Here's the deal:

Power plant workers and other industrial types (including my dad's plant, but he just went home) have been conducting unannouced 'wildcat' strikes in protest against foriegn workers getting jobs in Britian. The argument is that British workers are being passed over for jobs in these credit-crunchy times and the jobs are being awarded to EU workers who will work for less.

However, there's something else going on here. Every 'wildcat' strike has been assured that they will not lose their jobs any time soon, and certainly not before foreign workers do. The whole thing started when Italian workers arrived to carry out a contract in Lindsay which had been negotiated months before the economy started to go into proper meltdown.

Is the economic downturn being used as an excuse for xenophobia, a way to let out fears that have been latent for years?

Yesterday's headline on the Huffington Post was 'COMING TO AMERICA - THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN WORKERS GIVEN JOBS WITH BAILOUT CASH'. That is a very abnormal thing for Liberal Central to be harping on about. So it's not just the UK.

So, thoughts? Do you think this recession is going to pick apart the fraught bonds of tolerance that our governments have been trying to instil for years? When the shit hits, will all this talk of tolerance and giving people a chance because their country is a shithole go out the window?

'British jobs for British workers!' exclaimed Gordon Brown. And now the idiot is having to consider trying to bypass EU legislation to stick to that.

Maybe this downturn could get interesting after all.