to be concerned re. what is going on re. immigration and population growth?

[ClarityJane]

So many non-English voices, especially East Europeans, but so many different nationalities en masse it seems have moved here in the last 10-20 years - completely unprecedented historically. And in an already very over-crowded island.

Today I read Labour MP Frank Field say that the population increase due to immigration by 2031, i.e. less than 20 years, will be approximately 10 million and will require building something like seven new Birminghams! Or another London! Based on latest predictions in the papers today anyway.

Did Blair and Mandelson envisage this when they signed up for European Community rules on immigration and refugees? Or did they cynically not care because it meant cheap labour, cheap votes, increased profits (via membership of the European Community).

Did the architects of this policy not consider how it would affect housing, jobs and education and the resulting massive investment needed there, and the over-crowded population we have already.

I believe we have never been consulted or told anything honestly about what the consequences of EC membership was immigration-wise, if indeed there was ever any plan (doesn't seem to be, just a kind of opportunistic carpetbaggers philosophy approach of selling England by the pound).

I feel deceived and hoodwinked really. But are there any more positive thoughts on this? I find it v. depressing.

Can we get this back to cake now?

I shall shortly be commencing the bake-a-thon.

I'm planning on making two Christmas puddings this weekend - one for me, one for my dad to take with him to SA.

I'm still sitting MNetting. May be I should get dressed and get on?

I've never tried making a Christmas pudding but we're usually so stuffed after the roast beef with red wine that we only have a small amount anyway.

My Christmas pudding often doesn't get eaten on Christmas Day

To be fair, our "main" Christmas meal is on Christmas Eve (Danish custom pesky foreign traditions ) with a different Christmas dessert (a sort of sweet risotto with chopped almonds and whipped cream folded through it).

It means that it gets multiple boilings!

....actually, this year is the first time I'm having to make my own Christmas pudding. My mum always used to make me one and although she died 18 months ago (and wasn't in a position to make them for a few years before then ), there had been a few still in Dad's freezer.

Aw Pretty, sorry to hear about your mum.

Hope the puddings turn out well.

I am starting the chocolate cake... after I have procrastinated for a few more minutes.

Christmas cake - I so want to make one, but the last time i made one i used a delia smith recipe and it didn't cook properly - as in was fecking raw and had to be thrown away - does anyone have a good recipe for a small xmas cake that wont need a second mortgage to make?

I'm using the Delia recipe

My last attempt didn't cook quite right either but I reckon I know where I went wrong. It wasn't raw just a bit too soggy (might have been a bit too haphazard with the booze )

I don't. But don't use the Nigella recipe, it's horrible! Did it a couple of years ago and nobody liked it!

See, now this is just a nice, inoffensive thread about baking... if you ignore the first 900 posts.

Chocolate cake is all cooked. Just waiting for the oven to cool down before I bung the Christmas cake in.

YouTheCat
That's fruitcakeist that is. The poor old traditional fruit cake always having to wait behind the upstart chocolate cake for its fair share of oven space.

I need to bake some brownies - and eat them all!

mmm brownies

I love baking (and tasting). That is why I'm the size of a small house.

HOW DARE YOU!

The Nigella recipe is lovely

Can I just ask all you anti-immigrant racists (yep, I said it) to clear something up?

Do immigrants come over here and take all our council houses and claim all our benefits? Or do immigrants come over here and take all our jobs?

I've never been able to work that out. Or people with anti-immigrant views can't get their story straight; I'm not sure which.

They come over here and take all our cake

*disclaimer - not a racist

I'll be damned, Cat, but you're right! I knew they came over here and took something.

They aren't having mine! I've hidden it - minus the slice I've just eaten.

We must fight them in the bakers, we must fight them in the supermarket cake aisles, and we must never surrender our cakes!

Re. personal insults. Note - when people call a poster they've never met and do now know a racist, it is only hurtful (though I'm beginning to feel immune after so many pages, like a vaccine almost, its just become a term of abuse rather than a term of any real meaning: a dangerous development in itself btw). It also makes the respondents look totally arrogant and unpleasant people. I'm not a troll either.

The problems and issues thrown up by mass immigration are legitimate concerns, whatever anyone says ... at least for now. Mocking and insulting people who raise their concerns, and early-on demanding the thread be shut down, is not a political argument or debate.

Of course, I realise now the thread has been hopeless at shedding any light on the wider subject, so I should probably have posted/discussed elsewhere (lesson learnt maybe).

But it has exposed some of the tactics and mindset of those who are pro-immigration, which doesn't augur well. Let me tell you, if this is your approach you will lose the argument with any normal, living-in-the-real-world sane person, which is actually worrying in a way.

Most people addressed those concerns with some decent and reliable links to debunk the ignorance you were peddling. You haven't listened.

I call you what you are. If you don't like it, go to the UKIP/EDL sites where there are people who think like you. But don't come here with your ignorant lies and expect many posters to agree - they won't.

I'm an eastern european. I work, pay taxes and pensions. So... shut up