BS: UK immigration too high?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 08:36 AM

My point, Keith, is that "too much immigration" is always going to be relative to the resources and econonomic production within a particular society. If more people are productive, there are more resources for everyone.

I would argue that tax-paying immigrants are not nearly as much of a drain on available resources as the indigenous Britons who do not work, and who live within the benefits sub-culture.

I know that this sounds incredibly reactionary, but I would really like to see this sector of society quantified in comparison to the "drain" on resources caused by immigration. I feel that it's easy to scapegoat the immigrant as the cause of Britain's problems, when in many cases, as highlighted by Don T, we are the solution.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 08:32 AM

Don T could any kind of builder provide England with a complete city of Birmingham every four years for the next 25?
That's what we will need just to stop things getting worse than they are now.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 08:21 AM

Don T, who told you the system was in place to control further immigration?
Was it Phil Woolas, the immigration minister?
He did say "Today's projections show that population growth is starting to slow down, the impacts of the radical reforms we have made to the immigration system over the last two years are working," he said.

However, Guy Goodwin, ONS director of population statistics, said the change was due to a change in data analysis, not Government policy. "I would not call it a significant slowing up in any way," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 08:08 AM

""I am only arguing for a balance between immigration and emigration.

All the parties agree that immigration is too high.
I am just arguing with three people who refuse to see what is obvious to anyone.""

And we are arguing with one person whose thinly disguised agenda would, if it were put into practice, do more damage to this country than two world wars.

The system is in place to control further immigration. It just isn't the system YOU want to see.

You rant about lack of housing, but somehow fail to notice that the Polish building workers currently in this country are among the hardest working, most conscientious tradesmen we have.

Let's see now. We don't have enough houses, right?

So let's send the people who want to immigrate into this country packing, yeah?

Hang on a minute, every Polish work gang of say eight men is building houses for huge numbers of British citizens. Even if each of those men takes up one house, he's going to contribute to the building of hundreds of others.

So, how does he rate as a drain on British resources?

1. He houses native citizens
2. He works for the hours he's paid for
3. He pays taxes, and National Insurance
4. He doesn't disappear for three days in the middle of a job

I'm beginning to think we should keep him, and send certain others packing

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 07:36 AM

Ruth, no mum is worth less than another.
No one is to blame and no particular group are causing problems or taking more than their share.
We need a young generation.
But our population is just rising too fast.

I am only arguing for a balance between immigration and emigration.

All the parties agree that immigration is too high.
I am just arguing with three people who refuse to see what is obvious to anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 07:28 AM

I will state the argument simply and with no circularity Don T.
The population is growing faster now than at any time in the last 50 years.
We could not provide enough houses and services before, so what hope have we got now.
Unrest and support for the far right results from lack of low skilled jobs and low wages caused by importing cheap labour.

Reducing immigration would help, but please give your alternative solution.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 07:24 AM

Well, I am an immigrant, so I suppose my daughter is one of these "babies born to non-UK born mothers". Of course, she's white, and could pass for a "proper" English person, so maybe she is okay.

So tell me, are we part of the solution or part of the problem?

After all, I am now a single mother, as my British husband (of 15 years) and I divorced 3 years ago. When we were married, my family paid tax into one of the higher-earning tax brackets. Now I am a nasty single mum, but I still pay my taxes (at a somewhat lower rate), work full time, and contribute to society as best I can.

I know that I am not alone. The Eastern European immigrant community that I have come across in this area are nice, decent, hard-working people. They may be using public services like schools and the NHS, but from what I can tell they are also contributing to the local economy and paying their taxes. Yet this county has one of the highest concentrations of BNP membership, accoring to the recently-leaked list.

When I worked in Leicester, I remember visiting as part of my job certain estates where there were several generations of families who had never worked. These were white, "indigenous Britons" (to coin one of Mr Griffin's favourite phrases). There is a similar "no go" estate in our nearby market town. This sense of entitlement to benefits and a dedication to getting whatever they could for nothing, letting their kids run feral and taking no responsibility for themselves, their fertility or their circumstances, is endemic in certain areas. I would not be surprised to learn that there is a high instance ofBNP voting (for those who can be bothered to get off their arses and vote) in such places.

So tell me: who is really overstretching the system? Who is it that is taking but not putting back? If more of the indigenous underclass was made accountable and compelled to work for a living, do you think that maybe the system wouldn't be as overstretched as it is? DO you think maybe the people who don't actually contribute anything to the system are the ones who ought to be targeted, rather than hard-working immigrants who contribute to Britain's coffers and cultural life?


