Millions will applaud the crackdown on out-of-control immigration… but it’s a pity it took the Tories so long
Sanity clauses
MILLIONS will applaud the crackdown on out-of-control immigration.
But what took the Government so long?
The Sun backed Brexit in part to regain border controls under a new system to import only the brightest and best to serve our economy.
We got that — but did not imagine the parameters would be set so generously or ineptly.
Now, after staggering annual totals, the requirements are finally being reset.
But the predicted and welcome 300,000 cut will still leave us above levels which were already unsustainable years ago given the pressure on housing, GPs and hospitals — and Britain’s infamous inability to build more.
That said, the new measures look sane and reasonable.
Brits are a generous people.
But even they are enraged seeing so many dependants arriving with students and care workers and relying on handouts.
Banning them is right.
So is raising the skilled salary threshold to £38,700.
It was always a crucial lever . . . why wasn’t it pulled long ago?
The crazy “discounts” allowing migrants to undercut Brits in certain jobs are rightly ending too.
But three things are surely vital now:
That the Government is alive to the staffing gaps this crackdown may create — and training up sufficient Brits fast.
That it is prising fit-and-able claimants off benefits to join them.
And that it has a radical plan to boost our infrastructure for 350,000-plus arrivals a year.
We would love to be more confident on all three.
But Rishi Sunak is right to go ahead — and to declare, as he does opposite, that “if you can’t contribute to the UK, you’re not coming”.
It’s just a pity it took the Tories so long to insist on it.
Fair? Enough
CULTURE Secretary Lucy Frazer means well, saying the BBC’s licence fee rise must be fair to the public. But it cannot be.
A fair rise is “nothing”. The fee itself is unfair — an ancient, absurd TV tax in a multiple-choice streaming era.
A mandatory bung to a super-woke organisation viewers are fast deserting.
It was frozen for two years in 2022 and should be again if the Government will not simply scrap the licence.
The Beeb will cope.
Grasping Trots
WHEN it comes to the greediest strikers, rich hospital consultants were way out in front. Not so fast, say Aslef’s train drivers.
Already Europe’s best-paid by far, they are causing Christmas misery by shunning nearly £65,000 for a 35-hour, four-day week.
The cost in lost festive business for pubs and restaurants is now estimated at half a billion pounds.
Aslef don’t care.
The cracker-pulling Trots are a disgrace, even to a militant union movement with no reputation to defend.