Boris Johnson today criticised schools for turning out youngsters who are not prepared to work as hard as immigrants.
London’s Mayor said the reason most catering jobs went to people from overseas was because migrants offered better service as well as lower costs.
“There isn’t some fixed ‘lump of labour’ that means these jobs would otherwise be done by native Britons,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Johnson said schools had improved but a quarter still left primary school unable to read or write properly. “No wonder they will lose out in the jobs market to industrious people from Eastern Europe who can take down a telephone message correctly.”
He insisted most migrants came to London to work rather than pocket benefits — and denounced the notion that they pushed up unemployment. “It is economically illiterate to blame Eastern Europeans for getting up early and working hard and being polite and helpful,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Westminster City Council said it had exposed a gang of 50 Iraqis who faked mental illness using drugs in order to claim benefits. “These men went to extreme lengths to commit benefits fraud,” said Lindsey Hall, the council’s anti-fraud czar.
