Humour vacuum in the north as fruit picking quip goes sour

Updated

Honestly, you're not safe anywhere from the dreaded humour police. Try and lighten the mood of some boring meeting with an off-the-cuff quip and the next thing you know you're being cut off at the knees.

That's what happened when Tory councillor David Shakespeare (no relation) told the Local Government Association that one workable option open to unemployed northerners was to head south and take up fruit picking. He suggested it would solve two problems, firstly, joblessness among our northern brethren, and secondly, it might reduce the amount of whingeing from those who accuse Eastern Europeans of taking British jobs.

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