"We can't get the skilled labour to do the work". This is the repeated mantra in the UK as people who used to come into Britain from the EU
are now beginning to think twice.
Part of the issue is that EU citizens after Brexit fear that they will have less protection in terms of labour rights and lower
expectation in terms of their pension when compared to the advantages of
living
within the EU. It's a chilling thought that we, who were led to assume
we are living at least on a par with other European democracies find
that after Brexit this will no longer be the case. Our Class system will kick in again and the parliamentarians who
largely represent the middle and upper middle class will further distance themselves from the poor and only at election time deem it necessary to remember their plight and promise them the earth just to secure their vote.
The chronic skill
shortage also defines the problem of a lack of training in the skills
required for those not following a university degree. When I grew up in
the 40s and 50s the Technical Collages were a force
in the land. The qualifications ranged from a City and Guild
certification through to the ONC / HNC qualification and on to Diplomas
in Engineering. The standards were high the exams rigorous and coupled to properly funded apprenticeships equipped young people
with the skills to enter the market place.
Somewhere, somehow,
someone decided to change the chairs on the Titanic and slowly the
effectiveness of British education came more and more into the hands of
the ideological teachers unions who envisaged the
rights of the child before academic achievement. Apprenticeships were
downgraded or disregarded by a succession of political masters and we
are where we are with a chasm between the achievers who succeed at
university and the untrained, barely literate youngsters
who are no use to the manufacturing industry and find themselves burger flipping or collecting the Dole.
Yet another conundrum
to solve in the rocky times ahead, it's not a question of a mistake
rather a series of political calculations which didn't take into
consideration the effect on the ordinary rank and file,
the people who at election time put their faith into a political system which has little time for them.
We live and grow
in our own bubble and know little of the bubble which envelops so many
in this country who feel isolated. We have a natural inclination to ignore things which don't feed our own set of criteria
of what is good and proper.
Part ignorance,
part prejudice we contrive to close our eyes to the misery and confine
our concern to things closer to home, often too close to home. Home should be seen as a wider collective experience,
much more inclusive, including, at least in our thoughts the 'down and out' just as much as the apparently successful.
Our society has become much more insular since the days of Margaret Thatcher. People were encouraged to deny that society existed, we are all potential achievers, singular, individualistic and above all
self centred.
Down grading the
municipal concept where rates and taxes provided the services which made
the environment tick over for all of us has meant that the socially
disconnect and their hopelessness has become
ever more defining. The blame game where the unsuccessful are
diminished even more by the labels of laziness and ineptitude added to
their failure, which is of course their fault and their fault alone.
It's not the
education system which by many measurements is failing our kids, it's
not the inability of a single parent culture to have the time and energy
to raise their children properly, it's not the
lack of proper jobs with some sort of prospect for improvement, it's
not the unaffordability of housing not in just the cost of buying your
own home but of paying an ever escalating rent. These factors which are
largely under the control of the Government,
willingly so it seems by successive Governments, are ignored and rather
the human blight is down to a subculture made up of the work-shy who
inhabit those areas of our country where the industries and the people have been left to stagnate.
It's a calculated
price for belonging to a society which recognises people by the car they
drive and how many times they fly off on a holiday in the sun. These are the criteria on which we are judged and
if you don't cut the mustered, as they say, too bad.
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