Idle thoughts

To some, Suella Braverman's latest speech was no more than common sense.

There are jobs in the UK that could be filled by British workers. It makes no sense to allow migrants in to take these opportunities.

Ms Braverman has found where the problem lies, the unemployed British are just too lazy and comfortable on benefits.

She highlighted HGV

driving and butchers as two easily available areas of work.

At their most idle, people can all work in the fields, can't they?

Well, to become a butcher requires five stages of training, some of them quite exacting.

A butcher is not someone who simply chops meat. An HGV driver is required to finance his/her own learning to the tune of 6K, according to one source.

Do either of the above sound like 'easy fixes'?

Perhaps work in the fields is the answer?

Fruit picking is an art, working with flowers a highly trained skill.

I applied for seasonal work in the Netherlands and was declined since I did not have the requisite skills and experience.

Fruit picking can be equally challenging. To even earn one's crust, a picker must work at a speed almost unknown to UK recruits.

This is not a new phenomenon.

Some people are naturally faster, George Orwell wrote about hop picking in Kent and how some families simply couldn't keep pace.

They were helped by other families. Many immigrant pickers can, from experience, work faster than their UK equivalents.

If Tories don't like this fact, they should look at the industrialisation that demoted the status of the working person to that of slow-witted overseer.

Knowing there is no easy solution, Ms Braverman offers fatuous visions of work that simply don't exist.

Trust her at your peril.

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Many immigrant pickers can, from experience, work faster than their UK equivalents