The airwaves are alight with the demands of anti Brexit MPs and commentators to let more economic migrants into the UK to take low paid jobs in hospitality, care, agriculture and other sectors that got used to a steady stream of eastern European migrants to carry out the less skilled work. We are told of shortages of people to pick crops, serve in cafes and clean care homes. At least it provides a welcome refutation of all those anti Brexit forecasts of mass unemployment we used to get.
One of my main motivations coming into politics was to promote prosperity and wider ownership for the many. I have always sought to propose and support policies which would help more people find better paid work and to acquire a home and savings of their own. I do not like the cheap labour model. I have also recognised that we cannot simply legislate for everyone to be better paid. Each person who wants higher pay has to go on a personal journey, acquiring skills, experience, qualifications that justify the higher income. Every company and government department has to go on a journey to help promote higher productivity to provide the higher pay people rightly aspire to. One of the crucial debates in the referendum was the debate about free movement and low pay, with Brexiteers saying they wished to cut the flow of people accepting low pay from abroad, to help raise pay here at home and promote more people already legally here into better paid jobs.
Just inviting in hundreds of thousands of people from lower income countries in the EU is not a good model for them or us. Many of them live in poor conditions and sacrifice to send cash back to their wider families. They may not be able to go on a journey themselves to something better. It may work for the farm or business by keeping labour costs down, but only at the expense of pushing the true cost more onto taxpayers. Low paid employees may well qualify for benefit top ups for housing, Council Tax and general living costs which the state pays for. Each new person arriving needs GP and hospital provision in case of illness or accident. They need school places if they bring a family with them. They need a range of other public services from transport and roads to policing and refuse collection. The country has had to play catch up in many of these areas given the large numbers of people who have joined us in recent years. The EU once suggested a figure of Euro 250,000 was needed for first year set up costs for a new arrival. The biggest cost is of course the provision of housing where the state plays a big role for those on low incomes. The need to build so many more homes creates unwelcome political tensions in communities facing concrete over the greenfields.
There is also in practice a cost to the businesses they work for and a loss to the wider development of the economy. If a business has easy access to low paid labour it will put off looking at ways at automating or providing more computer or machine support to employees to raise their productivity. If farms find cheap pickers they do not provide the same support and demand for smart picking aids or machines. We live in a period of digital turbulence, when artificial intelligence, robotics and digital processing of data and messages are transforming so much. Harnessing more of these ideas could both power greater technological development and associated businesses here in the UK and could boost productivity and therefore potential wages in the businesses they serve.
The UK and the EU has spent the last two decades leaving much of the digital and robotic revolution to the USA. It is time to catch up. Successful harnessing of it will spawn more new large companies and offer the chance of higher pay from higher productivity.
(First published on Conservative Home)
June 27, 2021
The endless call for more cheap labour omits the obvious reason for the endless demand. Immigrants may come to the UK and take the low paid jobs initially, but like everyone else they want to improve their lives and move onto better paid jobs as soon as possible, resulting in a never ending lack of labour for the low paid jobs.
Low paid jobs are a drain on the welfare system. Maybe the businesses that encourage immigration for cheap labour should fund the immigrants in full, and not the taxpayer? I fear this would lead to immigrants living in very poor conditions, but what use are these businesses to the country if it costs the taxpayers more in welfare than the taxes paid?
Essential services should get exemptions but any immigrants brought in for that purpose should be tied to those jobs only, and not allowed to move out of those jobs (except maybe to move to the same job with a different employer) as this would just put us back where we started.
I am sure there is a solution that works both for business, and the taxpayer. It just needs looking for.
June 27, 2021
It needs political will, sadly lacking
June 27, 2021
+1
Why should the taxpayer subsidize Businesses who are wanting more immigrants for low paid jobs?
This is a double whammy on the taxpayer, not only do they have to subsidize the migrants income and the social benefits they can claim, they also have to pay for the native unemployed who have been denied the possibility of work.
If these Businesses are adamant they want more migrant labour and the wage is such that there is little or no IT and NI contribution, then the Business should be required to make up this shortfall by funding the migrants healthcare, housing and also education costs etc, if the migrants brings over their family.
Enough of using the taxpayer to make up the shortfall.
June 27, 2021
It was not just business it suited. In the short term it was also attractive to government. If you bring in working age adults in good health you avoid the cost of raising children and there is an immediate contribution to the economy. If immigrants work for lower wages it not only keeps down costs but it combats wage inflation.
Long term considerations and social and cultural implications are entirely different, but many government give priority to short term issues and the suggestions of employers.
June 27, 2021
But it doesnāt always keep down costs Peter. I actually have no problem with immigration without housing benefits and other benefits, the working age immigrants I know well have worked hard and are usually very ambitious and signed up for degrees (with student loans) whilst working. I have more of an issue with generational claiming Brits with no intervention allowed to get away with passing on the skills to the next generation of how to maximise benefits without doing a spot of work. People should work in their community to the value their housing benefit whilst their children are at school, they shouldnāt get money for nothing and if they donāt enjoy picking up litter, clearing verges, painting railing, washing windows, brushing up grit from pathways then they can get a job they prefer.
June 27, 2021
a-tracy,
The point I was trying to make was that government – Labour and Conservative -were enthusiastic about immigration and not just bending to the will of employers. Conservatives made use of it in the NHS and in public transport.
And this before immigration was seen as a way of changing an electorate to a political partyās (Labour) advantage. Political parties often steal successful policies from one another.
June 27, 2021
Exactly, cheap for the employer, expensive for the taxpayer.
Why do the sub continent have to keep Importing chefs. Why can’t they train the cohort that are already hear and unemployed.
I’m afraid your government has now lost all credibility over covid restrictions. Ample proof that the rules are only for plebs.
140,000 at Silverstone, full capacity at euro finals and officials and families given waiver on testing and distancing.
Don’t dare try and extend any part of lockdown after 19th July, I for one won’t be complying.
June 27, 2021
āDonāt dare try and extend any part of lockdown after 19th July, I for one wonāt be complying.ā
I went to Parliament Square on Saturday, although proceedings were not that well advertised and there a number of different protests. I didnāt do any marching. I just took up a convenient spot in the square itself. Gaza protesters and NHS supporters arrived first, then Extinction rebellion. Jeremy Corbyn gave a speech as did the less impressive Richard Burgon MP. All standard anti-Tory stuff. Then around 3.30 the massive anti-lockdown contingent arrived. Tennis balls were thrown in parliament and flares were set off. They seemed to be rerouted away from the square at first and then back again. There was some online coverage for a while but that seems to have mostly disappeared. Hancockās resignation was possibly convenient cover.
June 27, 2021
The wages which are usually sent back by the immigrant worker to their own home country is a further drain on the nation’s finances.
June 27, 2021
It also needs a very blind eye turned to crime. Must take a heck of a lot of fruit pickers to pay for one murderer that has slipped the net and got himself gaoled in the UK.
It goes for a lot of political ideas. BLM is founded on the idea that it is only white people who do bad things to black people and that black people don’t do bad things to whites.
