to think it proves lots of people want change

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That ukip are making such huge gains in the elections.
If mnetters could temper their hysteria of screaming racism, I think it is a clear indication that the fundamental principals of the party of no toEurope and no to continued mass immigration are very important to a lot of people

All those votes for UKIP tell me is that there's a shocking amount of people who haven't bothered looking into their policies at all who are woefully ignorant and a bit thick.

Even Farage has admitted this.

BogQueen - where did you get that poster......Facebook?

therealmary, ever watched that council house programme (How to Get a Council House?), the vast majority of properties were being given to those of south asian, african and eastern european descent. A lot of these people are here because of immigration, and subsequently are taking up all the council properties. Even in my area, a large amount of the council properties are housing people of foreign descent.

no I haven't. But I think you best rely on official statistics rather than a programme.

I agree with you to some extent, but would argue that primarily it's Inner London where the benefits of immigration - the genuine cultural diversity; the economic dynamism; the hardworking, flexible workforce - are most evident.

I have always found London an odd place of localism. inner London is actually pretty close to outer London, but for some reason are worlds apart. We are lucky to live in city where there are a ton of free things to do, but I imagine people in the outer bits don't take part in it. I live in zone 2 and know that some people rarely take their kids to the free museums in the centre. What? Some of it is lack of knowledge, but some of it is choice.

Anyway, off topic a bit. Yeah, central London is where it is most evident.

By contrast, in parts of Outer London (such as my own borough) there's increasingly a mix of disadvantaged white working-class families and struggling recent immigrants, many of whom have arrived from very troubled countries who lack a tradition of education. This, I think, is where community tensions can arise.

I am sure the working class whites are hardly blameless in this rise in tension, not just the immigrants (I don't think you were really saying that though). sure there are tensions, but there doesn't have to be. People are being short sighted. Those immigrants aren't just living there being a nuisance. They are likely working for some employer who wants to employ them.

Someone above said that the middle class like polish plumbers. Well, quality cheap plumbing pretty much benefits everyone. I have noticed a price disparity between plumbers and electricians, and frankly flooding the market with better cheaper plumbers makes me wonder about what the downside is. It appears you simply can't win as an immigrant in some people's eyes. Either you are a scrounger living off benefits, or providing a great service people are very willing to pay for, neither are good enough apparently.

Well here's the thing about democracy isn't it ? People you don't like, with views you don't like get a vote. And if there's enough of them, they get to make policies. Isn't that the whole point?

Or do you want to bring back a property qualification or say only people with university degrees can vote? If so, my dad would still qualify.

StarGazeyPond - that doesn't mean their policies are dead. Neo Nazis have strong holds in several EU countries, and groups are being put into ghettos. See the current policies in multiple EU countries of walling off Roma settlements, forcing people to live in shipping containers, and deporting EU citizens of certain ethnic groups illegally on top of laws that force people of these groups to register on national databases. Even Sweden has been caught maintaining a database on Roma people (who lost about 90% of their numbers due to Hitler) that is meant to be illegal in the EU and haven't even really really been given a slap on the wrist for it. Many ethnic groups are targeted by housing discrimination and are dying because of the refusal by governments to allow modernization of these areas and refusing their children education to maintain this system and very little is being done partially because everyone likes to claim that this kind of stuff is in the past even when it is so obviously not.

'mealy-mouthed mainstream political rhetoric ("the poor are good, the rich are evil") with someone displaying views such as your own.'

WTH? Are you living on this planet at the moment? The political rhetoric being constantly spouted these days is that the poor are evil (read: lazy, workshy, scroungers etc etc) and the rich are good (bringing money to the economy, working hard blah blah blah). Where on earth did you get the opposite from?

Let me guess...your well off and would like to think of yourself as a 'good' person?

TheSpork - that is why I laugh when people have a go at UKIP - they obviously have not read the policies of the Far Right who are rising rapidly in Europe. UKIP are pussycats by comparison!

Judge parties by what they do not what they say. How many foreigners have been killed by the UKIP (or the BNP for that matter)? How many foreigners have been killed by Labour (hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan) and by the Tories (hundreds in Argentina, thousands in the Serbia courtesy of Nato). But apparently UKIP are the racists...

'Someone above said that the middle class like polish plumbers. Well, quality cheap plumbing pretty much benefits everyone.'

It doesn't benefit me. I don't own my own home, my landlord sorts out the plumbing. Whether he can get it cheap or not is here nor there to me. It wouldnt make sod all difference to the rent he charges.

The middle classes love immigration because it brings poor people into the country that they can exploit for their labour.

When I was working in the escort/prostitution scene, the clients loved immigration because it has brought tons of poor eastern europeans to the country offering sex for low prices. Most clients are middle class. Many middle class people are ruthless exploiters of the poor, its disgusting.

I lived in central Brixton for two years and my daughter went to a local primary. I saw very little evidence of a vibrant multi cultural society - instead I saw various very distinct groups of people living parrallel lives, not interacting, not socialising and not being educated together.

The tensions this can cause have been very evident in the Birmingham school debates for eg.

We desperately need to have a conversation about immigration and racial and religious tolerance which isn't immediately shut down 'because it's racist'. That's a big part of the reason why people like my dad voted UKIP.