Maybe Keith A needs to find a new scapegoat.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 07:13 AM

""Just to clarify, babies born to non UK born mothers account for about a quarter of all births.
Without that contribution, immigration would be the main cause of population growth.""

You really love your circular arguments, don't you.

Without that contribution excess of births over deaths would reduce, but the only way that contribution could disappear is for the mothers and fathers to remain in their countries of origin, which would reduce immigration in the same proportion.

NO CHANGE THERE THEN, except that our NHS, our care services, our social services, and just about every other key area of employment would be massively understaffed.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 06:44 AM

Just to clarify, babies born to non UK born mothers account for about a quarter of all births.
Without that contribution, immigration would be the main cause of population growth.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 06:00 AM

Richard please, I am not "fantasising".
The ONS quote is "The number of births is increasing partly due to rising fertility among UK born women and partly because there are more women of childbearing ages due to inflows of female migrants to the UK."
The latest ONS stats show that population is rising faster than ever.
Disagree? Go check.
Immigration comes second only to excess births, and immigrants account for most of that.
Disagree? Go check. And then come back and tell us what you find.

You sound as though you are in favour of the government controls, ineffective as they are.
Doesn't that mean you think immigration is too high?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 05:08 AM

Keith, stop fantasising about Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech. "Babies born to immigrants" indeed!

The facts are that the excess of births over deaths contribute more to population growth than immigration, and that immigration is still falling. All political parties plan to be able to restrict it in some ways (that itself is new) and there is no reason (other than "It's happened before, so it will happen again) to believe that it must rise again.

A major part of the excess of births over deaths is typical longer lifespans. That necessitates funding elderly care (unless you plan a program of compulsory euthanasia too). That in turn necessitates a growth in the economic sector, and the growth needs to be greater than the growth in population because of the ageing trend. So immigration is necessary and control measures are in place or are being put in place. The points system that you deride can operate as a soft cap because it is always possible to regulate (almost instantly, by statutory instrument) the number of points needed to immigrate.

I'd probably want to adjust A8 policy and the Employed Workers' Directive too - but the former largely on humanitarian grounds to alleviate the situations that Pierre le Chapeau describes, although the more that is publicised, the less A8 workers will want to come here (and indeed many have gone home or are going home already).

What is necessary is an explosion in the building of social housing, and as Roosevelt taught us that and an infrastructure program will drive economic growth - and if correctly located, no-central economic growth. It's that or a Malthusian doctrine, or a "drawbridge" policy that will, as Europe demonstrated in the 20s produce a severe recession.

Net A8 migration is probably negative at present. Policies to control 3rd world migration are in place. Asylum claims are down. Asylum rejection rates are up. Asylum decision times are down. Removal rates are up (although a more effective tracking system and a workable detention or tracking policy for those awaiting visas would be more effective still. It is not correct to say that immigration is rising faster than ever. The population may well be, but immigration is not. If you want to know what a falling population will do to a country, study the economic effects of the pneumonic and bubonic plagues in this country.

What else do you want? Or is it still "No foreigners, and no children of foreigners"?

With respect the very articulate black gentleman on Question Time was in a lawyer's suit and sounded like a lawyer to me - but was not challenged perhaps because of the amazing bottle he had to be so "dog in a manger". I think he MUST have been a barrister. But I have answered his question above.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:52 AM

Just so Akeneaton.
The real reason they all tried so hard to keep him off was so they could continue the conspiracy of silence.
He was no threat to them in debate, but he forced them to have the debate.
If BNP ever get a more articulate and charismatic leader we will be in big trouble.

Don, did you not wonder everyone else on your side kept very quiet about those latest figures.
I can not find where they say the government has immigration under control. You must have imagined that.
They do show that immigration will add just under 7 million people to the UK's population in the next 25 years – equivalent to seven cities the size of Birmingham.
90% of this growth will be in England.
Immigration will add almost one million to the UK's population between 2009/10 and 2013/14 alone.

No one has been able to provede housing and services for the rising population before, AND NOW IT IS RISING FASTER THAN EVER, mainly driven by immigration and babies born to immgrants.

All the problems I have referred to, and been villified for, are set to get worse and worse.

Now I invite people again to state where they stand on the question in the title.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:25 AM

Yes.... I also picked up on the gentleman you mention Keith, the spokespersons for the main parties are weasels trapped by the PC claptrap they have been spouting for the last decade.

