How Terry Wogan sees Europe

So, yet another Eurovision Song Contest, and get another round of chest-beating and sour grapes from people who think that the reason the UK came last was because of a Europe-wide conspiracy against us and in favour of any of those commies to the east. Every year the protests seem to get louder, and every year they annoy me even more.

Apparently it was inevitable that Russia were always going to benefit from “political” voting. So inevitable that I didn’t see anyone predicting it. Terry Wogan himself didn’t, except until Russia started racking up the points at which point it had become an obvious conspiracy.

The thing is, this is nonsense. As Chris Applegate has pointed out, this is the first time Russia has ever won the Eurovision Song Contest. So much for the inevitability of Russia’s success.

While so many wise-guys are quick to say after the event how predictable the result of the ESC was, I’ve yet to see so many people successfully predict who will win beforehand. Derek Gatherer predicts who will win, but only after the semi-finals have taken place. This is a bit like buying a lottery ticket once you know what the first five balls are. Even then, his prediction — Ukraine — was wrong (although close).

There were three specific countries that Terry Wogan said twice during the broadcast would benefit from political voting across Europe. He said this for each of the three countries during their turn, and he said it again during the recap while the phone numbers are displayed on the screen. (Check it on BBC iPlayer.)

The three countries that, according to Terry Wogan, were inevitably going to benefit from political voting? Romania, Albania and Poland. These countries finished 20th, 17th and 24th respectively — out of 25 countries in the final. If there was a conspiracy, whoever was behind it cocked it up big time.

Of course, Terry Wogan could have seen that his theory was bogus if he simply looked at the results of the semi-final (he did do that, didn’t he?). He would have seen that Poland only got through because it was chosen by the jury and did not finish among the top seven chosen by the televote. Albania also just scraped in, having come 7th in the televote.

The fact that Poland came joint-last in the final along with the UK shows just how hollow the ‘bloc votes’ theory is. It is certainly not as simple as “countries in the east are bound to benefit”. Poland’s paltry score of 14 was made up of points from just two countries — Ireland and the UK. The last time I checked, neither of these countries were in eastern Europe.

Furthermore, the past fourteen Eurovision Song Contests have been won by fourteen different countries. This is completely unprecedented in the history of the ESC (the previous longest run being eight). Incidentally, only 7 of those countries can be credibly described as “eastern European”.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that the countries that make up the British Isles have been the most successful in the ESC’s history, Ireland and the UK having won twelve contests between them, including an incredible run of five wins in six years in the mid-1990s. The UK has also finished second 15 times, more than any other country.

Far from becoming predictable, the Eurovision Song Contest is more open than it has ever been. You can put this almost entirely down to the introduction of televoting in 1998. As Chris Applegate says, it is far easier to rig Eurovision when it is just a few jury members rather than the entire population of the EBU countries that have to be manipulated.

All of this is not to say that there is not political (or cultural, or whatever) voting going on. Incidentally, the cultural-similarity argument is quite strong, though not watertight. Even correcting for linguistic and cultural similarities, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania still engage in bloc voting.

Even so, this is a very small number of countries. As Ewan Spence points out most “blocs” consist of 5 or 6 countries.

In fact, Derek Gatherer’s Venn diagram shows that “blocs” are actually as small as two countries, or four at a push. Of course, the UK and Ireland have formed their own little bloc, which is what makes little Britishers’ protests all the more pathetically hypocritical.

As such, the fact that Russia won cannot credibly be blamed on bloc voting. In order to win the ESC, any country has to appeal beyond their bloc and gain votes from across Europe. For this reason, the idea of entering different songs for England, Scotland, etc. (or even full-on independence — any excuse to bring that up, eh? ) so that the UK could engage in its own bloc voting would fail.

The ESC Today website has analysed the votes of “western” and “eastern” European countries separately. What they show is that even in the western-only table, Russia came fifth. That’s not a win, but it is only 13 points behind the western winner, Greece. Also of note in the western-only table is the fact that Germany finished bottom and the UK also did very badly. Meanwhile, in the eastern-only table, Poland finish joint bottom with nul points.

