The point has been mae about people bleating about immigration where they themselves hardly ever see a 'foreign' face. Here in Leicester(I live literally just on the edge by about 50 yards) we are officially a minority indiginous city. That is surely worrying to anybody. I am and always have been a liberal and been very welcoming to immigants and to the concept of the mixing of cultures as I have genuinely believed that it would be to the overall good of us all. Let's face it, this has not happened has it? Within the city there are many many groups - Indians (Seihks, Hindus, Gujurat and Punjabi), Pakistanis, Ugandan Asians, various African groups including Somalis, Eastern Europeans as well as West Indians and many others and non of them mix with any other race or culture. The whole nature of the city has changed totally in 50 years and that rate of change is frightening and in many ways destabilising as ordinary decent people struggle to cope with the whole concept and of course the strain on public srvices is immense. The fact that so many cannot speak English at all should never have been allowed to happen and it means that for something as simple as a medical appointment you need an interpretor for that particular language and you could be looking at a pool of 50 or more to choose from. I don't know where we go from here but politicians should be in the dock for allowing the ruination of a country of which we could at one time have been proud.
Well said TY. It is nowhere near as bad in Nottingham as yet. But my other half is a teacher in a Nottingham school and these language issues and cultural isolations are already obviously causing problems. I think essentially speaking if you can't speaka de lingo then go find someone to teachyou at your own expense. The thing that drives teachers potty, is that one or two students that have evry little grasp of the language will set back the whole class, 50% of them and you've got no chance. Then again it's not just a language problem, I still think you should not leave junior school until such a point as you have a certain understanding of the basics of english language and core subjects. The data from primary schools who must keep improving to targets misses the point for me. There are some heniously under prepared kids arriving at secondary school with very little chance of succeeding. Vast swathes of foreign language kids exasurbates the problem. I think in the past imigrants all would want to integrate where possible because they saw the need, we are in danger of creating vast ghetto's in our major cities of people who cannot speak English and don't feel they need to because they can hide within their community. I drove through Derby the other day and one street I drove down, I could honestly have questioned whether I was still in britain. Our multicultural society has brought many benefits, pockets of increasingly insular communities in my opinion will not. Whether journalist scaremongering or not, and Muslims do get bashed alot in the press, the story of the 6 islamic schools in london that were ignoring the curriculum in favour of a very closed islam centric and culturally closed teaching, should be a warning sign. Never mind that there was suggestion of an extremist agenda too. The instances are still isolated but how many areas are being governed by Sharia law, how many honour beatings/killings are going on? I visited Poland........sorry Peterborough on the weekend and whilst I can't vouch for the whole place, it did feel like it had been taken over a bit. For me gradual immigration and more critically integration can be a good thing, what we have now is a bit broken and it's already going to be hard to come back from. Bah! p.s. It is a sign of the world in which we live that I feel I need to add; I recognise that the vast majority of muslims are not extremists and that most certainly the ones who are, are not following the quran, but doing unspeakable things in the name of it.
Excellent points made by both Thurnby and Melchy and I might add that this is exactly why we have seen a rise in the popularity of UKIP. I still think that their two by-election victories constitute nothing more than a protest against the status quo, but the Government should ignore the people's concerns at their peril. It is in times like these that not only respectable right-wing parties gain more and more support, but also the fanatical FAR-RIGHT. We should take heed of what history teaches us, 1930's Germany is a prime example and God forbid we should see a similar scenario in this country. Hitler held up the Jews as a reason for Germany's woes so be warned, if it means leaving the EU to halt the ridiculous influx of more and more people to our tiny island then so be it. I don't believe for one minute the scare mongerours who tell us that it would be economic suicide to pull out of Europe, the benefits of regaining our Sovereign right to govern ourselves, make our own laws and trade with whoever we wish far outweigh any benefits (if there are any benefits) of staying in.
We are part of the European superstate , there is no going back now unless the Americans take their missile defense bases out of Bulgaria and Lithuania. The fact is we are easier to control as a United Europe there is no going back. The rich get a cheeper workforce so people that will take a lower salary will keep coming in. I was made redundant and over 80% of the casino workforce is now from abroad , the other 20% included British born Africans Asians etc . I'm not bitter I just moved to a fairer society mainland China.
Some good points raised. I too have no problem with immigration, and welcome a mix of cultures. I think it's ok to be this way and still have problems with the sheer volumes. I read that there are an estimated 10,000 or so Eastern Europeans in and around Wisbech (a town of 30,000 inhabitants). That's alarming in anyone's book. There were reports of some shops now run by said immigrants with 'No English' signs in the window. Possibly just Mailesque propaganda, but it wouldn't surprise me. I was recently in Thetford, and needed to buy some break-time bits and pieces for a group my company was doing some training for in a local hall. The nearest shop was run by Lithuanians, and it seemed most of the stock was imported from their country. This doesn't really help our economy, does it. The assistant didn't speak English, and I had to ask another customer if I was buying coffee or gravy granules! Doesn't surprise me in the least that people are thinking of tactical voting, scary as the image of Farage as PM may be.
