Mass Immigration, scare mongering??

[Flickstix]

Am I being unreasonable to think it is a problem or am I just falling prey to media propaganda? The whole EU debate seems to have highlighted it but I would like to understand it better.

Yes. After we have paid, rent, council tax, childcare, and the running costs of the car my husband must have for his work there have been many times when we would have been better off on benefits because there is so little left after our bills are paid. If you just shave out of the bit where you get help from the government you're in a very bad position. We earn about £32,000 year between us so only get a very small amount of tax credits, like £20 a month. £7,000 of that is childcare, £8,000 is housing and £1,000 is council tax and the car costs £1500 a year to run plus around £2500 in petrol plus my travel is £1,000 a year. Take away these costs and we have left £9000 a year left or £4,500 each per working adult.

That works out at around £85.00 a week each. Jobseekers is £71.00 a week and on top of that we would get more tax credits because we have children, so we just around break even to what we would get for benefits, possibly slightly less and we work 73 hours a week between us for that.

And this is ignoring the fact that there are weeks like the last few when it's been snowing when we get very little or nothing at all because sites are closed because of the snow.

I don't live that far from Slough either Maisie and I understand what you are saying. Why can't the police deal with the situation. If they are stealing then it is a crime. Must be really intimidating.

Bridget did your husband manage to stay afloat?

There's a lot of bullshit bandied around in the Daily Mail and other places about the level of benefits new migrants get.

As far as I can work out it doesn't account to much more than healthcare and school education. (which is what any decent civilised society should do) The notion of people getting off the plane and being handed the keys to council houses is nothing but lies.

Another crucial difference is that Poland joined the EU during the economic boom and there were realistic work prospects for tradespeople and in the service sectors, given the current economic situation I can't see the pull factors being as powerful.

Almost all of the Polish people I know have integrated really well, put most native speakers English to shame are hard workers, mix well. Far better than say, the British expats in the Costas who tend to mix exclusively with fellow little Englanders and don't speak a word of Spanish.

Well I still think even breaking even, if you are able bodied you should be out there doing your bit. Is the 0 tax before £10,000 still going a head ? That should make work profitable for low income earners assuming it is.

It's always been profitable to go to work for able bodied men and women, single parents aside and even then it's profitable in the long term.
What we mean is it has to become uncomfortable not to work.

Or alternatively work should be rewarded properly. It is a scandal that people are paid such rotten wages by employers that they have to be topped up by the public purse.

Incidentally Mosman, do you realise that according to several studies the children most likely to be in poverty are those who have one parent working? NOT those who's parents are on benefits.

61% of children in poverty have a working parent?

Children are now more likely to be in poverty if their parents work than claim benefits.

www.jrf.org.uk/blog/2012/06/relentless-rise-work-poverty

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19478083

Mosman, I don't disagree with that, which you might have worked out from the fact that my family do work even though it's not profitable. But you claimed it WAS profitable.

Compo my uncle lives in Spain and speaks perfect Spanish. He has bought a small house there in his retirement. He lives in a Spanish area and has a Spanish partner. He has definitely integrated. My brother lives iand works in China and has learnt Catonese. His wife is Chinese.

I heard a story once from my hairdresser about ten years' ago (maybe it was a lie or a chinese whisper) about her friend with 2 young children who was desperate for a social house and was allocated one. About to move in but was told that it was no longer available as it had been allocated to a family who were coming in on a plane.

Also another friend of my mums who worked in the NHS was told to prioritise immigrants in hospital appointments etc. She was high up and tried to be fair to everyone which is the way it should be.

I agree the Poles are very hard working. Unfortunately we have allowed alot of other people to come here who are not over the years who are a financial drain.

I'm surprised at your calculations but I guess there are so many variables, if you could just jump on a bus to work and not need a car or petrol it might be a whole different story.

Sorry I should have said, some English people on the Costas. My Uncle who I had this in mind when I was writing this, is one of the Daily Mail reading little Englanders who has spent 20 odd years living in what is essentially a warm Blackpool, surrounded by other people of a similar ilk and I doubt he has had a proper conversation with a Spanish person in all that time. He certainly can't speak Spanish and sees no need to learn. Idiot that he is.

I heard a story once from my hairdresser about ten years' ago (maybe it was a lie or a chinese whisper) about her friend with 2 young children who was desperate for a social house and was allocated one. About to move in but was told that it was no longer available as it had been allocated to a family who were coming in on a plane

Almost certainly false.

Yes Spanish is an easy language as well so very feeble. I think you should learn the lingo if you go to live somewhere and integrate. I don't think that would be my uncle's scene. My uncle lives in a Spanish area and was very well travelled before then. Went to places like South America in the 70's which was more unusual.

You can have a generous welfare state, or you can have open borders.

Mixing the two is a recipe for big problems.

Yes I agree. The galling thing is that he spends his time on his visits pontificating about how Britain is going to the dogs (no doubt fuelled by his two day old Daily Mail) about how the 'pakis' don't integrate, when he is part of an incredibly insular and far more isolationist community in another country himself. He is indeed a prick of the highest order.

sticky, very true.