Clearly, blaming the iron curtain as Terry Wogan does (hopefully in jest) is wide of the mark. Even locking the eastern Europeans out of the voting, eastern Europeans would still pick up plenty of points.

The thing about the “bloc votes” theory is that it’s just the sort of thing that becomes true if you just say it often enough. Ignorance has a lot to do with it.

Recently I had the misfortune to catch an episode of The Paul O’Grady Show where Terry Wogan was a guest talking about the ESC. He mentioned in passing that Azerbaijan were participating for the first time — to hoots of laughter from the audience. “Azer-ban-jan?!”, yelped O’Grady. “I’ve never even heard of Azer-ban-jan! Is it even in Europe?” I hope O’Grady was joking (though there’s every chance he wasn’t), but I just know that some of the laughing audience members were thinking exactly that.

I think for a lot of people, the Eurovision Song Contest is perhaps the only time of the year they discover a Europe beyond, say, the EU-12 or the iron curtain or Mediterranean holiday resorts. In a contest of 41 countries, and with many well-known western European countries (Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg) declining to participate, the chances are high that the winning country will be one that many people couldn’t point to on a map. It might be as if “eastern Europe” is just one big country for these people.

If a country people can’t point to on a map (or those dirty commies in Russia) wins the ESC rather than a country a stone’s throw away from the UK, people jump to conclusions and start concocting the conspiracy theories. So if Russia wins, it’s political voting because eastern Europeans don’t want Russia to shut down the gas pipe. If Serbia wins, it’s the Balkan bloc voting that did it. If Finland wins, it’s the Scandinavian bloc vote. And so on.

Well here is a radical idea. Perhaps the countries that win the Eurovision Song Contest do so because they write songs that appeal to a wide variety of European countries and performed well on the night.

The real reason the UK tends to do so poorly in the ESC these days is that its entries are so mediocre. The UK seems to alternate between entering a song that is overtly camp and too knowing and / or stupid to be taken seriously (Scooch, Jemini, Daz Sampson) and insipid, bland, instantly forgettable dross (Javine, James Fox, Andy Abraham). It’s no accident that the last time the UK won the ESC back in 1997, it was with a song that was actually quite good (and incidentally holds the record for the largest winning margin in the ESC) and performed by a well known band and not some reality TV reject?

I mean, really, what can the UK expect if it enters someone like Andy Abraham? The man lost at The X Factor for crying out loud. What made anyone think he would win Eurovision?! As for the performance, it was nothing to write home about was it? Terry Wogan said he liked it, but I seem to remember he said the same about Jemini’s notoriously bad performance.

Blaming the UK’s loss on bloc voting when there are more sensible explanations just reflects badly on Wogan and all the others who bring up this red herring. It comes across as sour grapes.

I suppose the question is, does the UK really want to win Eurovision? The ESC is seen as trashy kitsch by most in the UK. This helps explain why most of the UK’s entrants these days are desperate reality television losers. Some countries may see the ESC as a joke, but others are clearly passionate to win the contest. Russia in particular tends to enter more famous artists. Their performer this year, Dima Bilan, is one of the country’s biggest pop stars who is on the verge of making a name for himself internationally.

It seems to me as though there are many countries who want to win the Eurovision Song Contest much more than the UK wants to. So why not let them win rather than throwing your hands up and shouting “conspiracy”?

As for Terry Wogan’s hints that he may quit Eurovision, I do hope he calls it a day. I can’t stand his commentary. The man is not a fraction as funny as he thinks he is. He mistakes rudeness for wit. He has been past it for as long as I can remember. If he quits, I hope Paddy O’Connell get the job. He has always done a fantastic job at commentating during the semi-final. He is witty but not cynical, and obviously still likes the ESC, unlike Wogan.

