Boris Johnson has today backed TV chef Jamie Oliver’s comments last month that youngsters growing up in the capital needed to be more like Europeans and not dismiss jobs as “menial”. Speaking on day three of the Conservative Party conference, the London Mayor has risked the wrath of Tory supporters by sympathising with Jamie Oliver’s attack on British workers.
Jamie Oliver on Immigration: European Migrants are “tougher & stronger” than British workers
In an interview last month with Good Housekeeping Magazine, Jamie Oliver launched a scathing attack on the work ethic of youngsters in the UK and stated that he had “never seen anything so wet behind the ears”.
Jamie Oliver explained that he believed his European staff-members were “much stronger, much tougher” and that if there were no European workers, his restaurants would have closed and “there wouldn’t be any Brits to replace them.”
Boris Johnson Backs Jamie Oliver on “Much Stronger, Much Tougher” European Migrants
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference today, the London Mayor gave a highly provocative speech and supported Jamie Oliver’s view that British youngsters were “wet behind the ears” who “whinged” about working long hours.
Despite his feelings on the debate, he said he was “vaguely depressed” by this and recognised that European migrants were willing to take up these jobs whilst youngsters in the UK needed to be persuaded to take on low paid, low skilled jobs which London creates as “stepping stones, as a beginning to a life in work that can take them anywhere.”