BS: UK immigration too high?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 03:57 PM

The word co-incide is not wholly accurate, but further the proposition you advance is not exactly that which you previously advanced.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:17 PM

Conciously or unconsciously you have judged that anyone who expresses any concern about high immigration is a racist

Oh Keith, please. You always ,reasonably, ask others for chapter and verse. Nowhere have I called you racist. Xenophobic suggestions are something else. Of course my profile of you, based on limited info was inaccurate. Most people who ask for their communication to be profiled, however, are not asking to find out who they 'are', but how they come across to others. I think that you have ample evidence from posters here and elsewhere, that you consistently come across in a certain way, whether you intend it or not. If this concerns you, you are able to change your style of communication without changing your enduring commitments.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 06:33 PM

Richard i think coincides is a good description.
Tug, Xenophobia in this context would have to be a fear of foreign immigrants and thus racism.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 06:37 PM

I sense that this thread is drawing to a close.
I did not expect that we would agree an answer to the question in the title, but I hoped that we would hear members' different answers to it.
I had strong reservations about entering the debate, as I said early in the "conundrum" thread.
I expected, correctly, that others could not discuss this without resorting to name calling.
Most people sensibly stayed away, and I became the only person putting the case against.

Looking back, I would summarise the stages in the other side's arguments thus;


1. We would really like to discuss immigration with you Keith.

2. We are having the discussion, but if you describe any concerns related to the issue of immigration, you are a racist.

3. We concede that there are concerns, but you must not describe them now because we think immigration is now declining, and if you disagree, you are a liar.

We now see that there is every reason to believe that the decline is temporary, and there is no evidence that it will continue.

I am very interested to know where they will go next.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,Richard Bridge still fighting with the Dell
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 06:54 PM

I don't think I have said any of those things.

1. I regret to way that your obsession with immigration is self-describing.
2. Your concerns lead repeatedly back to the worry that immigrants are different, are not "British". That is racism. I see no indication anywhere that you would be worried if white English emigres returned "home".
3.   I am not concerned by immigration, as I perceive it.

No, you have assumed that the decline in immigration is temporary despite the fact that there is very little actual co-incidence (that is to say occurrence at the same time), and that the world of statistics is full of happenstance correlations. I am NOT going to get out my old stats texts and see what degree of confidence there is to an alleged relationship between economic growth and net immigration. If you want to show that there is a statistical correlation, you do the arithmetic. You will still have to show a causative relationship.

Your position, Keith, boils down to wanting to keep foreigners out. Otherwise you would be wanting to address breeding habits. But you show no signs of concern about white English breeding habits: only those of the people you don't want here.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 07:06 PM

""Xenophobia in this context would have to be a fear of foreign immigrants and thus racism.""

Xenophobia, in any context, is fear of foreigners, whether they be in England or Abroad.

It is independent of their location, and therefor the correct descriptor in this case is bias against immigrants.

Racism may not be the appropriate single word for this, but it will have to do until somebody invents a better one.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 07:51 PM

Xenophobia is not the same as racism. Racial prejudice is not the same as racism. A rule of thumb is that racism is action, based on racial prejudice, taken that actually detracts from the life chances of others.

   many immigrants are of the same 'race' that indigenous british people are ( caucasian) some white ( eastern europeans) some non-white ( people from the Indian sub-continent.)

   Whilst Keiths postings do not bespeak racism ( whether he is racist or not) they certainly give succour to those of racist tendencies.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 03:20 AM

I refute both racism and xenophobia.
All the so called examples quoted against me were just objective and rational arguments for a lower rate of immigration.
Putting those arguments is my role in this debate.
It does not mean that I am obsessed with anything, any more than someone on the other side.

Of course it is much easier to make personal attacks than to counter my arguments.
Talk about the issue and not about me.

Richard, explain your statistical objection or stop saying you have one.
The FACT that each of the last 3 recessions produced a temporary dip in net immigration is good evidence that it might again.
I am not a statistician, but I am a physicist and know that that graph would be regarded as empirical proof of a relationship.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:03 AM

Keith, read what I said. If economic growth led to immigration then the change in immigration would always follow (by a constant-ish margin) the previous change in the economy. It doesn't. I gave the detail above.