June 27, 2021
It is perfectly possible to have unemployment is some sectors – e.g. among airline pilots just now, and a labour shortage in others such as fruit pickers.
John seems to suggest that pilots should work sixteen hours a day, in all weathers, bent double picking vegetables.
June 27, 2021
Well, if Greta, Extinction Rebellion and its merry cohorts have their way, most flights will disappear and airline crew are going to have to look for other sources of income!
June 27, 2021
Perhaps not but they might help design and sell automatic picking and packing equipment or similar.
June 27, 2021
Or perhaps design amd fly drones for crop inspection reducing fertiliser, weed killer, pest control ā¦ use or similar.
June 27, 2021
Dear Martin, I hope that no-one thinks anybody, whether redundant airline pilot, unqualified schoolleaver,student or immigrant from anywhere on the globe, should be employed here to work 16 hours a day in backbreaking work. It appals me that the Labour Party is wedded to this American
model, which depends on the “American Dream” for immigrants or their children. It is entirely unsuited to a mature economy,poor in land and natural resources. The “Social Market Economy” that was so brilliantly sold to the Labour Party by Jacques Delors, is more subtle, but ultimately a bandage not a cure.
Does Labour really now believe that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to the labour market? In the vast majority of situations, higher supply will lead to market forces setting a lower wage. Lower supply will deliver a higher wage. Of course, that brings new problems. The Swiss/Singapore model is no more suited to the UK than the American. The challenge for those who want to lift the future for working people and their families, is to find our own way.
June 27, 2021
āI have always sought to propose and support policies which would help more people find better paid work and to acquire a home and savings of their own.ā
Unfortunately there is less work than there used to be. You could leave a job in the morning and find another in the afternoon. There was plentiful work during school and student holidays too and the notion of unpaid internship was something unheard of since the days of pre-war articled clerks.
People used began to talk about early retirement – maybe in their fifties. You donāt hear that any more.
Mortgages of up to three times salary were usually enough to finance a home purchase before home ownership became something of a lenderās and investorās racket.
Hard won employment benefits have gradually been eroded. Lots of youngsters work in the so-called gig economy at the beck and call of their employer and often prevented from doing additional work for others in their downtime. Yet some politicians laughably try to put a spin on this by saying the workers enjoy flexibility.
Lots of good jobs disappeared and nothing arrived to replace them. North Sea oil covered the financial loss for a while.
It will be a long slog to get back to days when working life was generally better and employers and employees both had a more balanced degree of power.
June 27, 2021
What you accurately describe is a self perpetuating roundabout that seeks more cheap labour to service the needs of the core population and an ever increasing immirant population who have the same needs as the core population.
As you say we need to modify the way we do things, more automation to reduce the need for labour. If we changed our eating habits, substituting manufactured food with home cooked food from natural ingredients. If we made sport and exercise a compulsory part of the school curriculum. I had two afternoons a week and saturday afternoon if you were in a school team of physical activity plus weekly sessions in the school gym. Then the fitness of the nation would put less demand on the NHS and less demand for overseas medical staff. A simplified tax system would reduce the need for tax inspectors, accountants, and lawyers. Shrinking the size of our legislative body would be an example all you in the Westminster bubble could set.
Very simply we need to throw our population explosion, for that is what it is, into reverse. My aim would be about 45 million rather than the 70 million we are looking at. Close ths gates and stop reproducing for a while, then the quality of life we aspire to would slowly return.
June 27, 2021
A immigrant pay threshold set by this government to alleviate the chance importing low paid staffā¦.then this government reduced that figureā¦.then they reduced it againā¦..then again
June 27, 2021
The benefit system encourages low pay. Often you pay Ā£10 more and the worker only keeps Ā£1 of it after tax, NI, workplace pension and the withdrawal of housing and other benefits. This also damages the employer. Would you like to do overtime on Sat I will pay you Ā£150. Yes mate but I will only get to keep Ā£15 less my petrol to get in!
The bloated size of the state, high and complex taxes, the endless red tape, restrictive employments laws, the dire public services (NHS in particular) , the extended lockdown, restrictive planning ..l all reduce productivity and cause low pay. Far too many people do essentially parasitic jobs feeding of too few people doing directly productive ones.
June 27, 2021
I am not a big fan of the remain voter Sadiq Javid but he now has a very difficult job indeed. Healthcare and the communist NHS model fails so many and need massive reform. They have performed so very poorly in world comparisons throughout Covid, they have huge waiting lists and many GPs clearly hiding from and avoiding patients (as their pay system encourages them to do). Good luck to him. The solutions are obvious but is there any political will for what is needed?
June 27, 2021
Spot on. For the Tories itās toxic, for the Labour Party controlled by the unions no chance so donāt hold your breath.
In any event Javid seems to be one of those safe go to people so more words but little/no action.
June 27, 2021
Ps. He is of course a great friend of Carrie who I know you admire so you can guess who really put him in post!
June 27, 2021
So will the priorities be ādiversityā and āunconscious biasā training & protecting the NHS from patients or will it be clearing the huge waiting list and serving the tax paying patients in a timely and efficient manor for a change?
June 27, 2021
and doubtless making the NHS ānet zeroā. I hope they have backup for all the ICU gear ventilators etc. when the wind stops blowing.
June 27, 2021
No
June 27, 2021
Some one trying to puff up S Javid on the radio said āhe believes in the public sectorā. Well donāt we all. I believe in it being about 20% of GDP (defence, law & order a basic safety net and not much more) and the current Boris/Sunak government are clearly aiming for it to be nearer to 80% of GDP as soon as possible (of what will be a rather tiny GDP though). So where is Javid on this scale?
An article by former energy secretary (Chris Scidmore who was responsible for net zero lunacy) in the Sunday Telegraph today demonstrating perfectly how very little he understands about energy, C02 and real energy economics. Modern Hist. Oxon. so he has an excuse. He did get one thing right – āRecent polling, however, has shown that barely 10 per cent of the population know what net zero means. In the race to burnish our green credentials, we risk making deals on the world stage without taking our population with us.ā
Indeed but you as an ex-energy minister have not got a clue as you clearly demonstrate. The more the public come to understand the vast costs, engineering and total impracticalities the more opposition you will get mate.
Where anyway is all this low carbon electricity coming from to power these heat pumps, EV, electric heating and the restā¦ you foolish dope? Go and study some science, physics, maths and some energy engineering and grow up.
June 27, 2021
The 10% (prob. less) who really do know what it means think the net zero carbon agenda is insane. They are right.
June 27, 2021
+1
June 30, 2021
Brexit has fixed all that red tape and bloated state hasn’t it?
June 27, 2021
Most who frequent this site do so because they share and recognise broadly similar human, moral and political instincts of its incumbent host SJR but also recognise that the party SJR belongs to is now on a path that I and many others find reprehensible.
