For decades we have been a nation of curryholics, spending over £2 billion on it every year. Perhaps as a function of lack of real integration, the public only sees Ali as the waiter who brings you your curry rather than as your neighbour or fellow citizen.

Perhaps if we lived in a more cohesive society, it wouldn’t have taken until this week for the public to have become aware of the appalling manner in which many curry house owners treat their workers. The Bangladeshi Workers Union was formed last week to finally break their silence against the often slave-trade like manner which so many of them are forced to endure and already has over 500 members signed up.

Horror stories are emerging like one quoted in a newspaper of a guy who came to work each and every day for six years because no-one told him he was entitled to holidays – in 2011 Britain. Needless to say, their pay and conditions are awful, while their owners swan in and out in their latest Mercedes, paid for in cash.

I’m glad this government has restricted the number of chefs coming from abroad on work permits for two reasons; firstly, we’ve got a glut of unemployed people on our doorstep who need those jobs and secondly it’s largely a falsehood (The Cinnamon Club being an obvious exception, which obviously I would highlight as an example of good practice) to say the chefs coming over have skills that we lack here because often the real reason is unscrupulous businessmen actually just view them as cheap labour who are unaware of their rights.

I’m also glad this union has been set up and is already in conversations with Unite because it’s only by mainstreaming these issues that they will be properly tackled.