Don’t forget that newspapers reflect the interests of their readers. It is not true that editors force material down their throats, it is that people buy papers, read them, which support their prejudices and discuss their interests. One thing wrong with the UK today is that a couple of million people actually do think the Daily Mail way. All of which makes what a paper discusses a rather good guide to what their readers think, even who they are. The Guardian being the home of the wet upper middle classes. You know, the sort who think they should be running the country but with that added distaste for anyone involved in trade.
A proof of this being:
Many families are facing a childcare crisis following a 75% slump in the number of young Europeans willing to work as au pairs, as Brexit, plus other factors such as last year’s terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, deter young people from coming to the UK.
May, June and early July are when most au pair placements are arranged, before the beginning of the school term in September, but Guardian Money has learned that some agencies are unable to find a single young European for British families to even interview.
Yes, one of the major problems facing the country is this shortage of nubiles for upper middle class hubbies to lust over while the wife gets her figure back.
We are told that this isn’t a middle class thing at all, no, no.
While families who have an au pair are often characterised as well off, agencies say many are “ordinary” people such as doctors, nurses, firefighters and academics who work long hours, have long commutes or do not work nine to five, which means breakfast clubs and after-school clubs often do not benefit them. An au pair can be an affordable alternative to employing a nanny.
Firefighters are pretty well paid really and who in buggery has ever described doctors and academics as anything other than professionals well into the upper middle classes? Except in Guardianland where they’re apparently just regular peeps on, for the doctors, £100k a year and up, well into the top 5% if not 1% in fact.
But Brexit might mean that Tobias and Jocasta don’t get some foreign bint to wipe their arses. Better cancel the whole idea then, eh?
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As well as reversing Brexit we presumably need to eliminate the Islamist terrorism, and maybe London violent crime. Has the Guardian any ideas that will work (evidence will be required).
BTW are Eastern European countries closing the wealth gap vis a visit UK? If they are less impoverished than they were they'll want more money to come here.
Or they could look after their own kids.
Heck, I could grow my own food. But somehow, I keep going to the supermarket — even though I have to pay market prices.
One difference is that it's really efficient to get people to grow food for you, but less so with kids. If you're a fairly low earning woman with 2 kids, work + childcare isn't worth it. You take off tax, costs, travel, work clothes, the extra costs of take aways you'll buy, cleaners etc. You do meet these women who are earning net zero.
One thing I've thought for a while is that we distort things in this country. We have many "equality" laws that result in government spending more for female than male talent. A small businessman might ignore the 27 year old woman and hire a man because there's no audit trail showing he didn't want to foot a maternity bill in a year's time. But the public sector and large bureaucracies won't. We train women doctors that deliver less hours. We have councils doing job shares, even though they're terrible for productivity.
I'm not against women working at all. But I bet we'd get a lot less if we reduced state interference so there wasn't a finger on the scales in favour of going to work.
Regarding the "inefficiency" of contracting out child care, I too would look to the said "state interference." My region, under the chant of protecting children and by hyping disturbing news anecdotes, has in the last decade brought child care into the guilty-until-proven-innocent web of government licensing, among other things requiring that some personnel have relevant university degrees. Who's against high standards?! Get rid of most of the state interference and women with children would no longer face a choice between bad and worse.
Not sure I know of any academics who work long or unsociable hours.
The Guardian article documents (through a pair of interviews) that a shortage exists (though no shortage ever exists if the pay is appropriate). It does not document the cause of continentals' reluctance to summer in Britain, beyond the sub-headline, and beyond the assertion that a hash-tag "campaign" has been begun. Heck, I could start one myself.
I doubt that Islamist violence is a factor, any more than that people reject the idea of visiting the US based on increasingly rare but well-reported school shootings. But if it is a factor, I'm with Pat: Rather than cancel Brexit, just stop recruiting Islamist residents (and promising them partial or full Sharia law).
The Guardian is on record that, if Brexit is actually implemented, no one will like nor trade with Britain. It is fitting this new factoid to that preconception, though it doesn't really fit. Even if Parliament should not just complete the exit from the EC but vote that EC residents are totally unwelcome, it would not do so fast enough to affect anyone's employment this summer.
Isn't there something of a baby bust going in much of western Europe? Perhaps young western Europeans have better opportunities open to them. Try the Ukraine or other eastern European countries.