Train bricklayers or we will never stop hiring migrants
TORY titan Michael Gove says high migration from the UK is weighing on demand for housing.
Well – well! Whose fault could that be, Michael?
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After 13 years in power and after five Tory prime ministers of all shapes and sizes, no one can say the Conservatives haven’t had every opportunity to reshape the country in their image.
But official net migration figures will be released next week and are sure to hit a staggering record high – possibly not much below the ONE MILLION mark.
The government’s housing target — that euphemism for a meaningless, empty promise — is to build 300,000 homes a year.
And guess what? This goal is currently not being achieved.
The target itself is based on the assumption that net migration – the difference between the number of people leaving and arriving in the UK – is around 170,000 per year.
The number some experts are forecasting for next week is 997,000 – more than double the pre-Brexit record.
And these people don’t get out of leaky inflatable boats.
“Britain has always been a country that has benefited from the arrival of talented people and from people fleeing persecution,” Gove said at the National Conservatism UK conference in London this week.
“But the numbers have been at levels lately where there is an inevitable pressure on housing and public services.”
Oh, Govey, baby – whose fault is that?
These Tories are so utterly and spectacularly removed from real life that it does not even occur to their Oxbridge educated minds that we urgently need to encourage apprenticeships to reduce the need to import labour.
The small boats have acquired a symbolic meaning. Can Rishi stop them or not?
But next week’s statistics on legal migration are likely to play a far bigger role in public consciousness.
It is far more important to our national life that skilled workers come here legally to do the jobs we are too clueless to do.
Immigration is a good thing when the newcomer brings something to our workforce that we lack.
But everyone who arrives needs housing, health care for themselves and their families, education for their children.
It’s crazy for the government to relax migration rules for skilled artisans when our own people should have those skills.
And outspoken Tories like Michael Gove fail to show they understand the fundamental reason behind the astounding levels of immigration.
The UK has an education deficit.
Our own youth are not being trained for the skilled work that would get them a job for life.
Builders say there are just 70,000 working bricklayers in the country – a staggering number in a country of 67 million people.
The demand for bricks is overwhelming.
Some earn more than £125,000 a year, putting them in the top tax bracket.
Think about it: Brickyards pay the same tax rate as Premier League footballers.
Donald Duck degrees
Downing Street relaxes visa requirements for foreign builders.
They don’t have a choice, otherwise there’s no one to build all the new homes they keep promising.
But why can’t we train young Brits to be bricklayers – and electricians, plumbers, plasterers, carpenters and roofers?
Since the Tony Blair years, the focus has been on sending every youngster off to university as if it were Glastonbury so they can rack up over £27,000 in debt and a Minnie Mouse degree, worthless in the world of work.
Would things only get better under Sir Softie?
No – Donald Duck degrees for all are a Labor invention.
In recent days there has been much debate about Brexit and whether it succeeded or failed.
But if we can’t train our next generation to be carpenters, bricklayers, roofers, electricians, plasterers and plumbers, then it doesn’t matter whether we’re inside or outside the European Union.
We will always have to import skilled workers from abroad.
Even if it’s a million every year.
The Titanic is right on the sea
THE Titanic continues to hold our collective consciousness.
For the first time, history’s most famous shipwreck has been subjected to a full-size digital scan using the latest deep-sea mapping technology.
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Previously, submersibles with low-resolution cameras only provided tiny glimpses of the Titanic, which lies 12,000 feet (3,800 meters) deep in the Atlantic.
But the 700,000 images taken by Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, show the wreck in its entirety for the first time.
The 3D reconstruction is so precise that you can see unopened champagne bottles and the shoes of the dead.
The Titanic will never be raised – having rested on the seabed since 1912, it would fall apart.
Over time it will disappear completely.
So these new images are the closest we’ll ever see to the wreck.
It’s incredible – although I don’t think these new images mean the Titanic is “finally revealing her secrets”.
Don’t we already know what happened?
On its maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic collided with an iceberg.
Of the 2,223 passengers and crew, only 706 survived, mostly women and children and mostly from first and second class.
These new pictures are stunning.
But the Titanic doesn’t capture our imaginations because there’s a real mystery about how her maiden voyage ended.
We know that the Titanic represented the most advanced technology of its time.
We know that there were not enough lifeboats because it was believed that they would never be needed.
We know Kate Winslet didn’t have room for poor Leonardo DiCaprio on her floating door.
The reason we still care about the Titanic is because the unsinkable ship shows men making plans.
And God laughs.
amends? Must be dreaming
WE talk about atonement for slavery – which was abolished here in 1807 – and yet never hears about atonement for the wicked misdeeds of our time.
How about China paying reparations for the spread of Covid around the world?
How about if Russia started an unprovoked war in Europe?
Where are the indemnities for all this?
Focker scourge
SOME suspect becoming a father for the seventh time at the age of 79 will be Robert De Niro’s toughest task.
“I’ve had some successes in my life, but being married to the girl in the Victoria’s Secret window is definitely the biggest thing for me,” he sighs.
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Abbey isn’t such a secret admirer
ABBEY Clancy poses for Victoria’s Secret in a set of sporty trousers and her husband Peter Crouch almost purrs with pride.
“I’ve had some successes in my life, but being married to the girl in the Victoria’s Secret window is definitely the biggest thing for me,” he sighs.
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Yes, being married to Abbey has to be on par with Crouchie’s iconic robot dance.
Bring Boris back
Bring Boris back!’ card-carrying Tories chanted at a conference last weekend.
These are the same people who, when given the choice between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, voted for Truss.
Bring Boris back?
Why? Boris-loving Tories are as insane as any blotchy-faced student who once sang Jeremy Corbyn’s praises to the Seven Nation Army tune.
Nobody can match Gareth
ENGLAND could opt for a foreigner to coach them after Gareth Southgate, says FA technical director John McDermott.
As we learned in Manchester on Wednesday night, the greatest football manager in the world is a Catalan.
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Pep Guardiola would be a great England manager.
But nothing sums up the anguish and ecstasy of our national team better than the meme of manager Southgate (roughly waistcoat at World Cup 2018) comforting player Southgate (roughly gray-shirted penalty shootout at Euro 1996).
No manager will ever have England in his DNA like Gareth Southgate.
Pack it up folks
ADIDAS claims its eye-catching ad, featuring a real male in a female bathing suit, “is a tribute to self-expression, imagination and an unwavering belief that love connects.”
I’m glad they sorted that out.
For a moment I thought it was an all-out celebration of meat and two vegetables.