Sandwichgate – More Migrant Bashing

The Daily Mail’s front page lead this morning appears at first glance as if someone hacked the Northcliffe House computer systems and substituted a parody front page for the real thing. But no, “Is There No-One Left In Britain Who Can Make A Sandwich?” is a real, serious headline. And the article backing it up is equally serious – and just as spiteful as the rest of the paper’s attack copy.

What's so f***ing wrong with kicking foreigners, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre has decreed that anyone who speaks foreign is not one of the Daily Mail’s kind of people. Moreover, those that fit into that category are to be regularly frightened at the prospect of cars with non-UK numberplates fetching up on the street where they live. They are also to be fed the line that they have only come here to get benefits.

So the opening of a new factory near Northampton in two years’ time, for which the owners may recruit some of the workers from Hungary, is an ideal opportunity for the Vagina Monologue and his obedient hackery to spread the usual migrant-baiting smears, which, by fortunate coincidence in the run-up to a General Election, can be labelled as “All being Labour’s fault”.

And, as for Hungary, well – I mean, they call a railway station a Pályaudvar. What’s that about, eh? It’s foreign, innit?!? Just wait till Littlejohn sees that. And they call a square, as in Sloane Square, a Tér. With an accent. In fact, the language has far too many accents on letters not to be highly suspect. And they’re coming here to get tax credits and housing benefit.

Budapest: station with funny foreign name

Here we get to the real reason for the story: “In Hungary, the average wage is little more than £7,000. Even if workers coming here were on the minimum wage, they would earn almost double that – £13,520 a year. And they would have their wages topped up with tax credits – seen as a major attraction for EU migrants – and housing benefit”. Thet’re getting something Mail readers don’t get!

And, as the man said, there’s more: “a migrant with no dependants on the minimum wage has their net income of about £184 a week boosted to £254, studies have suggested. For those with a partner and two children, that rockets to £543 a week, equivalent to a salary of more than £28,000”. 300 foreigners! Be angry, Mail readers! All on benefits, and in clear defiance of Iain Duncan Cough!

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the firm may only be recruiting 151 workers from mainland Europe: the phrase was “most of”. And tax credits and housing benefit are paid to UK citizens too – yes, even to Daily Mail readers. So wage levels are lower in Hungary? So what? They live here, they pay the same price as UK citizens for everything.

This story is more demonising and xenophobic claptrap. So no change there, then.