Why British jobs for British workers won’t work

As I type, a frustrated cleaner has just come in my room in Bournemouth. To my amazement, she’s English. We get talking about Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” mantra, and it dawns on me that she’s a living example of why it won’t work. She says she’s one of only three Brits in the hotel’s huge housekeeping staff. She’s doing an NVQ in housekeeping, enjoys her work but is still considering going on to benefits as she’s struggling to make ends meet. She lives in a council estate, few of her neighbours work and think it’s strange that she does given she’s no better off than them. But she says she enjoys cleaning “strange as it may seem” and wants to be self-sufficient. She’s been taxed at the emergency rate for six months, and even at the normal tax rate she’s finding it increasingly hard to balance her budget and justify what she does.