Something struck me last night, although I might be barking up the wrong tree. It happened when I was listening to something on the radio about Boris Johnson’s new government wanting to attract the best talent from across the globe.

When you hear about Johnson attracting talent, it makes you wonder if he was talking about his endless stream of mistresses, but I think he meant professional people. Doctors, surgeons, scientists, engineers etc.

Points System to Curtail Unskilled Labour

Within a day of hearing this, we were told that it was going to be harder for untrained semi-skilled workers to come to the UK. Cleaners, care workers, farm labourers, factory operatives, construction labour and so on. They may be unskilled, but they are also undervalued, as they keep the country running. A points system will soon be in place to curtail them, apparently.

I am wondering to myself where this could be heading. Why would the government try to attract highly skilled people from abroad rather than train people here in the UK?

I’ll give you a clue, shall I?

It costs around £230,000 to train a doctor. Why pay out that sort of money when you can pick a doctor up from Indonesia or wherever, for the square route of bugger all?

So, if all the high skilled jobs are getting filled from abroad, where does that leave British folk when it comes to careers? Well, with the new points system stopping low skilled workers coming to the UK, there will be plenty of jobs where expensive training isn’t required.

Now, I am guessing that if you are already trained or you run your own business, you needn’t be concerned. However, if you have children and grandchildren, perhaps you should be. Degree education now must be paid for (it will cost my son £30k +) so the numbers of British workers that get a higher end skill set, will diminish. UK talent will go to waste.

Expensive Education

I could never quite understand why a strong nation wouldn’t want to educate its youngsters free at the point of delivery; it seems like the obvious thing to do. Now it seems to make more sense why they don’t. Why pay to have people educated when you can import them pre trained? It’s classic neoliberalism when you think about it.

More worrying still (if you are unskilled) is that it appears that workers rights could be scrapped at the beginning of next year. Once again, if you have a high skill set, good employers will always offer good terms of service in a bid to get good people, so no need to panic, you should be okay.

However, down in the bowels of business where the race to the bottom is taking shape, employers will do whatever is possible to scrap employment rights. They will be delighted at the prospect of making it easier to hire and fire at will (like in The United States). Unskilled workers face uncertain times.

The Turkeys Who Voted For Christmas

The irony is that in the EU referendum, skilled and educated people (except the very, very rich ones) tended to vote to remain within the relative safety of a union. Unskilled folk tended to be easier led into believing their interests were best served by being liberated and going it alone in a golden future of UK independence.

It may not turn out to be what they thought it would be, with their only consolation being a Blue Passport manufactured in Poland. If they thought the doctor treating them in future is going to be Frank, a climate sceptic from down The Red Lion, they will be disappointed.

Frank will be on a zero hours contract at Mike Ashley’s warehouse and their Doctor will be from somewhere in the Far East (if he/she can be bothered with racist abuse).

It’s all quite funny really. Or pathetic. It depends which way you look at it, I guess.