A few questions about giving Brits a chance

When Gordon Brown promised “British jobs for British workers” the Conservatives knew that could be illegal and they ridiculed him for it. David Cameron even attacked him for borrowing from the British National Party and the National Front demanding to know where his “moral compass” was.

Now the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, is worried that his grand plan to get the unemployed to work by letting them keep some of their benefits will fail if more than half the jobs created every year continue to be taken by foreigners.

So he is urging British business to hire British people saying “As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad”.

So it is a shame Mr Duncan Smith is not doing an interview with us today. If he were these are the sorts of questions I might ask :

1. Do you want British business to favour a British worker over a more suitable or better qualified or harder working foreigner?

2. If the answer is yes do you mean foreigners who are already here, or just those applying for jobs from abroad?

3. If it is just a cut in foreigners coming in from abroad then how many jobs do you think this would free up for British workers?

4. Would you like to change the law to make it possible to favour British workers over foreigners from inside the European Union?

5. Why do you think British workers are not applying for or getting the jobs in the first place?

6. Is there a risk you might stir tension between communities and encourage the politics of envy?

If you (dear readers) would like to answer them for me let’s have a heated debate…!