Labour and their associated allies abuse labour importation for purely political ends. Labour’s concern is never human centred but focused entirely on achieving a political and electoral end. That end is authoritarian, replacement of peoples and destruction of identity. It is Marxist inspired and utterly sinister with attacks on speech, attacks on identity through ideological indoctrination and historical revisionism.
The Tories? Well, unfortunately for the indigenous population they have embraced Labour’s position and gravitated away from the fundamental purpose of immigration which was economic towards a model concerned with party politics and international demands by interventionist bodies like the UN and WHO.
There’s little else to be said on this issue. The dam’s been broken. Labour controls the agenda and controls the State’s response to it. Now both parties are completely indifferent as to the destructive nature of politicised mass immigration. All is driven by party political considerations.
Voting for the two main parties in the forlorn belief that you are choosing for two different visions is utterly naive, destructive and counter-productive. This voting pattern has led us to a situation in which the indigenous ethnic population is now daily bombarded with an ideology immersed in racial identity. Its aim is atrocious and both parties embrace of it is not being exposed
June 27, 2021
The things to which you object have literally nothing to do with marxism.
Find out properly what that is and you will agree.
June 27, 2021
“The definition of Marxism is the theory of Karl Marx which says that society’s classes are the cause of struggle and that society should have no classes.”
Except of course Martin, you still tend to get a governing ‘class’ (you can usually spot them when they drive past you in their black Zil limos, whilst you wait for a bus that doesn’t come!)
June 29, 2021
Excellent post IanT
June 27, 2021
DOM
“…the party SJR belongs to is now on a path that I and many others find reprehensible. ”
Reprehensible ?
Johnson and them are finished and they know it. Why else do you think Johnson’s reluctant to end covid restrictions, even if it means deliberately letting a new variant in ?
We get our freedoms back and he won’t be containing our anger…..he knows it.
June 27, 2021
Good morning.
Time to stop privatising the profits and socialising the costs. ie Make the UK Taxpayer subsidies private industry.
It is time that those arriving should be made to pay for all costs of healthcare and education they incur. Or to put it another way, make the employer liable for such costs. That way they will see how much they are really worth.
And as Shilley M aludes, make their work visa tied specifically to their jobs.
June 27, 2021
Globalisation and our demand for cheap tat is such that without those subsidies there would be very little production in the UK.
We need to wean ourselves onto fewer, higher quality items that last and wholesome, filling food produced locally. Same overall cost but for lesser volume of purchases of goods made locally.
June 27, 2021
Very good post today Sir John.
The situation as is, is very clear.
The country and especially the tax payer cannot afford it. Just another situation the government finds its self in with yet another area that is unsustainable in the long term. Like the countries infrastructure it has been ignored for far to long and until properly addressed will only cause further financial burdens to social services, housing, NHS and many other areas.
June 27, 2021
Reducing the supply to encourage efficiency, indeed. I look forward to your proposals to reduce the ever expanding budget especially in the NHS to do the same and selling it to your electorate.
And in that respect the DT set out the litany of failures of Hancock and the cost in lives and money, yet he clung on by his fingernails with full support by Boris and the inevitable agitprop from āhis friendsā until public opinion forced him out yet even then Boris said he had done a wonderful job.
With those standards is it any surprise that so little changes/improves and we continue to pee vast amounts of taxpayers money down the drain.
June 27, 2021
Nig L
Extremely well put but as we know- nothing will be done, Boris expressing his thanks to Hancock for a job well done tells you everything that you need to know, the opinion of the electorate would be the exact opposite!
June 27, 2021
There could be more short term work permits for the agricultural sector at least though, to cater for seasonal peaks and leaving all temporary accommodation needs of such workers entirely to them or the farmers. That seems to work well for Australia.
June 27, 2021
What you are describing is a self sustaining job. Jobs that are not self sustaining (except in the public sector but these need to be controlled) should not really exist.
June 27, 2021
As said here, NZ and Australia handle this problem in a clear and obvious way. Given that our farmers are now competing with them perhaps we should look at that?
This government has been in charge for 11 years and we have a free for all where the wrong signals are given to legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and indigenous young people about what they can and should expect from society by coming here and training here respectively. There has to be someone somewhere who can broadly define supply and demand for labour here so that we neither have legions of folk untrained or trained in the wrong things, and jobs with nobody here trained correctly.
June 27, 2021
Too late for short term work permits now for East European migrants – the word has gone out right accross europe that Uk is not the place to go anymore. Of course we could always bring them in from India Pakistan and Bangladesh but would mean added cost to us as we would probably have to fly them in.
June 27, 2021
It never was – Can this all be put down to greed by companies wanting to make more profit, or policies formulated then agreed to by the UK government.
Whatever way you look at it cheap imported labour is the wrong answer – it has too many implications, especially when things go wrong with it.
We have a large enough workforce in the UK, why can’t the companies taking advantage of foreign labour start working with them? They have to make the required roles more attractive to persuade people that they can be happy in such jobs.
Running businesses in big cities, London for example is a costly affair, so many high taxes to face, excessive costly bureaucracy, with new regulations all the time to make life more complicated.
It’s not all about greed – It’s mostly about government providing the environment where good companies can do an honest job and prosper, while giving their customers what they want…… Which is probably a way of saying “That we have far too much government!”
June 27, 2021
Digitalisation will inevitably lead to totalitarianism. Why a libertarian would encourage such a state of affairs is beyond my limited intellect though I suspect John’s instinct is driven by economic considerations rather than any desire for total political domination over our all areas of our lives
O-T. Now the odious Johnson and Hancock have been exposed for what they truly are and considering the huge turnout in London yesterday by moral warriors determined to protect their children from harm and forced vaccination (and compliant driven mask wearing) by the vicious Tory-Labour political machine will we see a change in direction by this Non-Tory PM? Most now know what Johnson is. Repugnant
Moral Tory MPs must confront this leaders and expose Labour’s vicious politics. Party loyalty from backbench Tory MPs is destroying this nation. The health of the Tory party is simply irrelevant compared to destroying the poison of all that we have seen since that bastard Blair squirmed his way into power
June 27, 2021
+1
June 27, 2021
I have already voiced my opinion on the problems of low paid migrant labour, but I do question this ‘shortage’ of labour. Years ago students used to do this seasonal work and whilst I appreciate students today may prefer not to do this work, I still fail to understand this drive to bring in more and more migrants, if it has nothing to do with these Businesses drive for ever higher profit margins, at the expense of the taxpayer?
This government in their ‘wisdom’ decided this covid virus was akin to a plague and brought in ridiculous and protracted restrictions that has resulted in thousands of small businesses being forced to close and nearly a million unemployed. Within this number, there will a wide selection of experienced, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour. This should beg the question, why do we need migrants at the numbers being called for?
It is also worth noting the way the Government vacancies system has been setup is severely flawed. The government use the ‘total’ number of vacancies advertised, without taking into account the total is made up of duplicated adverts, i.e. the same job is listed by 3 agencies and one of the agencies advertise it 4 days on the run. This reads as 6 vacancies, no, it is one vacancy. Also non-existent jobs, i.e. if there is a job vacancy in Brampton, that can be advertised as a vacancy in Brampton, London and Brampton in Cumbria.
