Dr Alf poses imponderable questions, which have no answer while the UK stays in the EU, or fails to confront laziness and poor productivity.

The British public have not come to terms with their own lack of productivity, which is 20th in the world, and has fallen 20% since the Olympics and the Jubilee to 32% in the public sector and 48% in the corporate sector. Nor have they come to terms with the fact that this lack of productivity plus laziness and an unwillingness to undertake certain jobs has plagued this country since 1885.

Immigration has been the natural consequence of the failure of successive governments and employers to confront lack of productivity, laziness and an attitude of entitlement afflicts 80% of UK workers, students and the unemployed. The truth is that many British workers, students and the unemployed are as a result of educational failures and lack of numeracy, literacy and communication skills, rendering them frequently unemployable.

Indeed with their lack of language skills, personal discipline and unwillingness to contemplate certain occupations, they are for all intents and purposes economically useless.

As long as we remain in the EU, most jobs will go to better motivated and educated foreigners and if we leave the EU then the productivity issue will have to be addressed head-on.

My solution, assuming we left the EU, would be to read the public the riot act, and if there was still no positive response I would cut annual holiday entitlements to 4 weeks including bank holidays. National Service would be reintroduced and language skills training, NLP and sales skills made compulsory, with people encouraged to set up their own businesses here or “swarm out abroad”.

John Gelmini