For what it’s worth, my favourite song was France’s — ‘Divine’ by Sébastien Tellier. I think France should just be given bonus points for entering a song containing non-French lyrics for a change!

A couple of times in the past I have blogged about numbers stations, a slightly creepy phenomenon where coded messages are broadcast over shortwave radio frequencies.

But more recently I have become interested in a similar phenomenon which is almost the reverse of numbers stations. Whereas numbers stations are seemingly utilised by the state for spying activities, broadcast signal intrusion is usually the opposite — members of the public hijacking television and radio broadcasts.

Perhaps the most well known is a pirate who posed as Max Headroom, hijacking two broadcasts in Chicago in 1987. The perplexing thing about it is that the broadcast was so cryptic — if it had a meaning at all, that is — that most people just scratch their heads wondering about the imposter’s motive.

The first successful hijack was short lived. It interrupted the evening news bulletin on WGN. However, only the images came through, and no audio was broadcast. An engineer at the transmitter site was able to re-gain control within 30 seconds.

Reports say that the pirate attempted to hijack several other broadcasts in Chicago, but none of them were successful. But two hours later the imposter successfully interrupted an episode of Doctor Who that was being broadcast on WTTW. No engineer was present at the transmitter, so the pirate broadcast carried on until its end. It lasted only 90 seconds, but it could have been much longer.

If numbers stations didn’t send shivers up your spine, surely this would. Imagine sitting there watching television as normal, only to be faced with this creepy transmission.

The video fascinates me. First of all, as I have mentioned, the motives are unclear. There is a cryptic message about “the greatest world newspaper nerds”. WGN, the first station to be hijacked, stands for World’s Greatest Newspaper. This suggests that WGN was the real target, but with the attempt having misfired the imposter went on to find any old place to broadcast his odd — at points disturbing — message. Even if you reach the conclusion that the message was aimed at WGN, what that message actually was is a complete mystery.

Some speculate that whoever was behind the video was simply drunk or high. I doubt this is the case. The broadcast was clearly pre-meditated. It is obvious that the message was pre-recorded because it went out twice, and there are continuity errors when the shot changes towards the end of the broadcast.

There are also probably at least three people involved in the making of the broadcast. There are at least two actors, and two people would probably be required to rotate the sheet of corrugated metal that’s used as the backdrop (the rotation is not CGI or mechanical because it is inconsistent).

A lot of technical equipment may be involved as well. Immediately after the hijacking, authorities claimed that a transmitter powerful enough to hijack a television broadcast would cost as much as $600,000 to buy, or several thousand dollars to rent. However, it seems as though this was misinformation designed to dissuade copycats.

Nevertheless, it is clearly at least a semi-professional job. Even putting aside the equipment needed to overpower a television broadcast signal, the quality of the recording looks really good for 1987 standards and the distortion in the vocals suggests at least a modicum of expertise. It obviously wasn’t amateur stuff.

Yet, the message and motive is difficult to decipher. YouTube contains another video containing subtitles with a likely transcript of what the imposter dressed as Max Headroom was saying. If you’re interested enough, I’d also skim through the comments which have interesting additional suggestions. (The subtitles in the YouTube video are definitely wrong in parts.)

Over twenty years on, people are still unclear about the intentions behind the pirate broadcast. It was clearly designed to be ambiguous. But it clearly took considerable time and effort to pull it off. No-one has ever come forward to admit to the pirate broadcasts.

Perhaps the person did it just for fun — a precursor to the hacker culture that became more prevalent in the 1990s. Perhaps it was social commentary. After all, the original Max Headroom programmes were set in a future dystopia where the world was run by giant television corporations and freedom fighters utilised exactly this trick of interrupting regular broadcasts.

The theory I favour holds that the person was a former employee of WGN who had been fired — not by his boss, but by an underling (hence the line “be a man”). This was his form of revenge.

There is a brilliant article about the Max Headroom pirating incident at Damn Interesting.