June 27, 2021
interesting topic this morning JR.
Just thinking back to nearly 60 years ago and the time I left Secondary school with few real paper qualifications.
Like many others I was simply not interested much in academia for academia sake at the time, but was interested in learning real life skills.
Secondary School pupils then were encouraged to learn the basics of everything we needed to make something of our lives, and in the world of work in particular, if we wanted to.
At that time we had teachers, mainly male ex servicemen with a personality, who made their own particular subjects interesting, I will always remember the teachers of Maths, Physics, Metalwork, Woodwork, English Literature, and Physical Education, as well as the Headmaster at the time.
Very different times then, as not a single student went on to University from my old school, but equally when they left, they all found a job of some sort.
No benefits existed at that time for work shy people, and certainly not for school leavers.
I chose the engineering apprenticeship route, and with day release and night school at the local Poly Tech (now called a University) eventually gained City & Guilds and HNC.
Many others also gained qualifications of one sort or another through the same, and/or different routes. We learned whilst we earned, many also moved forward in other ways, learning different skills, with some eventually running their own businesses.
So my point is, all people develop and learn at different rates and in different ways, and will end up with different skills and interests. Like many I was fortunate, as the education system allowed and catered for such differences/late developers at the time.
From what I have seen over the last 40-50 years education for the real world has failed millions of students, and the easy life of being given money for nothing, has encouraged the lack of work ethic, ambition and get up and go in many.
At last I see chinks of light now, with more and more people recognising that earning whilst learning is a better formula for many for moving forward, than simple very, very expensive academic qualifications.
June 27, 2021
I wonder if it was a co-incidence that people searched for work, because out of work benefits back in time did not exist for school leavers, so a job was essential if you wanted an income of any sort.
The second aim if wanting to earn more money and move up the wage scale, you worked longer, harder, or smarter, with the alternative of searching for a better job having proved your work ethic with the first.
I have to say a decent Work ethic for some nowadays does not seem to exist judging by the complete lack of interest at interviews and/or training courses, much easier to simply claim on the State/Taxpayer for help even when capable of helping themselves, cannot help but think that FOR SOME the benefits system is not a safety net any more, but a fishing net for money.
The benefits system should of course be there for those who are incapable of working, due to medical or mental health reasons.
June 27, 2021
Big trafficking and slavery trial in Coventry.
And still the boats come!
Oh despite the HUGE efforts of the govt. to put a stop to it!
They do what suits.
And they want cheap if not free labour.
So basically we are a slaving nation.
We need workers to earn 1/5 of what bosses earn not 1/100.
That certainly wouldnāt suit!!
June 27, 2021
Huge Freedom Rally in London yesterday.
Naturally not reported.
And how handy that a Minister had to resign, restoking sheepy outrage.
Diverting attention.
How could a philanderer sack a philanderer?
Even if he had wanted rid of for a while?
Cameras? Everyone had better be extra careful!
June 27, 2021
but we are still printing uncapped intra company work visas for Indian nationals to come in for the outsourcers, to be immediately subcontracted into other organisations for less than it costs to hire a local, and we give them massive tax perks to further undercut locals.
June 27, 2021
It is a very costly option as has been illustrated this week.
We know the Home Office has no system to keep track of anybody coming into the country and until they do we should reduce the numbers to the absolute minimum and cut out all low paid workers. We offered EU citizens the opportunity to stay here for 5 years after Brexit and expected around 3m applications. Surprise surprise we have got nearly 6m!!!!!!
How many more are there of them living here illegally? Several million I suspect and we are letting them in by the boat load!!
June 27, 2021
Off topic
Looking at the Hancock photograph in all the papers one could not help thinking that was ”a cinch of a clinch” and she looks to be ”a bit of a handful”
June 27, 2021
A little bit off topic, but I remember interviewing an unemployed person for a job. This was an admin job and not minimum pay. To cut a long story short, she told me she wasn’t interested in the job, didn’t want the job, and only attended the interview so she could continue to claim benefits.
Thankfully, the other applicants were keen for the job.
June 27, 2021
Shirley at least she turned up. Most just apply by clicking on the button and donāt turn up for their interview slot, no call to say theyāre not coming. Itās all a numbers game, can they prove they have applied for so many jobs and attended so many interviews, no one actually checks they turn up for them.
June 27, 2021
How about getting our own happily unemployed off their behinds and into the jobs you describe. Instead of handing them benefits they can fritter away all day long.
June 27, 2021
The single biggest reason to stop immigration. While the jobs are done by immigrants there is no clamour to put our own benefit claimants to work
June 30, 2021
Most benefit claimants are already in work.
The ones who are not are either carers, have medical problems, in full time education, do not have the skills required, yes picking strawberries requires skill, or do not live in the areas where the work is required.
Don’t let pesky facts stop your deluded rants though.
June 27, 2021
Absolutely correct.
In fact the cessation of the continuous import of cheap labour would automatically and quickly provide the ālevelling upā the government claims they desire.
For too long both private and public employers have used the import of cheap labour to not only keep wages low but to save their effort and costs on training and investment in new technology/ways of working to the detriment on our own people.
The continuous importation of cheap labour is a Ponzi scheme.
June 27, 2021
To my mind, the first question that has to be answered is why are so few of the younger elements of the work force reluctant or actually refuse to take on many of the jobs available? Is it perhaps because our education system and society in general make them unwilling to do what they perceive as menial or physical tasks? An employer recently said that those that actually turned up for interview were pretty hopeless at the three Rs level, reflecting poorly on our education systems. The concept of starting at the bottom and working one’s way up the ladder seems to have fallen by the wayside these days.
June 27, 2021
I donāt know a single young person who doesnāt work. On the contrary, most work harder than you ever have or ever will.
I also donāt know a single pensioner who does anything other than sit on on their backside and moan – while receiving a Ā£150+ per week handout funded by the rest of us.
June 27, 2021
andy.
As you are openly hostile to all older people I will guess they all avoid your company.
I know I would.
But if you did have older friends you would find most still work part time at least, or involve themselves in voluntary community work.
June 27, 2021
I can assure you there are plenty of layabouts of your age Andy. What a silly and ignorant post. A childish element to it again.
June 27, 2021
Andy
“On the contrary, most work harder than you ever have or ever will. ”
Total rubbish, absolute twaddle.
Shipyards, Mining, Heavy Engineering.
You’ll be telling us next that during the winter you had to warm your tools with a blowlamp because gripping them cold would take the skin off your hands.
Oh and obviously all your snowflake friends had to do these hard graft jobs during wartime. Lot’s of broken backs too because of all the hard graft.
You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
June 27, 2021
If you had any degree of knowledge or understanding! You would know, the pensioners whom you so despise, receive a pension that they paid for over their working lives.
Currently there are around 400,000 Youths not in work or education. (NEETS) Many in this position because your beloved EU was given carte blanche to send it’s youth here to work for low wages.
