When the opposite of wrong is also wrong

Labourhome is carrying an article by someone called James Valentine (possibly one of our candidates in the European elections) about how he's got a friend who runs a company and hires Polish workers because British workers are not 'sufficiently reliable, diligent or hard working'. From this Valentine deduces that Phil Woolas is wrong and we need to sort out the education system, not the immigration system.

This is the kind of horrible muddle that well-meaning people sometimes get into. They start off trying to defend migrant workers against the likes of the idiot Phil Woolas, swallow a line being pushed by some employers because it supports their argument, and end up peddling the same kinds of prejudiced nonsense against British workers as others use about migrant workers.

Rather than picking sides in the Right Wing Death Match of 'lazy scroungers' vs 'thieving migrants', we need a set of policies which benefit migrant workers and unemployed Brits alike. That includes, just for a start, the not very difficult insight that if employers want well trained and highly motivated staff, they need to pay higher wages and take a bit more responsibility for training and supporting their employees, rather than pocketing the profits and leaving the government and taxpayer to pick up the tab.