Mosman I have friends who have been trapped in the situation where they are better off curtailing their hours due to the way our UK benefits system works.

or Pam how shite wages are in the UK?

Supply and demand. If you can fill the position on shite wages you would be rendered uncompetitive if you did otherwise. I remember reading about the Black Death. After the population was drastically reduced the peasants had a much better time as they were a scarce resource and could command a better wage for their labour. Unfettered immigration from poorer countries will always reduce the living standard of the poorest indigenous workers.

Then it is incumbent on the government to regulate to ensure a decent minimum wage is in place for all, to stop the race to the bottom.

If you raise wages the cost of living just increases, it didn't work in the 70's and it wouldn't work now.

The fact is we have people on this planet looking at how others have it very comfortably for the last 80 years since the last world war and they would like to have that for themselves too (understandably) only the powers that be won't be allowing their living standards to drop to accommodate this so the general publics will have to.

If we are opening the flood gates and wanting to live to 99 then something has to give or viva revolution

You can't regulate the wage because those on professional jobs are in competition with workers overseas, including china and India. We don't live in a closed economy. Our wages have to come down to match those nations. Hopefully slowly while they raise theirs.

I live in the town that Prof Beard was talking about on QT the other night. I wasn't born and bred here but I've lived here for well over 10 years and I've seen some pretty major changes.

As a daughter of an immigrant family (Irish) myself I didn't have a problem with the influx to start with. It's true that many local people (not all, but a significant proportion) considered the field and factory work that many immigrants take on as either beneath them or not financially viable due to low pay (ie better off staying on benefits). When we first moved to this area many workers were bussed in from other parts of the country as there wasn't enough labour available here.

Over the last five years or so the population of immigrants from Eastern Europe has increased dramatically and the town just can't cope with the population explosion. It's not just that the influx aren't from the UK. There aren't enough school places, GP surgeries are struggling, it's very difficult to find decent rented accommodation.

There are issues caused by the majority of the influx being non UK nationals though, which are mainly issues of language. Many don't speak English at all. Schools are struggling with having a significant proportion of each intake being unable to speak English. I feel dreadfully sorry for the children tbh, it must be scary being thrust into an environment in which no one can understand you when you're only 4 years old. Of course, they learn quickly at that age and by the time they've been at school a couple of years they speak English as well as their English peers.

If you're looking for certain types of work you're at a disadvantage if you don't speak Polish, Russian or another Eastern European language - think retail, receptionist work, anything that faces the public really.

There have been gang masters that won't accept English people in their gangs, I couldn't say for sure why that is but I'd suspect that the less scrupulous gang masters like having a supply of labour that they control as they transport them, house them etc etc. This isn't good for anyone, not least the gang members themselves as they're put up in conditions that many people just wouldn't accept. There are too many adults living in many houses, admittedly some of the problems caused are middle class problems such as too many cars parked outside each house, noise at all times of day and night as people come and go to work in knackered vans.

None of the issues, and there are more than I've mentioned here, are caused by any one individual or family. I would probably do the same if I were a Polish national with no ties. The problem is the sheer weight of numbers which has put a small market town under immense strain.

We're getting to the point now where there are geographical areas which are "Eastern European" and others which are not. Whenever a cheap house comes on the market - and housing here is cheap - it's generally sold to a landlord who can then let out the rooms to single adults at a vastly inflated rate. People trying to get on the property ladder are struggling to compete with that. There are whole streets and estates where virtually every house sold ends up as a buy to let and English people are becoming the minority. There can be a definite lack of integration and this leaves people who have lived on a street all their lives suddenly being put in a position where they're in a minority. They can't chat to their neighbours any more, they have to put up with a lot more noise and mess.

It's really difficult to explain without sounding racist. I really hope I'm not coming over in that way. I've experienced the changes here fist hand and I have to say that I'm struggling to see many positives other than a ready supply of cheap labour - and that isn't very positive is it?

Ooops sorry that was a bit of an essay wasn't it? There's so much more to say. The supermarkets have a huge role to play in our area as most of the food companies round here supply them. They're constantly pushing on price and the companies are forced to use the cheap labour as otherwise they'll go under. There are plenty here which have done exactly that, gone under.

It's a huge and very complex problem.

I'm a pinko lefty liberal by nature, I love the fact that we're free to move around so many countries at will, but there needs to be some kind of control or infrastructure in place to deal with it and that costs money the country doesn't have.

Thank you for your thoughtful and well reasoned post Tiger.

including china and India. We don't live in a closed economy. Our wages have to come down to match those nations

What a daft thing to say.

Yeah great idea, let's have 8 year olds working 15 hours a day stitching together football shirts in this country too.

Let's have heavy industries so badly regulated that people routinely die and lose limbs. Workers kicking up a fuss about it Stick them in jail without the fuss or expense of a fair trial.

We can't nor should we aspire to compete with developing nations for mass producing tat or to providing the cheapest of everything. We should be looking to develop well made high quality products and specialising in knowledge or high tec industries.

Good posts, Tiger.