As supply side economics kicks in all over London, the going rate for hanging a new door, or repairing a sash window is plummeting.
However, the field of plumbing still remains a landscape littered with cowboys brits sucking on rollups and spilling cold tea all over newly (Polish-) laid pine floorboards whilst muttering darkly "Corgi Registered..? Of course I am luv" as the pricing meter ratchets up at a rate designed to strike fear into the hearts of even someone as profligate with money as the 3rd-car driving City bankers live-in polish nanny and au pair with her own Platinum credit card for "household extras".
Surely there is a solution to this crisis? Currently the EU is focusing on issues such as Police reform in Boznia, democracy in Kosovo, Human rights in Turkey and the adoption of prudent financial policy in Bulgaria as the key criteria for early admission to Euroland.
Can the EU not instead focus on what's really important? A short programme of research among the next wave of accession countries should be undertaken. Surely somewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Montenegro, and the Republic of Serbia, Albania, Macedonia or Turkey there is a top quality further education college that is already, or can easily be re-focused entirely to producing people skilled at the combination of pipe bending, valve replacement, boiler installation and light welding needed to be a top class - and cheap - plumber?
Maybe a more strategic vision is needed, and each accession country should be allocated a in-demand task to concentrate on even now? Moldovans could be learning to tile bathrooms in kindergarten. Ukranians can start to be taught electrical wiring from pre-school (there will of course be casualties in anything involving introducing toddlers to 240v live wiring systems, but this is simply the price of progress). Belarussians could even now be thinking about how to teach Dentistry to 5 & 6 year olds - who could safely practice secure in the knowledge that any mistakes will only be on their first set of teeth anyway.
The possibilities are endless - with enough planning and foresight, every single function in European society could eventually be allocated to a keen, hardworking and eager national or ethnic grouping.
One day even our reality TV contestants could all be flown directly in from the Tucks and Calicos Islands, having been trained to be dysfunctional freaks from an early age. if only we could then find someone to take over watching the damn programmes .... that would be a real result...
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