Hand To Mouth

The Ten O’Clock News reported how Scottish langoustine was being shipped to Thailand in order to turn it into the hand-prepared scampi rightly favoured in Britain. Apparently, this is environmentally equivalent to preparing the scampi by hand in Britain.

Well, have British workers no hands? If they were permitted to use them, then there would be neither the environmental costs (real or otherwise) of machine preparation, nor those of transport to Thailand. There might, however, be those of proper wages and working conditions. I think that we have spotted the problem.

The problem, specifically, is a State in dereliction of its moral responsibilities by permitting produce to be exported for treatment by workers enjoying fewer rights and benefits than our own, in order that that produce might thence be re-exported to this country.