Four million Britons now have takeaway food delivered at least once a week. It would appear that your typical consumer is happy to pay a little extra for the convenience of staying parked firmly on one's arse.
There is no available data on how many arguments arise over who gets their lardy arse off the sofa to bother to open the door, but clearly takeaway deliveries are booming.
Some of the people delivering this takeaway food to lardy arses are 'irregular migrants', or asylum seekers who are stuck waiting for their claims to be processed and are disbarred from working and have no recourse to public funds.
However, there is a loophole, albeit not contractually allowed: most of them work by "renting" UK citizens' accounts on food delivery apps, typically via Facebook groups. This subcontracting is a violation of app terms of service and allows employers to avoid legal requirements like minimum wage or insurance.
The platforms – Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo – claim they are cracking down on illicit logins and bringing in ID checks and right-to-work checks. But enforcement is inconsistent, and the incentive to turn a blind eye is strong. This, after all, is a model that relies on an enormous army of low-cost, hyper-flexible labour.
NB the smuggling gangs are keen to exploit this fact: you can sell Britain to potential small-boaters with the line that 'all you need is a bike, and you can earn easy money'.
This proliferation of an unofficial gig economy work via food apps has given birth to a huge, untaxed black economy. Billions of pounds are lost each year in undocumented tax revenue.
This is a classic case of public policy failing to catch up with technological innovation.
A national ID scheme could both help prove worker eligibility and shut off access to illegal subletting of accounts.
And in the case of the fast food delivery industry specifically maybe clamping down on a few civil liberties is worth it to save the exploitation of migrant workers?
