Why not train the unemployed as Olympic immigration officers?

I AM old enough and wise enough not to take everything I read in the national newspapers without a pinch of salt, but the sad fact is that nowadays the truth can often be stranger than fiction.

If the latest revelations concerning some low grade Government employees being trained in three days for what it takes an Immigration Officer far longer to learn are true, then things have come to a pretty pathetic level.

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Has anyone considered that since Government employees have been told to work from home for the duration of the Olympics, how are these new Immigration Officers going to get to work? And how will their change of job affect Government work... or aren’t these people really necessary anyway?

I understand that we all have to work harder (apart from those of us who would like to work beyond our retirement age but are denied), but I just wonder whether or not the authorities haven’t lost the plot.

If it only takes three days to train up these clerks to be capable of doing the job and earn large bonuses, why can’t we retrain some unemployed folk who would be only too pleased to work for £250 a day and pay tax on it?

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This would then leave the clerks to carry out their own jobs and thus the Government departments would not be able to claim later this year that they fell behind because they where deployed elsewhere.

It isn’t as if the Government ministers are too busy elsewhere, they didn’t even have time to advise the Queen that is would be best not to invite certain World leaders to lunch at Windsor Castle the other day let alone to be seen shaking hands with them and holding a conversation.

I can’t believe that Her Majesty was expected to take this opportunity to mention to the King of Bahrain that his regime is accused of human rights abuse or inform the King of Swaziland Mswati the Third that he stands accused of allowing his people to starve. Perhaps our Foreign Secretary had other things on his mind.

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PS I am given to understand that it has been claimed that the Immigration Officers who used taxis rather than their own cars which where parked in the airport staff car park did save us some money by sharing cabs to Gatwick and Stanstead so there!

PPS My Spaniel ‘Gemma’ only just failed the test to become a ‘Sniffer dog’ a few years ago so can I offer her services to the country at this critical time? Naturally neither her or owner would expect payment for this, well I new ball wouldn’t be refused (By ‘Gemma’ that is).