After so long spent demonising those who disagree with their disneyland view of society, they are terified to admit the very obvious truth.

When the hard questions are put to them by someone who cannot be bullied....like the black membere of the audiance on Question Time, they cower like rabbits in the headlights.

The Programme? I thought most here would have loved it.......A "How to" video for witch hunters!.....:0).........Ake

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 02:01 AM

Tug, you should have watched QT not for Griffin but because it is so rare to hear politicians discuss immigration.
Because of him they had to.
All the politicians agreed that immigration is much too high!
My views are mainstream, yours are extreme left fringe.
Towards the end a very articulate black man from the audience made all of the concerns about immigration that you have been branding racist and xenophobic. No one challenged him.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 01:55 AM

Richard, why should we listen to your opinion on the complex economic issues of demography and migration?
Put up some authoritative opinions, and I will find an expert to contradict any that you find.
Do not state as fact that which is merely your uneducated guess.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 01:42 AM

Don, the latest ONS figures confirm everything I have said and more.
Here is an extract.
The population of the United Kingdom was 61,383,000 in mid-2008. This is an increase of 408,000 (0.7 per cent) on mid-2007 and is equivalent to an average increase of over 1,000 people a day.

Population growth has increased over recent decades; this latest increase compares with an average annual growth of 0.5 per cent since 2001; 0.3 per cent per year between 1991 and 2001; and 0.2 per cent between 1981 and 1991.

In the year to mid 2002, net migration accounted for over 70% of the total population change.

The number of births is increasing partly due to rising fertility among UK born women and partly because there are more women of childbearing ages due to inflows of female migrants to the UK.

In comparison, net migration contributed to 186,000 of population growth in the year to mid-2008, an increase of 26% on the mid 2002 figure of 148,000.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=950

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 08:55 PM

The Guardian today carries a full report on the projections and what they are based on. The birth rate is apparently much higher among the recent immigration population who have a younger age profile and a higher fertility rate.

   But so what...lets talk aboput justice. If we want the benefits, whatever they are, of EU membership, then this is part of the package. Just as it is for friends and family of mine retiring to parts of Europe!

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 07:31 PM

To be wholly accurate - the difference between the birthrate and the deathrate - which is EXACTLY why an injection to the working population is needed to fund the cost of the longer retirement period (or the period when the ageist employers will not hire despite eligibilty).

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 07:21 PM

""Do you deny that immigration is a factor at all in the housing crisis?
If it is , then it is not xenophobic for me to refer to it.
Please stop making that false accusation, attacking me personally instead of the argument.

Can you answer my argument?""


You had better do some more homework, mate, because you are falling behind the plot.

Reported on BBC News yesterday, the latest from ONS (remember them? You consider their projections as gospel truth).

They said that immigration was under a measure of control, and had been falling (just as Royston and Richard said), and furthermore the major cause of population increase now, and likely to remain so, is THE BIRTHRATE, not immigration.

Check it out. These new figures are bang up to date, not two years out of date.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 02:50 PM

Yes, thank you.
I have family in seaside towns in Cornwall so I know that housing in such towns as yours is a big issue for locals and not related to immigration.

My argument was that, especially in urban areas, the rapid rise in population has outstripped any possibilty of providing housing and many other services, and immigration has been the main driver of that rise.
There is also the issue of jobs and wages.

Can I invite people to say now where they stand, with a single sentence.
1 Immigration should rise.
2 The current rate is sustainable.
3 Immigration is too high.

For myself, I think it is too high because it is a significant cause of social, economic, and environmental problems.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM

I already have..... it is one of the factors in some areas....can you agree with that.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 06:05 AM

I have alluded to family breakups and other factors, but this thread is discussing immigration, and so I have to post about those issues where immigration is a significant factor.
Do you deny that immigration is a factor at all in the housing crisis?
If it is , then it is not xenophobic for me to refer to it.
Please stop making that false accusation, attacking me personally instead of the argument.

Can you answer my argument?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 05:53 AM

In the area I live there are few or no incomers, except from Birmingham and London. people are unable to buy in the locality of their birth because of price inflation caused by wealthy, white retirees and second home owners. There has been little or no social housing built ( partly down to local government decisions, influenced by Nimbyism ) and lots sold off into private hands ( following Thatcher's masterplan to make debtors of us all).