You really know nothing Andy.
June 27, 2021
Martyn, lets not paint all young people as unwilling to work in physical tasks. I know several young people who work these jobs. When I was at school the boys in my year were taught mechanics, bricklaying, gardening, carpentry skills, technical drawing and on – now they either do sports science, drama, tourism studies.
June 27, 2021
a-tracy
“now they either do sports science, drama, tourism studies. ”
Yes…and this is going to go full curcle and bite very hard.
If Johnson thinks his visions for this country to be a world leader in engineering and science (mostly waffle) are to come true then he’s in for a very nasty surprise.
In any case they’ll need the skills of a generation that was shat on……and we won’t want to know. We’ll take our skills to the grave. Sod ’em.
June 27, 2021
Relative poverty is the enduring hammer with which to hit taxpayers and continue to give money to the low paid. There will always be a number of people under a mean wage as it is an average so these campaigners will never have to switch their focus away from “relative poverty”. The extra Ā£20 a week for those in universal credit was not matched by a tax break for the rest of us who were also wresting with the effects of government mandated lockdown. That Ā£20 a week translates into inflation for the rest of us.
Immigrant workers, for the most part, are employed on minimum wage so we are importing the relative poverty that campaigners decry. Is this moral? – it is certainly expensive for the taxpayer.
June 27, 2021
Exactly. A few years ago the boss of a sandwich-making firm said they were laughing stocks in the rest of the world because they used imported cheap labour rather than automation.
June 27, 2021
I wholly agree with your paragraphs at the end , this has been one of the most serious effects of low skilled mass immigration, negating the need to invest in productivity and innovation, and that has done untold damage to our economy and future prospects. My vague recollection of history was that the loss of labour due to the Black Death force changes to be made in agriculture and the introduction of mechanisation, putting us on the first few steps towards the industrial revolution. The unlimited supply of cheap labour i recent years has killed off innovation and change, and where we should have been forced to innovate with robotics that field has been left to others.
June 27, 2021
The country has got to man up.
All those on jobseekers have a choice, whilst “actively seeking work” they can and will be called upon to do seasonal work as and when required. Failure to become available or attendance will result in the stopping of benefits for the duration of the picking season in the case of farming.
June 27, 2021
Couldn’t agree more. The policy of importing cheap labour works for the anywheres but is against the interests of the somewheres.
June 27, 2021
Not really. It is the Brexit backing āsomewheresā – as you call them – who buy the cheap tat produced by low paid workers. Pushing prices up for these people really doesnāt help them. In contrast, higher prices really make no difference to people like me. I donāt buy cheap tat anyway.
June 27, 2021
Nice you can afford to andy.
Try living on a state pension.
You would soon be in the cheapest shops and markets and car boot sales in order to survive.
June 27, 2021
You may wish to see people getting high wages. Our customers have different ideas. They want quality and reliability, but they also want it cheap. If we raise wages we will have to pass the costs on to our customers. They will respond by shopping elsewhere, and they have a global marketplace to call on. Our global competition has the same recourse to automation that we have. We can only survive if we’re that much cleverer than the competition in lower employment costs regions. Why should we be cleverer? Because we’re British?
What would help our employees is lower housing costs and less taxation. Housing costs could be reduced if there wasn’t competition for residential property from speculators. If my company didn’t have to pay employer’s NI for example, we could give our employees higher salaries.
What’s going to happen to the UK economy when the lower employment cost regions of the world discover they can do financial services just as well as the UK?
June 27, 2021
Dave Andrews
“If we raise wages we will have to pass the costs on to our customers ”
Why ?
June 27, 2021
What we need is a proper investigation into the 16-24 year olds in the UK not in college or training that are unemployed. I read the unemployment rate in this age group was 13.2% in parliament research briefings 15 June 2021 [Feb-Apr 2021]. Unemployment levels have returned to pre-pandemic levels. 263,000 more young people have become economically inactive an increase of 10%. At 30.04.21 594,100 jobs in this age group were on furlough.
The inactivity rate for young people is 41.3%, the highest rate since records began in 1992. 80% of the young people who are economically inactive are in full time education.
109,000 16-24 year olds had been unemployed for over 12 months in Feb-Apr 2021, 27% of all people who had been unemployed for over 12 months were 16-24 year olds. Some of the highest rates in the Country are in London.
June 27, 2021
In the 1970s an equal Britain boasted many highly paid working-class jobs. Miners and car workers often earnt more than their managers. This was the Callaghan world which the EEC and the collapse of the post war Big Government swept away. This is also the dimly remembered golden age, older āleft behindsā think Brexit will bring back. It will not and it was in any case a mirage .
Access to the EU and competition attracted huge investment into the UK creating, for example, a new kind of motor industry, in which robots do the work, and production line workers take a week or two to train for low wage jobs. More cars were made than ever but employment was slashed and deskilled. Mines gone, the proud North humbled .
So investment and wages do not have the relationship John Redwood has claimed at all .Nostalgia, was nonetheless sharpened when in 2008 adjusted weekly wages began a grim and unprecedented decline form Ā£520 in 2008 to Ā£475 in 2014. In the same period immigration was at high levels. This is the background to Brexit , perhaps the yearning for the past is understandable , but it is not an answer, it can never be.
John Redwood is now suggesting that putting low wage business out of business will create high wages. This sort of shallow populist thinking will get us nowhere .It does not have the answer, it does not even know the question.
June 27, 2021
Newmania
” ….older āleft behindsā think Brexit will bring back. ”
Except we’re still waiting for ‘brexit’. You comment on the effects of something which does not exist.
In any case most of us ‘left behinds’ are not. We chose of our own free will to turn our backs on the largely anti – England establishment. We don’t need Johnson or his state, or his bosses at the ungrateful EU.
June 27, 2021
And in other news, the Chancellor is looking to get workplace (private) pension funds channeled into start ups, infrastructure etc projects all that the government should be doing, and it looks as if you will have to opt out to avoid it.
Most people will not have the knowledge and could be trapped in illiquid, highly risky funds at the time they most need the money. If it goes through an alarming move towards forcing all of us to put a portion of our savings into government driven schemes.
June 27, 2021
‘Cheap labour’ (a new pejorative when applied to needy people who are prepared to come here and work hard for a living) is not simply a matter of money. Our education system and the way we value people has a lot to answer for, too.
June 27, 2021
The UK road haulage sector has a shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers. School meals could be disrupted for the remainder of this term by delays and shortages of food supplies across the country as a result of a dearth of lorry drivers in the UK. Industry representatives have told Boris Johnson that the driver shortage ā exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic ā is causing a ācrisisā in the food supply chain. Many everyday products are unavailable in supermarkets and also in garden centres. But I guess as long as the well-off can afford to stay well-supplied the government won’t worry too much about the rest of us. I note you claim to wanted “to promote prosperity and wider ownership for the many”. Have you calculated the cost of that for the majority, including the growing number of children eligible for free school meals and the growing numbers of households dependent on foodbanks?