The fake Max Headroom remains at large, but another (less sophisticated) hijack broadcaster was caught. This simple broadcast is less intriguing than the Max Headroom incident in terms of its message, but is interesting because it is a successful hijacking of a satellite transmission.

A person calling himself Captain Midnight hijacked an HBO broadcast with a simple caption complaining about the channel’s price. The caption also contained an ominous threat, seemingly implying that broadcasts on two other channels would also be hijacked.

It transpired that Captain Midnight was John MacDougall, a satellite television dealer who felt that HBO’s then new fangled subscription model was hurting his sales. He was caught when a member of the public overheard him bragging about it.

Less well-known, but perhaps the scariest hijack broadcast of them all, happened in the UK way back in 1977. This seems to be among the very first examples of hijacking a broadcast, and is perhaps the most impressive. Unlike the Max Headroom incident, the motive here was clear, the message was relatively unambiguous and the broadcast was a complete success.

During an ITN news bulletin broadcast on Southern Television, the audio started crackling and the newsreader’s voice was replaced by that of “Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command”. The pictures of the news broadcast continued uninterrupted. But the sound of the news was replaced by an ‘alien’ warning of an imminent global disaster unless humans became peaceful and dismantled their weapons.

Here is a great video — the audio is genuine but the pictures are not. Carry on until the end to hear follow-up news reports on the incident.

Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command Incident from Labyrinth13 on Vimeo.

An impressive feat. The audio is very crackly in moments, but this is a successful hijacking of a broadcast to disseminate a clear message. Like the Max Headroom incident, a lot of planning appeared to go into it, with a series of electronic effects designed to make it sound like an alien broadcast, and samples of Looney Tunes cartoons.

Once again, the imposters have never come forward. However, given the message that put out and the irreverent set-up, it seems likely that it was a group of students who had some technical know-how and access to decent equipment.

It was rather naughty though, and clearly very distressing for some viewers. I suppose I would be too. What I would do is switch the channel to make sure I wasn’t going mad or that aliens actually were talking to me. However, these imposters successfully hijacked five major terrestrial transmitters. This is concerning, because it means that these people could feasibly have hijacked every television channel in one area and then some.

These successful hijacks are really disturbing. Apparently it is easy to hijack an analogue television signal. The only reason we haven’t seen more of it is simply because people haven’t found out about it.

Although there are only a few well-known instances of broadcast intrusion in the western world, they are much more common in less free countries. Falun Gong use the technique in China. And according to Wikipedia they were a regular feature of television in the Soviet Union.

In the mid-1980s one of Poland’s leading astronomers, Jan Hanasz, managed to superimpose captions on top of state television broadcasts. Using basic equipment, he and three others managed to display the logo of the Solidarność labour movement and implored viewers to boycott elections. Some say this action was one of the first cracks in the Iron Curtain.

That is an example of using this technique for good. But imagine if there was a genuine major national emergency. Any rogue elements with enough know-how and resources could easily hijack the emergency transmissions to spread misinformation or generally wreak havoc and cause panic.

A part of me wonders if this is the real reason why governments around the world are in the process of switching off analogue transmissions and engaging in a digital switchover process. Digital broadcast signals are encrypted, making them much more difficult to hijack.

But pranksters are using different methods to hijack digital broadcasts. Some Czech artists are currently standing trial after they tampered with on-site camera equipment to make a computer-generated mushroom cloud appear in a panorama shot during a weather forecast.

As technology improves, more and more broadcasts will be automated. It will be a ripe environment for future pirates.

There have been a couple of long responses to my last post on libertarianism and Ukip.

First out of the blocks was Longrider, who takes us away from abstract political ideologies and brings in a bit of pragmatism.

Libertarianism in its pure form is anarchy. If you are to have individual freedom, sooner or later you are going to need commonly accepted rules to govern the limits of that freedom. Put simply, all freedoms are limited to a greater or lesser degree. I do not profess to have the freedom to do as I please if it hurts others or impinges on their freedoms. The moment we accept this principle, we have stepped away from the brink of anarchy that is the absolute of libertarianism.

