Barely a day goes by without newspapers complaining about foreigners taking British jobs and British companies hiring labour from abroad. A recent report told of building firms employing Polish and Romanian bricklayers because of a shortage of British talent. Another told of high street caterers having to ship in sandwiches from Hungary because they couldn’t find British workers prepared to perform the work.

This is all rather mystifying when, at the same time, we are told that unemployment levels remain high throughout the country and millions of Britons are living on state benefits. Common sense surely dictates that a marrying together of available work with willing workers results in a solution to the problem. Of course, the key word is “willing”.

The problem was neatly encapsulated for me a couple of weeks ago in Manchester city centre, although it could have been virtually any British city or town. As I walked down the busy street I noticed two foreign speaking black women busily setting up a makeshift market stall of cardboard boxes from which to sell scarves, hats and gloves. Next to them was an apparently able bodied young white British man sat on the ground playing with his mobile phone, his two dogs sat by his feet. In front of him was a begging bowl. Enough said.