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London Review of Books

All Together Now subscriber-only content

John Lloyd

  • British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics: Vol. I: The Postwar Compromise, 1945-64 edited by John McIlroy and Nina Fishman et al
  • British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics: Vol. II: The High Tide of Trade Unionism, 1964-79 edited by John McIlroy and Nina Fishman et al
  • The TUC: From the General Strike to New Unionism by Robert Taylor

Two days after May Day, the festival of labour, a story appeared on the front page of the Financial Times under the typically downbeat headline: ‘Work permit shake-up targets skill gap.’ It told of the Government’s introduction of a permit system which would allow rapid entry into the UK for foreign professionals and highly skilled technicians – doctors, nurses, software engineers, information technologists and others. The same package proposed that non-British students who possess skills which are in short supply should be able to move easily from completing their degrees to finding employment. Aimed primarily at Asia and Central/Eastern Europe, the scheme was commended by David Blunkett as proof that the Government was ‘delivering nothing less than one of the world’s most flexible modern work permit systems. To maintain a buoyant economy we need to ensure employers can quickly fill key posts where shortages exist.’

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John Lloyd is a former labour editor of the Financial Times and the author of An Anatomy of Russia and Loss without Limit, about the miners’ strike of 1984-85.