Thread by @pmdfoster

“I don’t think there will be much risk at Christmas time,” member of @BorisJohnson administration tells @ft…but that’s the kind of complacency that has industry wondering if govt really gets how tangled up things are - globally and domestically. So… /1

on.ft.com/3zZ0ony

So as Alan Williams of @daviesturner freight forwarders explains, #COVID19 totally scrambled the world supply chains by shutting down bits of the economy in different orders. The result is a nightmare of rising costs and congestion. /2

Look 👀 at those shipping rates… 14 times pre pandemic levels. And shipping times doubled. So big chance Christmas lights start arriving in January …lots of summer stock landed late. /3

So then you get the domestic #COVID19 and #brexit situation playing in and exacerbating long standing driver shortages so that U.K. warehouses and distro hubs are all close to full. /4

That creates huge strain on U.K. ports already struggling to deal with new mega ships that create huge bulges in arriving container numbers that stress system. /5

I was told this week that U.K. big container ports was at 78pc capacity…85 per cent is standstill. Just nowhere to move containers around…it’s taking 3 weeks ex customs to get a box off the docks/6

All of this is crunching supply line — and yes #brexit is making a difference become U.K. no longer has flex of EU single market in terms of Labour or haulage capacity — hence no queues in France etc /7

The lack of EU drivers doing backloads and cabotage (and drop-off in Irish Land Bridge use) also incrementally reduce capacity in system.

And this before U.K. introduces checks in Jan/July on EU imports /8

This all results in real uncertainly for business investment.

Can I reliably get inputs?

Can I reliably get Labour to process them?

Are both affordable?

Talking to @britishchambers @Suren_Thiru there are real concerns/9

And strains are everywhere. It’s “last mile” failures that make headlines, but next time you’re in supermarket look closely at the shelves. You see excessive displays of single products - oversize display of rocket or ham or Diet Coke. They’re covering cracks. /10

Was told this week that one big supermarket ordinarily expected 99.7% of lines to be available. Now it’s mid 70s%. And when it tips over edge, as Tesco warned, you get panic buying that shatters an already brittle-boned system /11

Part of government “complacency” is actually avoiding that panic. So @KwasiKwarteng says the “lights won’t go our” but gas analysts like @JHuckstepp @PlattsGas are really not sanguine. /12

None of this is good advert for “Global Britain” which — whether #brexiters like it or not — must exist and compete in its neighbourhood…in investment will flow to places that work and have more flexibility /13

And of course the government could have jumped on all this much earlier. They were warned. And specifically on June 16 as @LynsCambridge scoop attested. But didn’t want to be seen to be breaking the #brexit faith /14

thegrocer.co.uk/supermarkets/m…

As @jamesbielby @FWDwholesale observed the govt could have taken a bunch measures early that most people would never have noticed. And saved their blushes /15

Because in time these kinks will get ironed out. Containers and global supply chains will resynchronise; the market and U.K. drivers should ease haulage crunch. But the road didn’t have to be this bumpy.

All in all, an odd way to sell this brave new #brexit world. ENDS