Travelling the highways and byways of England recently, I stopped a few times at motorway service stations. Every time I stopped, I was served by people who appear to be Polish, or least Eastern European of some description. I'm not saying this to complain about it, far from it, but you can't help noticing that the vigorous growth of our service industries seems to be fuelled wholly by imported labour. When I last went to Scotland, every single person who provided any kind of service -- from the hotel porter to the waitress at the Mexican restaurant -- appeared to be Polish. I'm not sure if the metropolitan elite, who are used to the cosmopolitan nature of the capital, understand the magnitude of this transformation in the rest of country.
I'm not bringing this up in order to pass judgement one way or the other, but I was moved to comment on this because the postman called yesterday morning to deliver a parcel and when I answered the door, she was Polish too. I wonder what happened to the previous Seikh gentleman?
In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]
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