None of the libertarian bloggers I frequent appear to be offering anarchy as an alternative to what we have. This means that they recognise the need for some form of collective behaviour where individuals are unable to achieve their aims alone. We need government for foreign policy, policing, defence, local services, for example. Therefore, we accept (grudgingly) the need for general taxation to fund these activities. Depending on just how extreme is the individual will decide just how large that list is. So all of those libertarian bloggers are prepared to compromise. It doesn’t damage their libertarian credentials, though; it merely makes them pragmatists.

Longrider is absolutely correct. There is probably not a single (sane) person on the planet who thinks that there should be no government. But this is precisely my problem with a lot of the arguments put forward by libertarians.

It is a contradiction to say that government intervention in the economy is a bad thing, then to turn around and say that the government should do everything it can to control immigration. Either interfering in the economy is bad or it isn’t. Make your mind up.

I am not saying that everybody has to make a black and white choice between having a lot of government invovlement or none at all. Far from it. I sit in between, like most people do. It is not inconsistent to want free trade in goods and services but to want a restriction in the movement of labour.

But this is the thing. Once you accept that some government intervention can be a force for good, you have voided your ability to use “small government” as a mantra, a panacea for all economic ills.

It is no longer good enough just to say, for instance, “the government should reduce taxes because government intervention harms the economy and restricts my freedom.” Because in DK’s instance, he has decided that, in the case of movement of labour, govenment intervention improves the economy and that freedom matters not a jot.

I should now link to DK’s post now as the issues are becoming intertwined. His post contains not a single sweary-word, which AntiCitizenOne in the comments reckons means that “you can tell he was angry”. Heh, sorry about that DK.

DK is at pains to point out that while he is broadly in favour of free trade, he has reservations when it comes to labour.

I have reservations about the free trade in labour for reasons that I shouldn’t have to expand on beyond saying that my reservations are based on the fact that humans are not homogenous. If we were, we wouldn’t be having all this ruckus about Muslims, veils, etc.

The thing is, DK is probably right that there are problems with culture, language and so on that mean that in reality free movement of people can be a genuine problem (even though I think most of the “problems”, particularly with the debate about veils at the moment, are exacerbated and blown out of proportion by the government and the media).

But cultural issues are not the only things that vex DK about migration.

Our policy of poaching trained nurses from Africa and the Phillipines or doctors from India has been criticised, for instance, because it leaves already impoverished countries lacking trained medical staff. And now, of course, many of our medical staff cannot find jobs here and are looking to go abroad (but you can pretty much guarantee that they won’t go to the Phillipines or Africa.

Now, one can argue that this is precisely what the free market is about, but it is difficult to conclude that it does not both countries, in general terms, worse off.

In the short term it probably does make at least one of the countries worse off. In the long term it would probably make everybody better off. A proponent of the free market would usually say that if there is such a high demand for nurses in the Phillipines, surely it will encourage many more people to become nurses in the Phillipines because wages will be increased.

Here’s what The Economist had to say about migration of Poles a few months ago.

Even the emigration of a million-odd Poles has its upside. It is better to wash dishes in London than to be jobless at home. Many Poles abroad are learning new skills, languages and attitudes that will stand them in good stead when they return, as most do. Freedom of movement inside the EU means that, unlike previous generations, most Poles are not emigrating for ever.

All I will say is that short term losses for long term benefits are usually relished by libertarians. Who can seriously argue that cutting welfare benefits would not make anybody worse off in the short term, even if it makes them better off in the long term?

Just as free trade in labour has its problems, free trade in everything has its problems. These are usually played down by libertarians — think of income inequalities. But in the case of labour, DK is placing an emphasis on them.

As I said, it is perfectly fine to hold these views, even if the explanations for holding these views seem inconsistent. But that is the thing. It is not the views themselves that I object to — although I may not necessarily agree with them, that wasn’t the point I was making. It is the explanations of these views that need some fine tuning.

