The thing is that I’ve published a piece in one of the Polish papers and a friend told me I should translate it and post it here so people can know how it really looked from the inside, so I came to check if my old login still works, and it seems it does.
I spoke with several Polish truckers, a couple of speditors and a company owners, as well as with some people (English and Polish) who were providing help to stranded drivers. Alas, I had to fit it into 8000 signs, so the article is short, but I tried to give a balanced view.
I enjoyed reading your article. That was impressive. You would make a good journalist. I was particularly troubled by a rumour someone had committed suicide. That makes me angry at the UK government for their callous and useless bureaucrats.
As you know, the UK is big on PC, with their BBC garbage, but in reality the UK doesn’t give a fig about human rights (i.e Julian Assange) or see a crisis and sit on their hands, and let human beings suffer for days, it’s a disgrace.
Yes, it will take a long time before the UK catches up with the Low standards of human rights in France (with deep state macron) but this illustrates the bare face of the UK’s attitude to people’s lives. thousands of people stranded for days, is disgusting.
If it was more PC, say it was 1000’s of women stranded, then the UK would have acted immediately, but as most of us are men in this industry, I’m afraid (as you can see) the UK treats men like nobodies.
pierrot 14:
Maybe Panorama should get a copy and do a full feature on what happened
Oh no, that’s the BBC so no chance of that happening
Dream on! We’re the spawn of Satan in the woke paradise of the BBC!
But on another note, I’ve not seen a single account, positive or negative, of drivers stuck in France during the same time. Anyone have any knowledge for comparison?
WhiteTruckMan:
Dream on! We’re the spawn of Satan in the woke paradise of the BBC!
There was that BBC Radio 4 jounralist who went to Dover and gave pretty decent report on Twitter, I don’t know how much of that went to the BBC itself
But on another note, I’ve not seen a single account, positive or negative, of drivers stuck in France during the same time. Anyone have any knowledge for comparison?
From what I know traffic in other direction was allowed to enter. Also, there was not nearly enough that much of trucks - all those truckers were heading back home for Christmas, the new runs were not supposed to start before after that.
If you look for the comparision, then in March Poland has closed its borders due to coronavirus. My acting mother-in-law got stuck there in a coach, on the German side. She said that Germans dropped plenty of portable toilets in hours and provided drinking water by simply placing pallets of bottles on the roadside. Some vans were driving around, distributing sandwiches and stuff. A friend of mine drove that motorway a couple of days later and he said that there were still six-packs of unopened water lying on the roadside, so apparently Germans provided more than people were able to use.
Meanwhile, on the Polish side, they dispatched the army and began processing the incoming people. There were no tests back then, so they were writing down everyone’s data, the country they are coming from, checking if they have place to self-isolate, if not, they were directed to hotels and other similar places. Those, who self-isolated at home were then visited daily by the police, municipal police or the military police - not only to check if they are quarantining themselves but also to provide them with help and groceries if needed (although they would have to pay for their shopping themselves). The drivers who were just transiting were kept under control as well. The problems at the border lasted 24 hours or so.
A good read albeit troubling. Governments both side of the channel have a lot to answer for. I have great admiration to all the charities and private individules that came to the rescue with food parcels.
BTW I rabbit holed onto your website and enjoyed reading your articles regarding the Scottish isles.
orys:
Is carryfast still ranting about Eastern Europe every chance he got, bringing the topic of the war up whenever it is relevant or not?
He certainly has been, he has taken cover recently after being severely wounded in the battle regarding his & only his perfect engine, but I am sure he will hopefully return with no doubt an extra layer of skin.
orys:
If you look for the comparision, then in March Poland has closed its borders due to coronavirus. My acting mother-in-law got stuck there in a coach, on the German side. She said that Germans dropped plenty of portable toilets in hours and provided drinking water by simply placing pallets of bottles on the roadside. Some vans were driving around, distributing sandwiches and stuff. A friend of mine drove that motorway a couple of days later and he said that there were still six-packs of unopened water lying on the roadside, so apparently Germans provided more than people were able to use.
