What an admission of defeat that we’re forced to import brickies, roofers and plasterers once again
Shaky ground
WHAT an admission of defeat that we are having to import brickies, roofers and plasterers once again.
One of the goals of Brexit was to wean ourselves off cheap foreign labour — which had depressed wages for so long — and train more Brits for skilled trades.
But ministers say shortages are still so acute they have no choice but to add construction to those jobs we need migrants to do.
That is a grim failure.
Britain has consistently underfunded training and done too little to entice young people into these crucial and rewarding roles.
Society still tells them their prospects are better at university . . . even studying often third-rate courses employers do not respect and which condemn them to living under the shadow of a £60,000 debt.
The Tories have woken up to that somewhat late.
And post-Covid we are in the scandalous position of having 5.2million on jobless benefits but too few to train as tilers.
So, having increased our population by 606,000 last year alone, we are flinging open the borders ever wider.
Foreign builders might help get more homes built, in theory.
But economic migration itself piles horrendous pressure on that housing stock, sending prices and rents further into orbit.
The hapless public, meanwhile, is just left to suck up the extra impact on their already crumbling services.
What a mad, self-inflicted doom-loop.
That’s rich, doc
IT must be a first. A BMA union militant bleating about the terrible plight of consultants averaging £128,000 a year.
Dr Vishal Sharma says senior NHS doctors will strike because “going into this cost of living crisis we were down far more than the rest of the economy.”
Has he lost his mind? Consultants on £88,364 minimum may at a pinch have had to cancel one of their ski holidays — but they’re not queuing at food banks.
Like most UK workers they were offered a pay rise below inflation because inflation is at a 30-year high.
It’s the first major downturn many docs have experienced.
The hard lesson is: You don’t just get exempted from it by taxpayers.
No matter how important you are or how much your union leaders fancy themselves as Arthur Scargill.
Peers poor
PEERS seem determined to hammer the final nails into their chamber’s coffin.
We know they never meet voters — but millions want illegal migration stopped, even if they don’t.
And the Migration Bill, including the Rwanda deterrent, is the only serious solution anyone’s got.
The Government must bulldoze the unelected Lords’ blocking amendments.
Peers are succeeding only in making themselves look frivolous, out of touch and ever more irrelevant.