Is it time for a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers?

Here’s a patriotic proposal: let’s form a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers, of which the Road Haulage Association reckons there’s currently a 100,000 shortage. Daily headlines tell us this is causing supply disruptions that have led to reduced factory output and half-empty supermarket shelves, slowing recovery and contributing to the blip in inflation.

We need Walmington-on-Sea’s trusty platoon at the wheel to compensate for the million-plus exodus of foreign-born workers that has afflicted the economy from hospitality (see this week’s last item) to fruit farms, slaughterhouses and construction sites — compounded in haulage by delays to thousands of HGV tests for new applicants last year. Right now, of course, all such problems are exacerbated by pingdemic chaos.

The only solution for fleet owners is to offer rising pay deals, to the extent that life in the cab with a Burger King meal and a copy of Top Gear magazine is beginning to look really quite attractive.