When getting into a taxi - or, in last night's case, a minicab - it is a matter of some dread when I realise the radio is tuned to a phone-in Talk Radio programme.
Generally speaking, the participants tend to be at the uninformed (= ignorant) and reactionary end of the spectrum, spouting off opinions close to hatred with little evidence that they actually know what they are talking about.
So it was with some dread that I realised that last night's minicab talk show topic was immigration.
One caller drew attention to the fact that very many immigrant workers are exploited and abused.
Another mentioned the fact that it would be impossible to staff residential care homes without immigrant workers.
The host said he had been speaking to a Birmingham industrialist who cannot find British workers for 'finishing' the vans he manufactures. He then quoted a figure that immigrants make a net contribution of £2.5 billion to the UK economy.
Swathes of the white working- under-class round here would like to 'send them all back'.
I said to Jimmy something about schools and hospitals, he mentioned hotels and catering. A Nigerian accent from the front piped up 'minicabs'.
It would be vaguely amusing to 'send back' all the 'immigrants' and see what happens in Education, the Health Service, service indutries, manufacturing etc. It would be even more amusing, then, to see the reactions of the supporters of UKIP/Veritas and swathes of the Tory party. You know, when the schools and hospitals all start closing and the elderly relative loses the home help or the place in that nice, convenient residential care home...
Comments