Since DK has revealed that in his opinion government intervention can be a force for good, he has become a utilitarian like the rest of us. It is no longer good enough just to call for smaller government for the sake of smaller government which is what most libertarians spend much of their time doing.

Longrider also puts forward this favourite argument of those who would like more controls on migration.

The argument comparing movement of peoples within the UK and peoples moving in from outside is fine but for the small matter of numbers. Just how many people can we accommodate before it becomes too much?

But people have been predicting such a Malthusian catastrophe for centuries and it has never happened, not in Britain at least (and famously the world has a food surplus). Incidentally, the fact that a Malthusian catastrophe has never occurred is also one of the most popular (and convincing) arguments put forward by climate change / peak oil deniers. Somehow, for some on the right, while it means that nothing should be done about climate change, it suddenly becomes a major problem when it comes to migration. Strange.

DK points at water shortages in the south east as evidence that it is happening, but I don’t buy that. People just as commonly point at climate change or the privatisation of water companies as causes of those water shortages, but DK wouldn’t see it as a reason to nationalise the water industry or treat climate change as a top priority.

Given that population growth in the UK (and Europe) is reaching a plateau, and that population in Scotland has actually been declining, the idea that the UK is somehow running out of space is absurd. Anyway, if we were genuinely unable to accommodate more people, nobody would want to move here, would they? That’s how the free market supposedly works you see.

Immigration seems to be a big issue in America at the moment. Many economists from many points of the political spectrum have signed an open letter on immigration, outlining “the hard-won consensus that economists have come to” on the issue.

While it might be a hot topic in America right now, here in Britain it never seems far away from the front pages, particularly since the EU increased its membership to 25

A few months ago at university we were asked to go outside and as an experiment ask people to name members of the EU. We got some pretty strange answers — almost everybody said Iceland, and one person even said Crete! But almost every time, without fail, one of the first answers people would say was Poland. When I began to notice this pattern I asked one person why he said Poland. “Well, I read the paper, don’t I?” His lips said that one, although I could sense his brain adding, “And they’re going to take my job, and my girlfriend.”

My mother is one of those people who is convinced that the whole country is now covered in eastern Europeans. I can’t say I’ve noticed it personally. But my mum insists the supermarket is filled with Poles “or somebody with that sort of accent”. I always respond, “Mmm,” which is my polite way of saying, “I disagree.”

Perhaps my mum just thinks anybody who is white and has a foreign accent must be from Poland. They could be tourists for all we know. Tourists coming to visit Kirkcaldy? Nah. Mind you, whoever is responsible for putting up road signs (the council?) seems to think so anyway, as these new tourism signs near the railway station demonstrate. Michael Portillo recommends Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery for its teas — fact!

Back to Poles though. I think I’ve only ever actually noticed one Pole working. I’m not certain about it though, but she did have an accent that sounded vaguely eastern European. It was a woman pushing a trolley in the train, and she was such a delight! Usually the trolley people are the most miserable people imaginable: shoulders slouching, feet shuffling. Their mumbling is barely audible, and they seldom apologise if they accidentally knock you with their trolley.

On the contrary, this woman was an absolute delight! She had a huge smile on her face, and she was engaging in conversation with the passengers. I’ve never seen anything like it. She lit up the entire carriage. It’s almost as if she was — gasp — happy to be pushing a trolley on a train. Who’d have imagined it! When I mentioned her to my brother he instantly knew who I was talking about. How many trolley people do you ever remember?

Apart from this, I have never had any experience of any Polish workers. One person I knew, though, said that when she was having building work done in her flat the British workers were all lazy slackers, turning up late and generally being half-arsed. But when they got Polish people in they were cheaper, quicker and happier. As a country, we would have to be absolutely bonkers to refuse these people the opportunity to work here.

