Immigration is good says Simon Heffer

I think we will all agree that Simon Heffer is an idiot after reading the following article:

One of the few immigration stories not to aggrieve me in the past few months has been the influx of Poles. Some of my best friends are Poles. In my experience, Poles work extremely hard, are keen to assimilate and quickly become full, contributing members of society. How unlike, you might observe, quite a few of us.

Wouldn’t you work hard if you were getting 4 times more income than you received in your own country? Our minimum wage must be a fortune to them. It’s the equivalent of £20 per hour. Wouldn’t you be willing to work hard for 50 or 60 hours per week for that?

Why should Britons be willing to work as slaves so their already billion pound supermarket empire can make another few billion? What is wrong with just earning £600 million? What are you going to spend that extra £400 million on? Why can’t you just wait another year to earn the next £400 million?

Earlier this week, there was a jobs fair in Warsaw, at which top British companies such as Tesco pitched for the services of the next wave of Poles to come to this country. It was not without irony that this took place on the same day that Britain recorded the highest unemployment figures for six years — according to government statistics, 962,000 people are claiming jobless benefits. There are also nearly three million on incapacity benefit, a third of whom, the Government also estimates, are fit to return to some form of work. We heard a couple of weeks ago that anything up to 200,000 people are not working because their brains are addled by drink or drugs. When all that is taken into consideration, it is just as well we have the dear old Poles to keep the country functioning.

It would function anyway if people were given a living wage instead of a pittance for working up to 60 hours per week when they would hardly get to see their children.

Why do Tesco need to go to Poland anyway? They have already earned £1.09 billion in just six months of business. If they keep going they will earn £2.5 billion for the whole year. Why can’t they pay their staff a little more? Just a 20% increase isn’t going to stop Tesco making a billion pounds for the year.

I don’t think Simon Heffer has ever had a minimum wage job where he has had to work 60 hours a week just to afford the food in his and his children’s bellies, the roof over their heads and electricity and gas to keep warm. Please Simon get a real job in a place like Tesco for 6 months. Live solely on their wages and see how you feel about the dole then.

(Hat tip Martin Kelly)