    Look...... There are many causes for the ills you describe, and the causes vary geographically. To simply blame immigration is Xenophobic, not even thinly veiled.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 01:53 AM

I copied the post for Tug and did not intend to copy that last line.
How interesting though, that both times I made the post you ignored my main argument and were only prepared to debate how genteel your village is!
I suspect that Tug did not really miss the post but also chose to ignore it.

Is there any point continuing this "debate" when you have not one argument between you and you can not challenge mine?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 09:29 PM

Ah, that's the eminence, not the lawyering. So now you know about my village, why carry on about it being genteel?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 04:52 PM

I did say that already but Tug missed it.
PLEASE do not tell us anymore about your village.
Not retired? Surely someone said you were (past tense) an eminent one?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 04:26 PM

Didn't you say that already? I am not retired, and it isn't a genteel village. Read my lips.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 03:03 PM

I have been too easy on you Tug.
You can not blame anyone for failing to build enough houses.
As I said yesterday, in the last 8 years, under a Labour government, the number of immigrants has increased by two million. Nearly 700 a day.
You would have to produce houses at a rate of ten per hour.
It is no good saying that there would be no problem but for ancient Tory policies.
There are just not enough houses of any kind because they just could not be built fast enough, and building land is running out.

Immigration bears down hardest on the low paid and unskilled. The Left should stand up for them.
Instead they cheer as the government, backed by the bosses, bus in cheap non union labour by the tens of thousands.

But you, retired "eminent" lawyer in your genteel English rural village, are entitled to your opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 02:27 PM

That may be true on an intellectual level, but to a hard pressed family in deprived circumstances, they just see a long waiting list and wish that there were not so many newcomers.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 12:30 PM

Does the competition for scarce social housing effect you and your family much? Might your opinion be different if it did?

actually it has had huge effect, but the shortage has nthing to do with immigration.....or single mothers,but onyears of national and local government.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 11:39 AM

These foreigners!
They come over here, filling up our threads, taking all our posts....

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 11:14 AM

Close the gates of our nation,
    Lock them firm and strong!
    Before this mob from Europe,
    Shall drag our colors down. (USA song, 1923)

"Mob from Europe"? These racist Americans dared to call us mob?

Now immigration from other continents that's a different story. They are really different and that goes too far. Imagine, in our national football team now play guys like Mesut Özil, kid of immigrants from Asia. I can't even pronounce their names. Why can't we have good old German players with good old German names like Pierre Littbarski, playing the world championship in 1990, or Kevin Kuranyi, more recently.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 09:09 AM

1. Wot?
2. AFAIK. I don't think there are any accountants. But the bloke who runs the crims hostel is Nigerian, and the people who run the takeaway and one village shop are Chinese, the other village shop Singaporean I think, and the kebab shop up the road Turkish, the dentist is the daughter of the very nice Kenyan Asians who run the post office, and there are some also very nice stoppers (travellers and part-Romany who have stopped travelling and now live in brick houses) although the stopper I got on with best ODd. He might have been spiked, as as well as a dealer he was a grass.   Not an idyll. There are two retired doctors on the outskirts, and there is also a methodist chapel that gets a small congregation one of whom runs the garage.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 03:36 AM

Are you,
the only lawyer in the village?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 03:33 AM

Just like The Wire Richard?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 03:28 AM

Well doh Keith, why would the parish council put up pictures of the bits it didn't like? The Nag's Head currently has pictures of the Kray twins beside the bar, and occasional strippers on Fridays, as well as karaoke that can be heard for 800 yards on a bad night.

The Ship is partly demolished, the front bearing the poorly painted over graffiti "Don't share cunts".

Our village hall was on the Southern news about a party last Saturday (10 days ago now) where 250 drunk 13 year olds rioted at a hall with capacity of 125.

There is an ex-cons hostel, the inhabitants of which gather behind the public lavatories to drink strong cider. Indeed I had at one stage two lodgers, one awaiting trial for GBH and the other (an ex-tankie) just out after a stretch for fraud, but both moved on and, happily, up.

Lower Stoke as a village has the worst reputation on the Hoo peninsular - a peninsular with a pretty poor reputation as a whole.

You don't know, and you don't want to know, so you pretend that I don't know in stead.

Setting one part of the dispossessed against another part of the dispossessed is not the answer.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 02:31 AM

Unchanged for a hundred years Richard.
Nice.
Not like the places described by Guest Pierre.
In case he is delete, here are his posts.
From: GUEST,Pierre Le Chapeau - PM
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 12:40 AM

If you walk the streets of London.
you wont find a poor old man kicking up old newspapers.
you wont see any old girls with dirt in there hair.
The old seaman out side the seamans mission died years ago.

