A BBC television documentary, to be shown on Wednesday, tried to test  a well-worn perception that British workers get fewer employment opportunities than their foreign counterparts.

The Daily Star reported that producers for the documentary, The Day The Immigrants Left, put twelve long-term jobless Brits into unskilled work current carried out by immigrants as an experiment. It was found that half of them quickly gave up. In one case, a man sent to a potato-packing factory. However, he phoned the boss on the very first day to tell him that he was ill and couldn’t come to work. Producers were said to be shocked to be alleged lack of commitment by some of them.

Of course, there are people who genuinely cannot work for personal and health reasons. But there seems to be a hardcore number of people in Britain who simply feel reluctant to look for work, or who simply reject what’s on offer, because they’re not deemed to be proper jobs, often with low pay and poor conditions. It’s common knowledge that employers often have to advertise for jobs abroad because they cannot find enough British people willing to take them on. Some of the jobs may seem undemanding, but they are vital in some ways to help keep the country moving.

The article I was referring to had appeared in the Daily Star tabloid, one of a number  of national newspapers who routinely attack the  numbers of immigrants both living and working here, easily forgetting the fact that they help contribute greatly to life in many our towns and cities, often with little or no thanks from us.

Without them, many goods and services which we consume and take for granted would almost disappear overnight….and the country would genuinely grind to a halt.