June 27, 2021
Haulage companies have been able to suspend training programmes, because they could recruit from oversees with wages at a level no one in this country could afford a mortgage and raise a family. So no surprise there is a shortage of trained lorry drivers.
What is needed is tax relief for companies for the entire cost of training programmes they implement.
June 27, 2021
Lily, we still import freely from Europe, these drivers come over Europe in HGV lorries and we send less to Europe than they send to us so often they look for back loads and within the UK runs. So what exactly has caused 100,000 drivers short and is that per year, per day, 100,000 short runs? What is this figure for?
June 27, 2021
European drivers donāt want to come here because of your Brexit mess.
If you are a Polish haulier you can take pretty much what you like to Spain and collect pretty much what you like on the way back. Bureaucracy free.
When you come to the U.K. you have pointless checks, masses of Brexit paperwork and delays as a result – and now face also sorts restrictions, including the severe difficulties Brexit creates to those carrying mixed loads. If you donāt have to faff around with the UKās pointless Brexit bureaucracy why would you bother?
In any case the elderly Brits who backed Brexit are going to dig their own vegetables anyway.
June 27, 2021
Andy
“In any case the elderly Brits who backed Brexit are going to dig their own vegetables anyway. ”
……Not quite elderly, but yes I do grow my own veggies as do millions of us. We don’t need and we don’t buy EU, RoI or Scottish produce.
It’s satisfying, saves money and is sticking it to the EU and any country that insulted us during your BRINO ‘negotiations’
Yes Andy I own the property outright, have no mortgage and have more than enough land to grow vegetables. I also have vicitoria plum, apple and pear trees.
BTW I still work and also have a pension coming in each month. I’m also a landlord.
Life’s what you make it Andy !
June 27, 2021
andy
That Polish haulier can be stopped at any time crossing European country borders or whilst travelling inside the EU by national customs officers or national Police and have to show all the many documents appertaining to the goods carried.
Everything from source of manufacture, to name of the end source of delivery, to proof of CE marking, weights of the loads, quality standards and regulatory conformity.
And I won’t take more of your time on the documents the driver needs to carry reference the legality of his vehicle and the actual driver.
You plainly have never ever moved goods from Europe to the UK, or from the UK into Europe, or inside and around Europe, using either UK vehicles or foreign owned vehicles.
And it shows.
June 28, 2021
Andy, it is still in foreign driver’s interest to get a backload to take back into the EU rather than drive back empty. The government need to investigate these statistics more. Are the hauliers saying they took 100,000 EU drivers loads per day that now aren’t here or are preferring to travel back empty than get customs documents?
I read there was a 40,000 backlog in British drivers ready to take their HGV tests because of covid, how can they speed that up? Can the army logistics trainers help to fast track test days. I don’t understand why there is such a backlog when there is the distance in the cab between driver and tester at least 1m and more, buses, taxis, trains, aircraft were still functional with ppe, there is ventilation in a cab.
How was 100,000 arrived at? Did they take figures from hauliers all over the UK, were there more problems in a specific area, did they just take 20 and multiply them up as though relevant to all of the UK? Have other countries in Europe had the same level of disruption to HGV driver tests? Perhaps they have test inspectors available to send over for a month’s intensive pass dates project to speed things up if they are on top of the issue, if what Andy suggests is true there will be a lot of EU based HGV drivers out of work (used to doing their 100,000 days worth of work) without their British loads won’t there!
June 27, 2021
I remember when HGV drivers were trained by companies and put on the payroll. These days they are forced into personal service companies and have to pay their own training, holidays, Employers NI, etc. The only way to guarantee avoidance of IR35 is buy their own tractor unit with the numerous and expensive costs involved. Few are in a position to do this.
June 27, 2021
L, āto promote prosperity and wider ownershipā: My wife and I bought our first house in Reading in 1986 for 2.8 times our joint salaries and without any help from our parents. One of my sons and his wife bought theirs also near Reading in 2016 for 4.8 times their joint salaries, after we had ādonatedā the 10% deposit to help them get a reasonable mortgage rate.
So it is very good of Sir John to be all for prosperity and ownership, but giving the house price inflation (unrelated to RPI, CPI or rate of salary growth) that has been going on for more fifty years because of inadequate house building, inadequate pensions (for most of people) and poor provision for old age care, I am afraid that they are just that: nice words from him without much impact on the real problems.
June 27, 2021
Have a quick search on one of the many property websites heffy.
There are many properties for sale in commuting distance from major cities at Ā£100,000 or even less.
I have told MiC in Cardiff of many such properties near yo him, when he moans about property prices, but he tells me he doesn’t need any.
Two people on average earnings could afford to buy such properties and would find it cheaper than renting.
But it seems all you lefties want to live in Islington
Do you agree?
June 29, 2021
P2, Islington, what a laugh. You might want to look around in the Reading/Wokingham area. Even a one bedroom flat is around Ā£200k. Only an ignorant rightie like you could write such a piffle.
June 29, 2021
Well try somewhere else heffy.
As I said (and you studiously ignored)….there are lots of cheap places around major UK cities.
PS
Why do lefties always use personal abuse when presented with facts that prove them wrong?
Could it be ignorance?
June 30, 2021
Would it be due to some kind of limitation to not understand that people get jobs they are very happy with, at a time when they were renting. After a few years they decide to go on with the job and to buy a house, near what is a reasonably major UK town, not in that town itself but within 5-10 miles of it.
Why on earth would they want to go where there might be lots of cheap places but a job prospect practically null in their qualifications.
Why do (some, specially with a name starting with P) righties appear unable to understand such a simple thing?
I checked, and the typical drop in price is less than a few thousand pounds, as bigger and/or newer and/or āmore countrysid-ishā houses become available farther from the town centre, which contradicts your āadviceā that price obviously drops going away from the centre.
BTW, when was the last time you were involved looking to buy a house?
June 27, 2021
Immigration.
When the European Union Empire expansion took place during Mr Blair’s Labour government watch they opened the door to the Eastern countries migrate masses that would seek to find a better life here in Britain, Mr Blair claimed when challenged about the amounts that would arrive, “there would be no more than fifteen thousand that would come to this country”, perhaps he was referring to the county of Lincolnshire.
Britain has always and I hope always will open the door to other nationals seeking to live a better life here in Britain, and adopt the British way of life, however when we the indigenous people have paid via our efforts over many years into a kitty to support our welfare and those of our nationals who may be disadvantaged, it is very insulting to witness our own children and our retired serviceman from being given the support and housing that the incoming immigrants receive, weather they are illegal or have come through the correct immigration channels.
British cities and the populations homes had to be rebuilt after the bombing effects of WW2, the government of the day rewarded the service personnel for their supreme efforts that they have carried out during the WW2’s conflict, planned decent living estates and new Towns. The home providers only considered a home occupier if they had served in the armed forces during the WW2’s conflict, my parents were rewarded with one of these new homes.
