A friend who had been to a hospital consultation with her child recently remarked: “I always think it’s more about what they DON’T say than what they do.”
There are certainly times when, despite a lot of words being spoken, the silence is deafening.
That is certainly the case when it came to the British government’s post-Brexit visa plans this week.
It was accompanied by lots of rhetoric – when your leader is a purveyor of purple prose garlanded with historical aphorisms, political announcements tend towards verbosity.
Despite being underpinned by the Tory party’s long-held ambition to “reduce net migration”, thankfully for home secretary Priti Patel the pesky numbers were in a written ministerial statement rather than a rehearsed press conference.
One of the things NOT being said which captured the headlines was the omission of social care workers from the special `fast-track health and care’ visa.
Doctors, nurses, radiographers, social workers and paramedics with confirmed job offers will be welcomed.
The prime minister’s `official spokesman’ hastily assured everyone the government wants employers to "invest more in training and development for care workers in this country".
While there are some admirable exceptions, as a cohort care home employers - much like the Conservative government - are not known for their dedication to investing in the training and development of people paid minimum wage.
Government spending has fallen by around £300 million over the last decade – despite a 21 per cent rise in the number of people of pension age and an even steeper increase in the number of working age adults in need of care.
I will track with interest the outworkings of Downing Street’s “additional £1.5bn of funding for social care in 2020-21" pledge.
As for employers, a Lancaster University study found the four biggest providers in terms of revenue had the worst English records in inspection ratings for safety among the top 10.
Pressure group Compassion in Care says whistleblowing has revealed a system “all profit-driven, so everything is done on a shoestring. All we hear is the need for more money but that is just part of the problem - the whole system is broken”.
One company paid a director almost £2.4m over two years while advertising for care assistants at £8.73 an hour.
The door of the UK is, if not flung open, left a little ajar for those who can hit 70 `Priti Points’.
Priti Points are a bit like my toddler’s `Splashy the Whale’ game, but even more humiliating for hardworking adults than being squirted in the face from a plastic blowhole.
Points are awarded, among other things, for being able to speak English to a certain level (insert your own joke here about your intercounty rivals) and a job offer from an approved employer.
Skilled jobs with salaries of £25,600 or above can earn 20 points, as does a doctorate in a science, technical, engineering or mathematical subject – and so on and so forth.
If you have skills in health and education (where there are shortages) you can get 20 points earning `just’ £20,480.
If you earn at least 90 per cent of the going rate in their industry of £23,040 you win 10 points.
Scientists and academics (`global talent’), musicians and artists can come without a job offer, but still need points and `sponsorship’ from professional bodies.
As you can see – lots and lots of words.
And if you listen you can hear the silence around them saying: “Only if you earn at least three-quarters of the UK average wage are there jobs waiting for you.
“Anything lower than that and we’re good, thanks. We have more than enough of our own low earners here to fill those spaces and we project that this will be the case well into the future.
“That means we already know that we will not be investing in educating our young people to a standard where they will be able to fill those roles and lift them out of poverty.
“Send us your energetic, your rich, your swaggering unencumbered travellers, the sparkling gems of your sparsely populated lands – we’ve got the tired, poor, huddled, wretched masses covered.”
Aren’t you so glad we’ve taken back control?
