First it was warnings of a shortage of potatoes. Now it’s chicken that’s in short supply. It must be bad when Nando’s and KFC have had to cancel some of their menu. What I want to know is whether I will be able to buy a chicken to roast for a family meal this weekend! There has been some talk of this problem being Covid and pingdemic related but finally someone of the radio news said it was a Brexit problem.
And now there are calls for fast-tracking visas for workers from outside the UK to come and drive lorries so deliveries can take place. This must be what was meant by taking back control!
You would think that before cutting ourselves off from Europe we would have made sure we could feed ourselves. I’m not talking about exotic products but basic staples like chicken and potatoes.
Maybe it’s a not very subtle way of attacking the obesity crisis by just making less food available. It seemed to work with rationing!
And we are the lucky ones in terms of what is going on in the wider world!
I was thinking about food supplies as I listened to reports of the chaotic situation in Afghanistan. It’s quite likely that people living in rural districts will carry on as they ever did, but what happens now to the infrastructure for supplying shops in the cities? Everything I read and hear suggests that the Taliban don’t have experience of running that kind of thing; they are a military organisation.
And as discussion goes about which people in Kabul qualify to seek refuge in the UK an announcement comes out that some of the security staff working for British embassy don’t qualify after all. They worked for the embassy but were not employed directly by the embassy so they are somebody else’s problem. It begins to sound like semantics - what actually constitutes working for a foreign power? A desperate young man was interviewed on Newsnight last night. He’s all packed up but nobody is assuring him a chance to get out of the country. He’s afraid he will be killed. And it has me wondering, even if the Taliban decide not to punish him, he has no job, therefore no income, and so how does he live in the city of Kabul?
Even sport is affected, especially women’s sport:
“High-profile sportswomen in Afghanistan have been urged to wipe their social media presence and in some cases burn their kit as supporters scramble to protect them from the Taliban.
Speaking from Copenhagen, Khalida Popal, the former captain of the Afghanistan women’s football team, said female players should take urgent steps to remove all trace of their sporting history.
“Today I’m calling them and telling them, take down their names, remove their identities, take down their photos for their safety. Even I’m telling them to burn down or get rid of your national team uniform,” she told Reuters.
“And that is painful for me, for someone as an activist who stood up and did everything possible to achieve and earn that identity as a women’s national team player. To earn that badge on the chest, to have the right to play and represent our country, how much we were proud.”
A source close to the country’s cycling federation echoed the advice, saying female members had been told to stay at home and avoid posting on social media at all cost.”
Here’s a report of some more desperate people, this time trying to reach the Canary Islands in a small dinghy sailing from Africa and inevitably capsizing. One woman was rescued, 40 other people almost certainly drowned. There is something seriously wrong when people set off on such a journey in such an inadequate boat. It goes on and one. We have messed up the world and need to work together to put it right, if we can!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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