I have such high respect for immigrants like that who do a decent job and contribute to society. It must take an awful lot of guts to decide to move halfway across a continent, into a completely foreign country with a different culture and where nobody speaks your first language — all to lay bricks or push a trolley on a train. I reckon somebody prepared to do that must be really desperate to do some work, and they deserve every chance they get.

Coincidentally, on the same day as the open letter on immigration emerged, Chris Dillow posted on his blog: For free immigration.

And then there was this post at Small Town Scribbles. She’s had a similar experience to me!

Leading a small life I’ve noticed nowt around here, but my mom who always has her finger on the pulse has noticed an intake in two of her local supermarkets.

But I’m afraid I may have to Fisk a bit.

One thing I have to pick a bone with though (oh didn’t you just know there was a “but” coming?) is this thing I keep hearing that immigrants do the jobs “that the British won’t do anymore.” Where the hell has this come from? Where are all these thousands of British people going, no, sorry, I’m not doing THAT!?

Well, here’s where it’s come from. It’s quite simple really. If British people wanted to do jobs as much as people from eastern Europe then the firms would jump at the opportunity to employ British people. But many immigrant workers are able to do some jobs more efficiently and for a lower wage than British people are willing to do. It is as simple as that. If it wasn’t the case then Poles obviously wouldn’t be able to work for lower wages.

It’s not about the British working classes being over-educated and all wanting plum white collar jobs really, is it? It’s about companies figuring that immigrants will take less wages.

Aah! Bingo! Correct answer, ten points. But…

Yes, those upperty working classes want fair pay for a fair day’s work, but foreigners know their place and won’t try and rattle the company’s piggy bank like those greedy British pigs. Grateful for what they can get, immigrants, they know what real suffering is. Not like the bolshy British.

…And this idea that companies are being “forced” to get immigrant labour is a white-wash to hide the fact that these compaines are ready to exploit whoever and however they can to make more profit.

I am sorry, but who is being exploited? As we have established, many immigrants are desperate to get such jobs. They wouldn’t choose to travel halfway across a continent if they were going to be exploited.

They call it the free market, they call it globalism, but without some kind of conscience being in play doesn’t this just fuck everything up for everybody long term? WMT can pay decent wages to local people, or it can misuse the people of a poor country by getting them to do the job at a cheaper rate. Isn’t it morally wrong to do the latter?

Err no. As above — nobody is being “misused”. No worker is being forced to do anything — immigrants are choosing to work here because they want to.

And if all the brightest and fittest people are leaving Poland to get a better life in Britain, where does that leave Poland?

Here is where it leaves Poland:

Many Poles abroad are learning new skills, languages and attitudes that will stand them in good stead when they return, as most do. Freedom of movement inside the EU means that, unlike previous generations, most Poles are not emigrating for ever.

Back to Scribbler:

And I know it’s market forces or whatever, but isn’t it just damn unfair to pay immigrants less money than they deserve for any given job just because we can?

Well here is the question: why would any firm in its right mind choose to pay higher wages for worse workers? Because in the end that would mean higher bus fares for all of us, and everybody — British workers, eastern European workers, bus firms, the lot — would end up worse off.

And remember this. Maybe to some British people the wages might seem to be “less than they deserve,” but why would anybody be willing to work for less than they thought they deserved, never mind travel across the continent to earn it? If the Poles stayed in Poland they would be earning even less. So why deny them the opportunity to earn some money here?

This is the concluding sentence that made me write this post though.

I would like however to at least have a little less talk about the British not wanting to do certain jobs, and a little more talk about companies not wanting to pay competitive wages.

In what sense is the company trying to avoid paying competitive wages? By employing Polish workers they are actually finding the competitive wage level. If anybody is trying to avoid competitive wages, it is the British people who call for less immigration because that locks perfectly able workers out of the market, thereby artificially raising wage levels. The only way I can think of (I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong) where firms could be paying less than the competitive wage level would be if they were using slave labour, which I assume WMT are not doing.