Thursday update

A few lines before work:

Today, sis charter planes will bring 450 fruitpickers from Romania to help gather in the UK's fruit harvest.

At the point when there are 2 million unemployed in the UK, many more coming, it seems we still need migrant workers. Agencies got farms are screaming out for workers, lots of ads on Facebook. And yet.....

For those of you who have not picked fruit before, some varieties like raspberries are not too bad. These grow on canes up to five or six feet high and you don't have to bed. Picking strawberries in a field, however, is backbreaking work. Even as a kid picking strawberries so Nana could make jam, hurt like hell. Imagine doing that 12 hours a day seven days a week; that would smart.

Working outside in the spring sunshine sounds great, but it hard work and the doesn't always shine.

The lesson is that all workers are essential, even those on low-paid menial jobs driving trucks and stacking shelves or picking fruit. You don't need a college degree to do them, but they do require vocational skills, we should value them the same as degrees.

And yesterday, the UK Government announced, in the Spectator Magazine (!) that it would not seek an extension to the transition period of Brexit. Barnier and Frost met via video yesterday, and agreed three more meetings before the end of June. But, neither side will be ready.

Any hope that the COVID-19 had installed a sense of reality in Government have been dashed, as dogma trumps common sense and reality.

With there being little normal work going on, except in industries deemed to be essential, the chances of there being any real preparations for a hard or softer Brexit, and be ready by December 31st is nil.

The economic shock of Brexit on top of COVID-19 doesn't bear thinking about, and yet the Government are eager to inflict it on us.

Meanwhile, some of Europe is already leaving the harshest of restrictions. In Denmark, staff are being allowed, in limited numbers, back into offices and some schools opened yesterday too. Because they have been testing and are confident the measures taken have worked, and di them in a timely manner so to limit infections and deaths.

The UK, meanwhile, is still stumbling about in the dark, using figures several weeks old. The Government claim we are now at peak infections, but that is really a guess, as total umber of testing is still at only 400,000.