bylines. The problem has not gone away.
As a vegetarian here is my take on the development that 100,000 pigs may have to be slaughtered due to a shortage of HGV drivers.
And my comments may surprise you!
Alpacas or cows?
It is an interesting world. The papers have been full of headlines about one alpaca being killed. This is sad for sure, but cows are killed all the time for tuberculosis (TB). They are also quite intelligent and a common food source but still they are rightly slaughtered if they have TB. It is a flawed argument that an alpaca should be reprieved but a cow not.
But what about the pigs?
However that’s not my main point. The massive news that 100,000 pigs could possibly be slaughtered due to a shortage of Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers, which in turn is due to Brexit mis-management by an incompetent government, hardly gets a look-in by comparison.
Pigs are highly intelligent, their cognitive powers being greater than those of dogs and, although they are way behind chimps and dolphins, they’re still right up there.
100,000 pigs can feed a lot of people, but you need butchers, abattoirs and vets to prepare them and, yes, HGV drivers to deliver the meat.
Can this Tory Government be trusted?
Apparently “all the jobs were stolen by Johnny Foreigner”. But, wait a minute, when they left there was actually nobody either available or willing to do the work. So this sort of suggests that was never true.
We find that the government classifies HGV drivers as “unskilled” and not important, yet ballerinas are really key to the future of the UK although they’re often rubbish at slaughtering animals or driving HGVs. This is a prime example of “gaslighting” as was highlighted in a recent West England Bylines article. Gaslighting is now the norm but people are starting to notice that maybe, just maybe, that “oven ready” deal was never there.
It is sad that an alpaca had to die, but it is much sadder that 100,000 pigs may be destroyed and not feed anyone.
This illustrates that the Tories should never ever be trusted again. They have successfully done what our enemies could never have dreamed of, decimating our fishing, farming and export businesses. And what do they offer in return? Just minor wins like importing lamb from New Zealand (our famers singing with joy) and 5p off a bottle of Australian wine which will be lost in the 10p rise to cover the increased cost of shipping.
Is it not the wellbeing of British people which is being “slaughtered” by a deceitful Tory government?
