Migrants to UK will be required to pass A Level standard of English - WTF?

[Emrys]

8. I'm sure I recall also taking an AS-level exam in English language

(our teacher sold it to us as "You won't need to revise for this, you're taking A-level anyway, but there'll be no harm in doing it" ), and that was in the mid-1970s, but all I've found online says AS-level was introduced in 1989. Maybe it was a trial or pilot? I think we all sailed through it anyway.

I think this move is a solution seeking a problem. I do think it's important to encourage people whose first language isn't English to have sufficient familiarity to interact more easily with the country's everyday life and function within it, and I know more practical-based courses exist to cover that without being a condition of remaining. What I've managed to read about the new measures seems rather vague and geared to immigrants who are seen as likely high-flyers with advanced skills or expertise in some fields.

So it's setting up an extra obstacle for people the country needs to fill posts that are not being taken up for whatever reason by those already resident here.

I guess the headlines may make it appear as if the government's doing something to cut immigration levels.

But I find myself saying repeatedly nowadays to the main UK parties, "You can't out-Reform Reform," just as you could never out-UKIP UKIP. The futile efforts to do so are dragging the whole country to places I certainly don't want to go.