We now have voted for independence from the control of the Empire of Europe, and this Government has been given the task by the electorate of carrying out that independence, which means that the government can instruct the relevant authority to control immigration or will it continue in the same manner of fooling us into thinking that they acting on our wishes.
June 27, 2021
The cost to our country of companies bringing in thousands of low paid workers is very high as is the strain it puts on our infrastructure which has a direct impact on our quality of life.
At the current rate of net migration, we are adding one million extra residents every four years.
That is likely to require 400,000 extra dwellings, when, coincidentally, our housing shortfall is around 100,000 housing units a year. 1m extra residents will also add up to half a million extra cars and the accompanying increase in traffic congestion, emissions and demands on energy. Within ten years, assuming the new arrivals don’t bring any children with them, the education system will need to accommodate up to 200,000 extra children.
This is the net effect of allowing the current rate of immigration to continue for just another four years ! It is hardly surprising that the public regard this is such an important political issue, but it is one that all parties seem to be conspiring to ignore.
June 27, 2021
I have only skimmed the article which may be very good.
Another vast demonstration in London yesterday against the vaccine and the rest of the great deception, even bigger than the previous ones, and again, sinister to relate, unreported by the mainstream media. We must not allow Johnson and the army of slavers to succeed. Rebel today.
June 27, 2021
This government has no idea how many people are living in this country. They were 1.5 million out on their estimate for the number of EU citizens. We see overcrowding in houses with landlords flouting the planning rules and just getting a slap on the wrist from council enforcers. Itās time we had a joined-up system where our Border Force rather than acting as a taxi company ferrying more illegals in, work with councils to identify and deport the illegal immigrants already here.
How long can this country sustain net immigration of half a million a year?
June 27, 2021
Well said, sir.
I think politics, although powerful, is limited in what it can do here. We need individuals to take responsibility for their lives: to be more productive in the workplace (and men to be more manly). I think we need to re-broaden the scope of Conservatism so that it’s a movement not just in Politics, but also in Education, the Media, Arts, and Religion – in which we celebrate our Judaeo-Christian values and the best of our Greco-Roman heritage.
Tories can do this, for example, by opening the Tory Conference up more to including talks about Education, the Media, Arts and Religion. Not forgetting how at time of Renaissance, a cultured man had deep interests in all these not just politics (important as that is). And the PRACTICAL benefit of this on our world in general.
Political Conservatism, on its own, simply doesn’t have the power to bring taxation down to 20% and below (it can reduce taxation a bit – but it it tries to go to far, things will backfire including over-heating of economy and —–> BUST —–> and maybe Labour get back into power). But it DOES it if Political Conservatism is combined with Conservatism in Education, the Media, the Arts and Religion – which has a practical, benevolent impact on the individuals of our country.
And yes we absolutely have to catch up with High Tech / Digital and what these offer in terms of:
1) Billions added to the economy
2) High Skilled Job
3) High Productive Jobs
4) High Quality Brands people like to be associated with
5) High Quality Exports Abroad
6) Diversifying our economy so not everything in same basket
Etc
June 27, 2021
Business and the immigrants benefit from mass immigration. Government gets to provide business with cheap labour and increase GDP so looks like it is doing well. Our well off metropolitans get cheap homemade, labour and nannies while picking up their coffees from smug local coffee houses who pay minimum wage while extolling climate change and refugees.
The man in the street notices increased prices, restricted access to services paid for by taxes and fewer available homes. He is competing against subsidised immigrants.
Imported labour is indeed not cheap
June 27, 2021
Yes, ech product has a retail price that is set by market forces (price of competitors etc). The price is mnade up of costs plus the firm’s profit, so we cannot simply increase the costs by upping the minimum wage or we render the product non-competitive.
Sooner or later the profit is wiped out and the firm must either charge more than their competitors )who are often abroad, facing different labour costs anhd taxes) or they go bust. Eventually, the only option is the latter.
This has been the story of British manufacturing for decades. Well-meaning legislation eventually makes people lose their jobs.
We should always have been making visas work-related, valid only for the duration of the work and with no rights to permanent residence for the worker and certainly not for other family members. With the advent of WFH, office-based work need not even have the worker physically present in the UK – no travel visa required.
June 27, 2021
We are not a multinational business, we are a people, the English. I am very well aware that we have an enemy within that is uncomfortable with that and is trying to destroy us by claiming ‘we’ need foreigners to do the jobs that in the past always got done somehow. Some of these foreigners have proven to be a dire impediment; that does not apply to those whose misfortune was to be engulfed with our assistance by the Bolsheviks and suffered decades of economic mismanagement as well as Cheka terror. They are good quality people with a strong work ethic but they have their own countries which need to be rebuilt.
The EU with its free movement has been a disaster for all concerned, but particularly for those countries that have been swamped by a large influx of new people with all the associated costs and those countries that remain frozen in time as a result of those people going missing.
June 27, 2021
Forthurst
“The EU with its free movement has been a disaster for all concerned, but particularly for those countries that have been swamped by a large influx of new people with all the associated costs ”
……yes but that’s perfectly acceptable because businesses don’t have to pay the proper rate for the jobs and the immigrant workers don’t have any idea about their rights.
All that matters is maximum profit.
June 28, 2021
Today, many people think there is something evil about patriotism (love of country and people). This is a HERESY. Love of country (and people) is a VIRTUE – both in Judaeo-Christianity and in the Greco-Roman world.
I think one of the reasons people adopt this heresy is because of the Nazis. The Nazis IDOLISED Germany which is different to having a healthy love of one’s own country. Idolisation isn’t real love. It’s a kind of a fanatical mad obsession that leads to all kinds of tragedies.
But because the Nazis idolised Germany does NOT mean we shouldn’t love our own country (with a healthy patriotism). It’s both a Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman virtue to have a healthy love of one’s country.
June 28, 2021
‘Itās both a Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman virtue to have a healthy love of oneās country’ – which is simply an extension of love of one’s own family. Which in turn is simply an extension of having a healthy sense of self-respect. Not rocket science. How people over-complicate things and destroy wonderful things in the process: i.e. healthy patriotism.
June 27, 2021
We’re governed by an increasing number of unprofessional career politicians who’ve never worked in the real world, don’t understand the fundamental principles of good management and have no obligation or intention to learn. What other large organisation would employ such people to their most senior posts and expect a successful outcome? The dynamics of business have moved on rapidly and dramatically, yet we’ve tied ourselves to outdated organisations, treaties and ideologies that are mercilessly exploited by the top tiers of society. So great is their hubris, there’s no longer even a pretence that we’re being represented.
June 27, 2021
BJC
+1
Well said
June 27, 2021
BJC
Purposeful insight and expresses a real appreciation of the forces now at work in this once great nation that will eventually trigger destructive consequences that future generations will struggle to contain
June 27, 2021
Last time I looked we had over 400,000 NEETs (under 25’s Not in Education, Employment or Training). Why are these left on the scrapheap?
