Joke over the jobless

LETTER: Labour advises there are still 500,000 jobs vacant. Scanning newspapers, these appear to be mainly professional. We import foreign labour to pick strawberries, surely that doesn't need a degree?

There are unemployed people round here, probably not professionally qualified, allegedly looking for work, so why don't they do this type of job, as the hop-pickers from the Midlands used to do. I'll tell you why. They are too well paid not to work.

Our social and educational systems have failed ever since the comprehension system came into being, with a lowering of a general education to our detriment. Instead of making the unemployed do any kind of work, we import labour which, on returning home, claim job-seekers allowance and other benefits from us.

It has to be some kind of joke, doesn't it?

Mike Cockett

Leominster