Manipulating an airliner, is, in fact, easy with a bit of practise. The serious error made by bean-counting managements who increasingly do not know that they are actually in the aviation business is, they take this "automation phenomenon" to mistakenly conclude that "airliners fly themselves" and airline pilots are, to use John Glenn's pithy aviator's statement, merely "spam in a can" and are dispensible or, if they are THAT necessary, we can "put a resource, cheaply and quickly trained, in the cockpit to accompany the one experienced pilot."
Truly, that is what the "MPL" conjurs for me and many who see this not as an aviation-related initiative, but an initiative driven by money not safety, and by these fundamental misconceptions of what it takes to fly an airliner in as complete safety as possible.
Says it all.