Meanwhile, on the Polish side, they dispatched the army and began processing the incoming people. There were no tests back then, so they were writing down everyone’s data, the country they are coming from, checking if they have place to self-isolate, if not, they were directed to hotels and other similar places. Those, who self-isolated at home were then visited daily by the police, municipal police or the military police - not only to check if they are quarantining themselves but also to provide them with help and groceries if needed (although they would have to pay for their shopping themselves). The drivers who were just transiting were kept under control as well. The problems at the border lasted 24 hours or so.
The problems at the border lasted for days, families with toddlers were neither let through to transit home and it was near impossible to turn around to find another way home. A former coworker had to dismantle the crash barrier with the tools he had in the trunk, so he could turn around on the motorway and head for Rostock.
When the Polish Foreign Ministry went back on their promise to grant free passage to people heading home in the Baltics, the Estonian government sent a passenger ferry to pick up the stranded citizens from Sassnitz. It was a cluster[zb].
I agree that more should have been done on our side of the Channel. Possibly the fact that there are not already facilities in place at Manston two days before we leave the eu is a reflection of their view that there will not be huge delays in short sea crossings in 2021.
It is a disgusting way to treat drivers who are simply going about their jobs but at the end of the day it was their fellow eu traveller Macron who caused it. With 66 positive tests out of 21,000 taken you might have thought he would have issued some type of apology by now.
Unfortunately it is just more fall-out from the Great Coronavirus Hoax of 2020, a ploy cynically used by a corrupt French politician to try to score a political point about Brexit.
Oh, I see Milodon and Harry Monk are good old themselves
The former will pop up in every thread where somewhere bad can be said about Poland (true or not, does not matter, for him is always the truth, because he knows best), the latter is still about some conspiracy theories and about how bad the EU is
You had the chance of not making this thread about how great Poland is and I wouldn’t have said a word about how this circus in Kent wasn’t half as bad as when Poland decided to shut it’s borders in March.
But you just had to ride that horse into battle didn’t you
orys:
the latter is still about some conspiracy theories and about how bad the EU is
Hello guys, nice to see you again
Yes, good to see you again Orys, but perhaps it is you who subscribes to some conspiracy theory about how good the eu is?
It’s the French who did this to you. You know, France, your fellow eu member. Why do you think they kept you all away from your families at Christmas? Why do you think they did this to you?
If an arsonist sets fire to a building, the fire brigade are delayed getting there and a hundred people die in a mighty conflagration, then whose fault are these deaths? The fire brigade or the arsonist?
Well there you go. The UK authorities are the fire brigade, Macron is the arsonist.
milodon:
You had the chance of not making this thread about how great Poland is and I wouldn’t have said a word about how this circus in Kent wasn’t half as bad as when Poland decided to shut it’s borders in March.
Actually, I have mostly praised Germans, because this is where the people were stranded for UP TO 19 HOURS (yes, I checked that after your post). They were stranded in Germany at no fault of the Germans side, just as truckers were stranded in Kent recently at no fault of the English. The difference is, that Germans reacted within hours, providing an adequate amount of water and toilets and other help as required.
Yes, the situation at the border took days, not 24 hours as I said, because I mixed the two things up. The situation lasted for days, but nobody had to wait more than 24 hours (the highest number I found by quickly googling all articles about it was 19 hours.)
Your country sent a ferry for your people, so they don’t have to wait, which was also a great reaction to the situation.
But you just had to ride that horse into battle didn’t you
After all those years I still don’t really know why any mention of Poland other than “Poland is ■■■■” is a call for a battle for you. You definitely have some issues. But don’t worry, I don’t care anymore.
The reaction of Poland to this first wave of COVID was not “great” as you try to put in my mouth. It was adequate if was something you would expect from a decent country to do. Since there, the government strategy has become completely chaotic, illogical, and plagued with cronyism and fraud. There, I said something bad about Poland now, because, unlike you, I stick to facts. Happy?
Harry Monk:
Well there you go. The UK authorities are the fire brigade, Macron is the arsonist.
If you look at the last paragraph of my piece, you’ll see that I never denied that it’s the France who is to blame. But this piece is not about how bad arsonist Macron is. This piece is about how ■■■■■■ Fire Brigade Britain was.
