The Nearly Good Life

Jacob is a lifelong Labour supporter, while I tend to the Conservative furrow. He often harangues me therefore, but I am unlikely to vote for any of the big three next time. They never discuss anything that I am concerned about! On the whole the economy is not too bad and the NHS is probably as good as we deserve. The things I am interested in are: Europe and its increasing reach; law and order and finally immigration.
A young Lithuanian family work one of our allotments and the man's name is Mishi. He's a good fellow and works hard and so you might wonder what problem there can be from the arrival of 400,000 or so Mishis over the last few years and the further arrivals that are forcast from Rumania etc.
For the Chattering Classes that that are said to form opinion, there is no problem whatever. One of their major costs, which is the price of menial labour, has been reduced at a stroke. It is a bit different for those at the other end of the spectrum of power. What of the armies of people that worked in hotels, who did the cleaning in offices or looked after children? Quite simply they have been priced out of the market.
I myself am a parttime gardner for a busy man who owns a large garden that he has no time to look after, and I suppose it is only a matter of time before some young Lith or Latvian undercuts me. It all reminds me of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. This was not so much an invasion as a mass movement into Britain when the Romans withdrew in the 5th century. Britons, long under the protection of Rome, hired Saxons and Angles to protect themselves from even more undesirable attacks from the sea. Like Polish Plumbers, Saxon Sworders brought their families and eked out a marginal existence on the land down by the marsh. In time they got fed up with that and merely pushed the Britons out of the Big House and supplanted them. The Britons who survived walked to Wales and lived in the hills waiting for some Normans to attack.
I hope Mishi hasn't got his eye on my plot, but if he has and I have to walk to Wales, I bet the chattering classes splash me with mud as they overtake me in their Chelsea tractors.