I can quite believe it, the same thing happened at a Portugeuse Deli in Dereham a couple of years back, it was removed however.
Back to the OP who actually gained from this panto? Rupert Murdoch The Police and some lawyers. Viva the revolution not.
I live in London, the most multi-cultural city of the lot with more than 400 different languages spoken, myriad religions worshipped and people from all creeds and colours working and living alongside one another. Don't hear too many people down here bleating about immigration however, UKIP has no chance of making a dent in the vote in the capital at all, thank f**! I can't speak for everyone, but I personally have been able to see through the propaganda bulls**t and have have embraced immigration, not a problem for me or mine in the slightest. Makes me laugh when people moan about "them not bothering to learn to speak English" - I wonder what proportion of the hundreds of thousands of ex-pats who live abroad have bothered to learn Spanish, French, Mandarin or whatever the indigenous language of their new residence is? My guess would be next to f** all And as for this bollocks about voting for UKIP as a protest vote against the established "big three" parties - if it is purely a protest vote you're looking for then why on earth vote for an old-fashioned, outdated and regressive set of dinosaurs such as UKIP and why not instead put your X next to a progressive party such as the Greens who are trying to make things better for everyone and not just those with so called 'anglo-saxon blood' flowing through them? Makes no sense to me, though to be honest much of what people post on these days rarely does, I fear the lunatics have finally taken charge of the asylum.
Could you please define what you mean by "ordinary decent people" please? Have to say that doesn't sound like the words of a "liberal" who is "very welcoming to immigrants" to me. And isn't it just an ever so slight exaggeration and generalisation to say that "none of them mix with any race or colour" when talking of people from other countries and cultures?? I don't know, to me they sound like the words of a Daily Mail reading bigot, rather than any liberal thinker. But what do I know eh?
That expression Ordinary People reminds me of the phrase Milliband used recently which was Everyday People! If a Tory had used that expression there would have been a huge uproar from those on the left! Funny that!
What the f** does this even mean???!!! Hitler told lies and spread propaganda about the Jews to incite hatred, the kind of thing the Daily Mail does on a daily basis so I think banning that evil rag of s**t-paper would be more productive in halting the rise of the right-wing fanatacists than pulling out of Europe. Seriously, some of the **** people believe is really quite frightening
No there wouldn't, and you know there wouldn't. It really is quite different so stop peddling even more bullshit propaganda!
Wrong again, I don't read any newspaper these days and have never once purchased the Grauniad - or even the Daily Mirror - and even if I did I'm pretty confident I'd still be able to make my mind up and base my opinion on facts and what I witness with my two eyes rather than buy into somebody's elses propaganda
Got to agree with TMC, there's some interesting logic at play here. So you're saying Hitler's anti-Semitic propaganda was partly responsible for people voting him into power (fair enough), and so we should learn by this by listening to the Daily Mail's anti-immigration propaganda and vote in a far right party so that we can stop/slow immigration? So your definition of learning from history is to repeat it with a different scapegoat? I must be misinterpreting you somehow?
I can't believe some of the stuff that is written about immigration. I have just employed a polish guy and he is a hard worker and an honest individual. We did interview some guys from Thetford where we are based and out of 4 of them 2 of them were late and one didn't even turn up. The Eastern European workers are hard working and put most of our layabout benefit scroungers to shame. They have the right work ethic and are value to our country and the community I live in. I don't pretend to be a politician and certainly have not picked up a newspaper in years. Frankly I don't have time and I am intelligent enough to see what is right in front of me. I do agree with one thing though, that it has happened to fast and has not been controlled enough. You have to remember Munky in London there are plenty of jobs but in rural areas the influx of immigrants has caused social integration issues so I do see both sides a little. Overall though I think immigration gives us the labour we need and the workforce to remain competitive.
Just because the English do not do it does not mean they shouldn't. I am fully in support of foreigners learning the language, if they don't want to they should be kicked out. Same with wearing letterboxs, its rude and does not show a willingness to fit in. IF you want to live like a muslim GO to a place where it is perfectly acceptable to do so. Why on Earth would you want to live here! I have no issue with people moving to this country but I do have issues with people who want to bring there religious beliefs over with them. Leave them in your own country please, its the reason why you'd rather live here anyway. It has taken us 2000 years to even get close to start being a secular state, we do not need a bunch of stupid people trying to ruin it for everyone else and building there own little kingdoms because they don't want to fit in. These types of people should not be allowed over here to live. I have far more disdain for this than people coming over and claiming benefits and using our hospitals.
I'd say this is where our agreement ends. I don't believe in getting out of the EU which is just suicide, I don't believe in locking everyone out, I can fully understand somebody wanting a better life for there family. It costs us very little. I have no desire to put some scummy northerner who has never worked ahead of a Pole, Iraqi, Nigerian who is happy to live here. I've said it before, there are people in this country who like dogs more than foreigners. Total ****ers.
