A Sheer drop into the abyss

Labour MP Barry Sheerman’s rants about foreign people getting jobs over English people has a certain Alf Garnett ridiculousness about it.  Except he, as he liked to remind us, represents the people of Huddersfield and that is serious for inward investment in his constituency.  Essentially, it's grim up north because of foreigners; an Honourable Member of Parliament he may be but he is definitely a member too.

To recap, he tore into Camden Food company at London Victoria train station for employing someone from Eastern Europe (he chose only to name Lithuania and Poland, which could be as far as his geographical information stretches for that region).  It was because he had received his bacon buttie and coffee not quite to his liking and apparently the assistant had got his change wrong.

Notwithstanding that there are a slew of eateries on the concourse and Mr Sheerman had the misfortune to alight on one where the service was, in his opinion, substandard, the fact that the woman with whom he dealt had an accent does not invalidate the whole concept of the freedom of movement of labour.  His fervour in digging a hole meant that far from catching “the right train” as he assured his audience, he was engaged on a journey to the centre of the Earth.  His comment “There are a lot of unemployed people in Huddersfield and I think they should have first crack at jobs rather than someone who arrived from Eastern Europe yesterday.”  What does Mr Sheerman propose – that the good people of Huddersfield should be offered jobs by Camden Food to work at London Victoria station?  Would they have to catch ‘the right train’?  Considering fare hikes, would that be economic?  Never mind; at least it would mean they would have the ‘first crack at jobs’.  Mr Sheerman was disappearing up his own crack.

Yet he wasn’t finished.  “The average young person in my constituency has got competition from every young person in Europe.”  So instead of the youth of Huddersfield raising their game to compete with the keenest of the continent (within the EU, that is - those outside are restricted), they should remain in a sump of parochial mediocrity – the very reason why Britain went from being the second biggest economy in the world in 1950 to the seventh largest in 1990.  In the most savage indictment of his people who voted for him, he stated “It's a very competitive world out there and my constituents resent that.”  That defies comment.

In conclusion, according to Mr Sheerman, “irritatingly pernicious political correctness” has allowed this kind of thing to flourish and will continue to let it prosper (interestingly, when is pernicious not irritating – was Hamlet puzzled or jocular when he berated his mother Gertrude in absentia?).  Yes, that old chestnut, political correctness – nebulous and faceless.  His lament “I don't see why I can't say that I wish these chains would employ more British kids than kids that come from Eastern Europe,” displays his dashed hopes for the aspiration of the young of this country – one has risen to the top of the tree when one flips a burger for strangers.