IQ and the skills of nations

Digby Jones, Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, will tell his members at their annual conference today, “there will not be any work in Britain for unskilled people … within one scholastic generation.” Outsourcing is the culprit, with the jobs going to India, China and, increasingly, the countries of eastern Europe.

Jones is scathing of the protectionist trends in American and French political life. One would, of course, expect him to be. The CBI has been a cheer-leader for goin’ global for years. Its D-G has “formed the view that if ever there was a country made for globalisation it is Britain. It is in our DNA.”

Well, he might be over-heating somewhat there and probably meant to say that it is in our island culture. Still, from that one can fairly construe that he is referring to the culture of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples of this island. So, if globalisation will indeed pin our future prosperity to our native capacities, which seems to be the logical extension of Jones’ premise, why are we allowing in 150,000+ legal and illegal immigrants each year with not a moment’s consideration of theirs.

The answer, inevitably, is that the left does not wish to discuss IQ. For a very long time the left has made strenuous if less than fair-minded efforts not to have to discuss IQ. The left only wants to believe in the equality of man and it absolutely insists that we all hold hands and believe along with it. Or accusations will fly.

Accusations are toxic to political careers. So the bookshelves of Westminster probably don’t hold many copies of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen’s seminal 2002 work, IQ and the Wealth of Nations. And it goes with saying that La Griffe’s contribution is far too sticky to mention in polite circles.

The result is an attitude of blind complacency. Jones himself demonstrates it when, of the working man’s anxiety at global competition, he says, “you have nothing to fear if you skill yourself.” Leaving aside his wish to reassure employees, he is operating here under the unquestioned assumption that appropriate skills, meaning for the most part intellectual skills, can be acquired by that part of the workforce at the wrong end of the bell curve. And heaven forbid that he should ever offend anyone by mentioning racial difference.

Of the role of government - both Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson will be in the conference hall to hear his speech - Jones says, “Ensuring people have the skills remains our problem.” Well, there speaks the corporatist. Government cannot “ensure” anything of the sort. It’s the fact that it tries to that is the problem. This government, in particular, has driven educational standards downward in its attempts to be inclusive to those of low academic aptitude. It is set fair to do so again under the Tomlinson proposals. The least government should do would be to police our borders effectively, remove failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants from our midst and remove itself from the educational equation.

Then, in amends for the desperate mess it has made of the country’s human capital, perhaps it could send a copy of Lynn & Vanhanen to dear Digby.

Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, November 8, 2004 at 01:10 PM in British Politics
Comments (3) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Phil on November 08, 2004, 05:07 PM | #

Unfortunately the things that Id like outsourced - like Public Transport (starting with outsourcing the “Toob” to the Germans), Healthcare (The NHS anyone?), Education (those Teachers Unions - if I could make them disappear in a second!) and of course our wonderful Labour Government (how about we outsource that to Christophe Blocher or the Danes or someone with a little better sense?) cannot be outsourced.

Nah. Thats not in our DNA. And that would of course violate “Social Justice”. Wont happen.

Posted by Laban Tall on November 09, 2004, 07:11 PM | #

I don’t understand, Doctor. There’s Digby Jones saying there won’t be any manual jobs left.

But there’s also Blunkett saying we need loads more imported bodies to do the manual jobs the Brits won’t do. And every farm in my area has four caravans containing 16 Polish/Romanian farm workers. Nice people actually.

They can’t both be right - or can they ? Maybe he means that there won’t be manual jobs for Brits, ‘cos they won’t cross the road for a fiver an hour. Instead they’ll sit at home playing Nintendo while the educated rump pay ever-higher taxes to support them, and the real manual work is done by Poles.

Posted by john fitzgeraldh on November 13, 2004, 07:35 AM | #

I think the government could be outsourced if it kept to this criteria:
“The least government should do would be to police our borders effectively, remove failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants from our midst and remove itself from the educational equation”.

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