What you will see if you walk the streets of London
is scores of East Europeans sleeping rough in large numbers,

You will see East European Gypsies with babes in arms streaked with tears there men playing accordians on tube train to commuters who dont give a shit. "Thats what you will see
                   If you walk the streets of London"
Kind regards to all Pierre.



Here is some info that you dont hear about on National TV.

There is often conflict between East European homeless in London
and there counterparts The British National homeless.
in regards to prim begging/sleeping locations.

The under passes at the Elephant and Castle in London are a prim place for this kind of problem. along with several other locations acrross London.

I work in London.
We get homeless folk from overseas and from over here sleeping outside museums and in parks.

You often get 10 or maybe more sleeping under the 15 inch Guns outside the War Museum.

What these East european homeless folk do is they drape Tarpulins over the Guns making huge tents which they gather in, in large groups with babes and young children in tow. dogs and all sometimes.

Being security we have to move them on. Its a sad state of affairs brought about by a government who dont care and that applies to all political parties weather they be left wing or right wing.
No one gives a toss.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 01:57 AM

Richard's village.
http://www.stokeparishcouncil.org.uk/

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 01:51 AM

Some nice pictures of your village here Richard.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.stokeparishcouncil.org.uk/images/Nags-Head-Lower-Stoke.jpg&imgrefurl=http://
Not really the front line is it?

You speak about immigration being in decline as if it is no longer an issue.
Once again I must educate you . How can you have such strong opinions and yet know so little?
Research by the Institute For Financial Studies shows that immigration will add almost 1 million – equivalent to a city the size of Birmingham – to the UK's population during the course of the next Parliament. Overall, the UK's population will grow by almost 2 million over the next five years, even allowing for the recent, perhaps temporary, fall in immigration.
To reflect last year's expected decline in immigration, this estimate assumes that net migration will fall to 150,000 a year and stay there, compared to the current official assumption of 190,000 a year,. It also assumes a Total Fertility Rate of 1.95. The results show that the UK's population as a whole will grow by 1.96 million; immigration will account for 0.90 million.
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn87.pdf

To suggest that these kinds of numbers can be accomodated in a few empty properties or by moving people around just shows yet again how out of touch you are.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,Pierre Le Chapeau
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 01:08 AM

Here is some info that you dont hear about on National TV.

There is often conflict between East European homeless in London
and there counterparts The British National homeless.
in regards to prim begging/sleeping locations.

The under passes at the Elephant and Castle in London are a prim place for this kind of problem. along with several other locations acrross London.

I work in London.
We get homeless folk from overseas and from over here sleeping outside museums and in parks.

You often get 10 or maybe more sleeping under the 15 inch Guns outside the War Museum.

What these East european homeless folk do is they drape Tarpulins over the Guns making huge tents which they gather in, in large groups with babes and young children in tow. dogs and all sometimes.

Being security we have to move them on. Its a sad state of affairs brought about by a government who dont care and that applies to all political parties weather they be left wing or right wing.
No one gives a toss.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,Pierre Le Chapeau
Date: 21 Oct 09 - 12:40 AM

If you walk the streets of London.
you wont find a poor old man kicking up old newspapers.
you wont see any old girls with dirt in there hair.
The old seaman out side the seamans mission died years ago.

What you will see if you walk the streets of London
is scores of East Europeans sleeping rough in large numbers,

You will see East European Gypsies with babes in arms streaked with tears there men playing accordians on tube train to commuters who dont give a shit. "Thats what you will see
                   If you walk the streets of London"
Kind regards to all Pierre.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 06:44 PM

Keith, I like my village, but genteel it is not. The local name for it is not "Lower Stoke", but "Lower Coke". It is a couple of miles from Allhallows on Sea with its caravanparks, and the slipways from which a fast boat can be in Amsterdam in an hour. Amsterdam, the home of iffy drugs and iffy diamonds. Go to the boat park, any day of the week, and apart from the boats that are at sea you will be able to count half a dozen of those giant semirigid inflatables that the cigarette smugglers use off Gibraltar. Most of them have FOUR Mercury 100s on the transom. The estuary's equivalent of a Mitsubishi 300FQ. The "Q" stands for "Quick".

