This morning I saw two muscular lads unloading a couple of cases of wine from a Bibendum van. The task wasn’t unduly arduous, and they chatted on the way from the van to the door.
When I came up closer, I realised they were French – if we discard the counterintuitive proposition that the wine-delivery trade attracts young Englishmen who can speak foreign languages to a native standard.
Actually, by the looks of it, this or any other trade doesn’t attract any young Englishmen at all, polyglot or other.
Why toil for the minimum wage when you can do better by staying at home and collecting welfare cheques? If Johnny (or in this case Jean) Foreigner wants to come here, let him do the hard slog.
Far be it from me to begrudge those two French lads their rather basic job. In fact, as a former immigrant myself, I congratulate them on finding their feet in a foreign land.
Nor am I going to rant against all those French refugees from Hollande who inundate London and specifically my neighbourhood.
Unlike some other immigrant groups that shall go nameless, the French have a civilising effect, if only gastronomically and sartorially.
When enough French people move into a neighbourhood, suddenly it becomes possible to buy decent bread and pastries. The local butchers and fishmongers start doing brisker business, as do the farmers’ markets. More people in the street wear nattily knotted scarves, rather than T-shirts saying ‘Two world wars, one world cup, so f*** off’.
These benefits aren’t counterweighed by excessive social costs, at least not direct ones. The French hardly ever mug anybody, their chosen route to sexual gratification lies through seduction rather than rape and, as the two chaps I saw this morning demonstrate, they pay their own way.
Still, there is something in me that says that, scraping the bottom of the barrel, we just might be able to find some native speakers of English to con a delivery van through the streets of London.
I realise that, unlike French schools, our comprehensives don’t teach philosophy, but it’s possible to drive a van without a parallel ability to ponder the ontological properties of being.
Neither do our comprehensives teach the three Rs, at least not properly. Nonetheless, the native talents of our youngsters are such that even in the absence of proper tutoring they can figure out that going to the social twice a month is more profitable than going to work every morning.
My own modest experience with welfare makes me wonder how young, able-bodied people qualify for this option.
Some 10 years ago I was rather seriously ill and unable to do my job (I was still a productive member of society then). That wasn’t a serious problem because my company activated a key-man disability insurance policy, paying 80 per cent of my salary.
However, one of the conditions of the policy was that I also had to apply for the state disability benefit, which I neither wanted nor needed.
Still, a deal is a deal, and I sent my papers to the Job Centre. Having received no reply for a fortnight, I gave them a ring, only to be told that they had ‘misplaced my papers’ and could I please resend them?
I did so, and a fortnight later the same thing happened. Being too weak to join the hostilities myself, I sent my wife over to give the bastards a piece of her mind, which I knew from experience was certain to put things right.
Sure enough, I collected my benefit and continued to receive it for a few months. After that I was told to go to one of the Job Centre’s housetrained doctors and get myself recertified.
That involved flogging across London, which was hard in my enfeebled state. I did manage to get to the surgery though, where the doctor asked me the kind of questions that were supposed to establish my eligibility for the benefits.
I only remember a few of the questions, such as “Can you walk up a flight of stairs?”, “Can you take a bath or go to the toilet [sic] unaided?” and “Can you make a cup of tea?”
Having answered all the inquiries in the affirmative, I was told I was perfectly able to go to work. Being a combative sort, I remarked that my job involved tougher tasks than merely making a cup of tea and then relieving myself all by myself.
The doctor nodded sympathetically and repeated what he had said before. So that was that.
Fair enough, I didn’t want the state’s largess. Still, I wondered if young people drawing their welfare cheques until they aren’t young any longer are ever asked all the same questions.
The sceptic in me refuses to believe that the millions-strong army of those sponging off the Exchequer is made up exclusively of weaklings who can’t walk up a flight of stairs, perform basic sanitary procedures or make a cup of tea.
So how do those who answer ‘yes’ to the kind of questions I was asked get away with it? The mind boggles, as they would say.
The simple solution to this moral and fiscal outrage is to derail the gravy train. Those who really can’t work must be helped. Those who can work must help themselves. C’est tout, as those Bibendum lads would say.
This would solve all sorts of problems, social, moral and of course financial. At a time when we can’t afford to spend money on defence of the realm, it’s morally decrepit to lavish funds on taking away people’s incentive to work.
Some 40 years ago, the American journalist Irving Kristol wrote: “In New York City today, as in many other large cities, welfare benefits not only compete with low wages; they outstrip them.”
Quite. And not just in American cities: in today’s Britain someone receiving the full range of benefits would need to gross £50,000 a year to match them. Since most welfare recipients lack the necessary qualifications to earn such an income, their incentive to seek employment is not altogether powerful.
Well, I’ve said my piece. I’ll now go and make myself a cup of tea.