Also can anyone provide a reference for the EU report which said every immigrant gets ā¬250k of investment. This is the second time Sir John has referenced this report and I would be interested in seeing it. All our economic models on immigration cost-in the pro-rata state expenditure instead, clearly a false way of looking at it.
June 27, 2021
I would guess that such an important EU report on the cost of immigrants should be very easy to find. Why not ask Sir John? As a long-time MP he should have not only these numbers but also the proper reference of this report.
June 27, 2021
Maybe as the resident academic on here, why not by-pass Sir John and just tell us hef.
It is very easy to find apparently.
You know don’t you.
June 29, 2021
P2, thatās the problem: this so-called EU report does not appear in any of the EU publications available to the public. Will I dare say it might have been an invention by one of our beloved MSM/tabloids/āseriousā newspapers, and is now quoted by anybody and their dog when they get a bit short of arguments?
June 28, 2021
I’ve asked on here twice now. I’ve no doubt it exists, in fact I have a vague memory of it myself, but I just want to see it so I can use it in other discussions.
June 27, 2021
One report I came across is the paper “The Cost of Non-Europe in Asylum Policy” by van Ballegooij and Navarra of the EP Research Service, PE 627.117 October 2018.
Page 82 refers to a ‘solidarity contribution’ of EUR 250,000 per applicant;
“The current Commission proposal for a Dublin IV Regulation 69 puts forward a āfairness mechanismā to determine when a Member State has a disproportionately high number of asylum-seekers (to be applied when a Member State is above 150 percent of the reference share) and a āsolidarity contributionā (EUR 250,000 per applicant where a Member State does not accept the re-allocation). Compared to the European Commissionās proposal,”
Search for “EPRS_STU(2018)627117_EN”
Reply Yes, thanks. I wrote about this at the time on this site. regular readers who like references should remember or use the index here.
June 28, 2021
Thanks very much, sorry Sir John I’ve not been reading you for very long !
June 29, 2021
Dixie, thanks a lot. Apologies to all dogs.
June 27, 2021
And like many ideas it only holds water if crime is totally ignored.
How many fruit pickers does it take to pay for one imported murderer ?
June 27, 2021
It works if you ignore crime figures.
June 27, 2021
Well said Sir John but you need to convince Boris and his cronies to do the necessary, starting by stopping subservience to the UN, WEF and others seeking to run our country and its people down.
June 27, 2021
DavidJ
Convince Kipper and his fillets?
No chance all your get is double talk and no action. It is fully ingrained in all their operational processes. Situation normal. They cannot and will not change. The road to hell has many junctions.
June 27, 2021
DavidJ -Boris does what he is told by the UK establishment. I see Sajiv Javid replaces Matt Hancock as Health Minister. One incompetent replaced by another. Do not trust him one iota.
June 27, 2021
Paul Cuthbertson
Sajid Javid has held a few positions in government and maybe this is the one.
If nothing else it proves he is expendable should a position of push go to shove ever arrive.
Might have given more confidence and credibility if an older more experienced qualified politician had been selected with a recognisable track record and safe pair of hands.
June 27, 2021
“One of my main motivations coming into politics was to promote prosperity and wider ownership for the many.”
Which brought me to wonder what the disappointing Boris Johnson’s motivations for coming into politics were.
June 28, 2021
Whatever it is the Eton boys flock to it. Superiority and power over the ‘oicks’ spring to mind.
June 27, 2021
Cheap immigrant labour has nothing to do with the economy, it’s all about profit maximising by greedy bosses. They also love the fact that immigrants from former communist countries have no perception of worker’s rights.
The outcome being that we either find ourselves shoved out or walked all over. Some companies actually practise blatent racism…..’cultural fit’ they call it, in other words we only employ eastern Europeans so if you’re English sorry no vacancies.
Most manufacturing companies these days are de-skilling jobs to the extreme to accomodate unqualified cheap workforce. Killing off British craft skills is going to have serious repercussions, and when it does we will laugh and say told you so. When we are suddenly wanted again the response will be – first word begins with P, second word is OFF, and we don’t care how desperate businesses are for our skills. Engineering companies this country can go to hell as far as we’re concerned, should’nt have treated us like sh**
Yes we’re bitter, and we have every right to be.
June 27, 2021
Perhaps we really need to look at this from a new angle. Jobs need to be valued.A good waiter in Spain is worth his weight in gold. Dignity , cleanliness , an ability to observe ,yet stay in the background , serve from the left and display good manners doesn’t come easily to Brits. ” She’s only a receptionist!” Hotels I have visited have receptionists speaking 5 languages ,can we? Picking fruit requires dexterity , an ability to keep the fruit in good condition and staying power.. could we do it all day? A cleaner has one of the most responsible jobs for public health . Places where squalor reins can be in very high paid jobs. Manual work is exacting and tiring and needs consistency to a high standard. Most jobs are fairly easy when you keep doing them again and again, perhaps we shouldn’t elevate those jobs where people fight to get a good salary but are not particularly good at their jobs but rather have academic quals which display their ability to read about others work.
June 27, 2021
I’m glad Sir John has raised this point – it really needed saying. Immigrant labour is a way for industry to shift its costs onto the taxpayer. There is an inherent reluctance to innovate in UK farming because innovation goes unrewarded in the current crude cheap imported labour/low tech model. The Dutch have been increasingly gearing towards a massive, intensive solar energy-heated greenhouse construction and use for years. This is aided by generous government industrial energy subsidy (specially subsidies low industrial energy prices per kWh as in Germany) and in March the 2020 Netherlands government doubled its energy subsidy and targeted it particularly at solar-powered greenhouses. (Do you really expect Brussels to hinder a Benelux industry by invoking EU state subsidy rules? š We can learn a lot from this approach. We should also invest more in better freezing/freshness preservation techniques – there is no reason for the expense and poor flavour of frozen food other than that the supermarkets like it that way.
I’d like to see a cheap logistics infrastructure for small producers to reach the cities with fresh, vacuum packed high quality meat and fish, and targeted subsidy for automation investment – preferably not with a single minister or civil servant in charge of the procurement. š
June 28, 2021
How does the energy subsidy fit with the “Level Playing Field”?
June 29, 2021
There is no Level Playing Field within the EU: there never has been. There is a raft of competing nationally favoured sectors and different national state subsidies. German state industrial energy subsidy has been in place for years, unhindered by Brussels. In fact during the recent debate between the candidates for the Chancellorship in the September election, Scholz (SPD) loudly promised if elected to bring down the cost of Germany’s industrial energy to 4 cents per kWh. That’s 3.44p per kWh. The Brussels Commission’s response was…complete silence. (They were probably too busy making mischief in Larne.)
The average cost of energy in UK industries is 14.36p, plus standing charges of ca. 26p per day. Business energy users pay 20% tax on energy.
We should pay no attention at all to any such mythical ‘level playing field’.
July 4, 2021
Mancunius – thank you for this information, it makes me wonder so-called industry representatives IoD CBI Fpb Fsb etc donāt ever mention it, the actual facts and figures, so much for representative bodies. This industry energy subsidy is aggravating.