Imagine you are investigating the effect of applying flame to a beaker of water. If it gets hot before the flame is applied, or cools while the flame is being applied, the heating effect is being caused by something else.

Are you not aware of the well known happenstance correlation between the number of storks and the birthrate, wherever it was?

And do you not see that there are other factors intended to affect immigration that will be in place when (and if) we climb out of this recession?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 09:41 AM

Richard, it is Royston who keeps saying that economic growth leads to immigration, not me.

My point is that a recession causes a surge in emigration, resulting in a temporary dip in net immigration.
This is the fourth time in a row it has happened.
What are the odds of that being happenstance?


Are the "other factors inteneded to effect immigration" the new points based system?
How could that cause emigration??
Remember the latest ONS figures showed "little change" in gross immigration.
The new system is having little or no effect on it.

But wait.
Perhaps Royston will now tell us how he knows that this decline in net immigration is not going to be brief like all the others.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 09:53 AM

Re migrationwatch, the very latest official statistics show that all their predictions have been accurate, and their critics wrong.
Take a look.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/pressReleases/19-October-2009

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: GUEST,erbert
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 10:11 AM

yeah, yeah, yeah, constantly blame immigration for the ills of society..

We live in too small a place for too many people of any kind.

When will all of us be intelligent and responsible enough
to practise voluntary birth and population control.
No more than 2 kids per family,
and as many adults as possible convinced of the positive benefits
of a lifestyle opting out of parenthood.

Well thats what me and the mrs think and decided to do.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 10:25 AM

Probably the trick is to get the immigrants to do it!

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 11:47 AM

What no-one has yet owned up to is that the places with the densest populations are also the richest. Sheck out the netherlands. For our neck of the woods, try channel islands, compare population density and GDP

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 12:42 PM

But the resources would have to be coming from some place else.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:29 PM

Oh yes, they do, as is is the case in the UK. However the 'our overcrowded little island' argument is bankrupt at every level.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:54 PM

Tug, the government has calculated the economic benefit of immigration to amount to 62 pence per citizen, which hardly compensates for the problems that have arisen in school provision, housing crisis, health care, social unrest etc.
We have overtaken Holland in population density. USA Germany and France have much lower densities than us.
Bangla Desh is higher.
Perhaps you could develope your proposition with some evidence and comparisons.

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. How will we provide homes, schools, hospitals, houses,.....?

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 06:27 PM

Keith, the 2002 projections were not those that you were earlier defending, but the higher 2007 ones. To imply (as you do) that they were one and the same seems erm - go on, you supply the word.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:57 PM

Figures , plese Keith, on population densities for netherlands and UK.62 p per person, whatever that means, is still a benefit. What evidence have you that schooling and housing problems are caused ( rather than exacerbated by) immigration, There are a lot of other contenders, and there are still more unoccupied properties than homeless people.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 02:26 AM

This is a very one sided debate.
You people make up theories without any evidence, the latest is Tug's overcrowding brings wealth theory, and demand I produce all the figures!
When I knock it down, you just forget it and make up another.
Tug, this article is about density. It cites very recent ONS figures. I can find a direct link if I must.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2967374/England-is-most-crowded-country-in-Europe.html

Tug, there are other factors in the housing crisis, e.g. family breakup, but the main cause is population outstripping provision and immigration provides 70% of our population increase (same article).

Richard, the 2007 ONS projections were based on the most recent figures available. We have just seen that those immigration figures were a serious UNDERESTIMATE, making the projections even worse.
If the recession effect is only temporary like all the previous ones, those projections ARE still valid.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:44 AM

the latest is Tug's overcrowding brings wealth theory,

Oh dear, no wonder exasperation is sometimes evident in these pages. I said nothing of the sort. I merely pointed out that some of the areas of gretest density were amomg the most affluent ( as are some of the poorerst. Indicating that simplistic arguments really have no place in seriou debate. Should have known better.

Subject: RE: BS: UK immigration too high?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:50 AM

Tug, you actually said"...the places with the densest populations are also the richest."
Sorry for misunderstanding but I am sure I was not alone.

(Actually, nobody else is probably reading any of this.)

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 03:56 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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 - 03:33 AM

Just like The Wire Richard?

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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.