I know a couple of bods formerly of Fleet Air Arm who are rebuilding an MTB which will run 4 bloody great v8s. They approached a friend of mine formerly of Special Boat (when he came out of the nick after his stretch for attempted murder - a crock if there ever was one: if he'd wanted someone dead they would have been dead) to do the navigation.

This is not the gin and Jaguar belt.

Yes, the left should stand up for the low paid and unskilled. I do. But I do not do that by discriminating against the even lower paid and even less skilled.

The rate of immigration is not rising. It is falling. But yes, funding the building of housing would be another good way to palliate the effect of bankers' recession on the real workers.

There are plenty of empty houses - kept empty by speculators. Some in Chelsea. One right behind my house. An ex-pub that could have housed 6 next door and partly demolished by a speculator. Even some in Chelsea owned by Russian emigres who stole that country's wealth.

Some, too, are in the North. Indeed many.

The empty north.

So, if the government had the balls, it could legislate to make bankers advances recoverable, to make derivatives losses recoverable, to make the bail-out finds for banks recoverable loans, to prevent banks paying dividends (or bonusses) out of profits that had not been held for 5 years, to render its bailouts recoverable loans - with debenture rights to take over management of the banks.

Before that it would have to re-impose Exchange Control, which Thatcher abolished as a wholly doctrinaire move to help her oppress the working classes (oh, sorry, what did she call it "Impose commercial discipline"?).

Then the funds repossessed from the banks could be spent on creating industry where we need it.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,Pierre Le Chapeau
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 06:20 PM

The amount of national homeless people has increased in towns and cities all over the country.

but homeless problems have been made worse by imigration in regards to homeless imigrents sleeping rough.

Lets face it the country is swamped with them?

I am not racist towards these people I hold genuine concerns for them because our own goverments dont give a shit about our own homeless so what chance have folk from over countries got. but a life of misery. I am not talking abouit tramps Iam talking about whole families from overseas sleeping rough.
I know homeless nationals in London who have been homeless for years who are moaning themselves about this problem.
Reagrds Pierre.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 03:56 PM

Richard, in the last 8 years, under a Labour government, the number of immigrants has increased by two million. Nearly 700 a day.
You would have to produce houses at a rate of ten per hour.
It is no good saying that there would be no problem but for ancient Tory policies.
There are just not enough houses of any kind because they just could not be built fast enough, and building land is running out.

Immigration bears down hardest on the low paid and unskilled. The Left should stand up for them.
Instead they cheer as the government, backed by the bosses, bus in cheap non union labour by the tens of thousands.

But you, retired "eminent" lawyer in your genteel English rural village, are entitled to your opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 03:18 PM

The removal of social housing was ANOTHER right wing agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 03:01 PM

We are all entitled to our opinions, but you should be aware that yours is very much a minority one.
72% think that the government is not doing enough to restrict immigration.http://www.policy-network.net/uploadedFiles/Events/Events/Ben%20Page.pdf

It is found that the lowest paid are disadvantaged by immigration, and the highest paid benefit. Might that have helped you form your opinion?

Does the competition for scarce social housing effect you and your family much? Might your opinion be different if it did?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 11:55 AM

Ah at last. We recognise that that we have different opinions...despite any 'facts and figures'. The reasons for disagreement remain both valid and interesting, and are ultimately more about world view and enduring commitments rather than the type of fluctuations latter day capitalism results in.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,erbert
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 11:41 AM

lets ask irreverent immigrant folk rock band "Kultur Shock"
for their well considered opinion on this issue..


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000HWZ682/ref=dp_image_text_0?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 09:02 AM

Tug, the figures show that we are, comparitively,very densely populated.
In your opinion we are not overcrowded.
Many people, especially in the South East, disagree.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:55 AM

Keith, thank you for the link to density figures, I was not aware that we had overtaken Holland. We both remain prosperous.
The trouble with the reporting is its making of unwarranted claims.

England has become the most crowded major nation in Europe, official figures have revealed.

The figures show nothing of the sort, crowded is a judgement, not a fact. many square kilometres in UK have hardly any inhabitants, in cities the figure will be several times higher than reported. To travel across britain, for the most part it is its emptiness and lack of habitation that strikes one as we gaze from the railway carriage window, or come in low to land in a aeroplane.The figures for the whole of britain as against, say the USA are in some part due to our lack of great wildernesses such as deserts and mountain ranges.

Our island is still not overrcrowded, and most prople still choose to live in areas of higher than average density.