Dr Alf makes good sense but the penny is not dropping in quite the way it needs to because the UK Government is failing to impart the difficult truths that need to be imparted and is failing to make the distinction between useful and productive citizens who produce more than they consume and those who consume more than they produce.

Public services do not need to be reduced but the number of managers and people delivering them does need to be reduced and in very short order. We cannot have a situation where we are 30th in the world for worker productivity and 30th in the world for value per taxpayer pound. We have this situation because public sector managers and directors are too numerous, have empire building tendencies and have a tendency to permit or possibly turn a blind eye to “financial irregularity”. There are also too many layers of management and too many constabularies, police forces, fire commands, councils, NHS Trusts and quangos. All these plus MP numbers need to be dramatically reduced in a top down process starting with the Civil Service and abolition of the Barnett Formula which would concentrate minds in the Celtic fringe.

The present system of dole and PIP benefits even with a £20,000 GBP benefit cap per household is too generous in that it rewards fecklessness, drug taking, laziness, the production of more illegitimate children and debauched living whilst creating an industry comprising social workers, psychiatrists, family courts, judges, barristers all of which has to be paid for by hard pressed taxpayers.

Business leaders giving themselves rewards for failure, undeserved pay rises and failing to sell or export anything are also rife and caps need to be applied to their earnings unless they deliver measurable performance.

With a bit more honesty in the unemployment figures we could identify the millions who exist in the “Black Economy” using multiple identities, multiple or even made up NI numbers and put them to work doing the unskilled jobs that migrants now do. The Government has the data in its all knowing “Benefits Computer” but is afraid to reveal what it knows, is afraid to apply the necessary measures and is afraid to call out the public about laziness and poor productivity.

Skilled migrants are always going to be needed because our state education system is too dumbed down and has too many incompetent teachers in it and poor discipline.

It would take years to fix whereas public services could be fixed much faster.

John Gelmini