According to the Equality & Human Rights Commission

"Some 17.3 per cent of the UK’s overseas born population lives in inner London compared with 36.6 percent of the UK’s overseas born social tenants. Overall, some 54.3 per cent of the UK’s migrant social tenants live in inner and outer London, although this region houses just 38 per cent of the UK’s overall migrant population."

In addition

"Overall, in 2006, 27 per cent of ethnic minority households were social tenants,compared with 17 per cent of white households"

However most of these ethnic minority households are born in Britain, not new migrants

"As the public does not distinguish between long settled ethnic minority communities and new migrants, the above tenure patterns may account for perceptions that social housing allocation favours particular communities.Figure 9 shows that a higher proportion of the Muslim population are social tenants than any other religious denomination, although of course, the greatest number of social tenants in the UK identify themselves as Christian. Most people in the UK who identify themselves as Muslims are of Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Somali origin.Again, the public may identify an observant Muslim as a migrant"

Councils are required to monitor race for housing allocation and should not discriminate, specific cultural backgrounds may have specific traits that increase the likelihood of being in social housing

"For example, some 10.8 per cent of Somalia-bornhouseholds have five or more children, compared with just 0.3 per cent of the UK-born population."
"Over 95 per cent of the Somalia bornpopulation lives in rental accommodation and of this group, nearly 80 per cent are in social housing. "

"A number of factors account for the over-representation as social tenants ofAfghanistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica and Somalia-born populations. These include"

"Lower household income, thus an inability to purchase property(for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations).

• Larger family size, with many families being unable to afford suitable properties (for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations).
• A preference for settlement in London, where property prices are higherand greater proportions of all country-of-birth groups are social tenants (for all four groups and UK-born populations).
• High proportions of new arrivals among the population, with newarrivals least likely to have accumulated the savings needed to purchase property (for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations)"

Therefore,

• it isn't true that immigrants have formal priority for housing, however
• larger family sizes and other factors may result in higher priority
• social housing in London, which in some cases is the financial equivalent of a lottery win, is disproportionately allocated to immigrants, again not for formal bias but because of settlement patterns
• many people perceived as immigrants getting into social housing are actually British-born, albeit that people might assume they are Pakistani/Bangladeshi/etc. Any housing policy by the likes of UKIP that favoured 'British' people would therefore have no effect.

I grew up on a white wc area of south London 30 years ago and believe me 'tensions' about immigration are not new. Back then the panic was 'black people' moving into the area (there were very few families from ethnic minorities living in the area, understandably given the attitude of the locals)

30 years ago the same arguments were being made against immigration in these areas - the difference is that the. The arguments were made by the BNP. Thus time they are made by UKIP. The arguments are eerily similar.

We now have panic about Romanians, UKIP are set to ally with far right wing nutcases groups in the euro parliament.

But y'know, you've had your little protest vote

Whether people think UKIP are evil or not, at least they're not going to form the next government - protest votes are common at local elections and don't usually go the same way at the general one

For me, the good news is that it might force the main parties to address a few things they'd rather not, EU issues most of all

The middle classes love immigration because it brings poor people into the country that they can exploit for their labour.

What the actual fuck!

• How many foreigners have been killed by Labour (hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan

Interesting point, I wonder how the families in Iraq smashed by the bombing feel about the Labour government here . The Lefties present themselves as so lovely and caring and open and welcoming and anyone who is even slightly right must be a secret Hitlter enthusiast whilst conveniently forgetting about the so called communist prison called North Korea, Stalin and recent atrocities in Iraq.

"Someone above said that the middle class like polish plumbers. Well, quality cheap plumbing pretty much benefits everyone. I have noticed a price disparity between plumbers and electricians, and frankly flooding the market with better cheaper plumbers makes me wonder about what the downside is."

Oh for fuck's sake. How does it benefit British builders, plumbers, gardeners, electricians, chefs, agricultural workers, and all these literally millions of people in jobs where there are now a large proportion of Eastern European workers, to have quality cheap competition?

'What the actual fuck!'

As much has been admitted on here by middle class posters. I see you havn't anything to actually counteract what I said.

', and frankly flooding the market with better cheaper plumbers makes me wonder about what the downside is."'

What about the downside for those very people doing those jobs? Yet another totally blind, ivory tower dwelling middle class person who can't see the wood through the trees.

No because I'm so bloody gobsmacked that you are so bigoted against everyone who is different to you and realise that I would be wasting my time.

Honey22 - this is a very common experience but it seems conversation about this is not encouraged.

Immigration is always good, always vibrant. No one seems to care about the segregation that then occurs - if we were South Africa and this was state sanctioned, it would be evil. But when my daughter is only white child in a class of 30 and we couldn't get play dates because her classmates families didn't want to mix with me, hey that's just vibrancy in action.

I think it's really sad and dangerous. We are allowing ghettos by default and not having any proper conversation about it.

Last time I made this point on another thread I was called racist, even though I was upset that my daughter did NOT have any black friends who were allowed to come to my flat.

It doesn't benefit me. I don't own my own home, my landlord sorts out the plumbing. Whether he can get it cheap or not is here nor there to me. It wouldnt make sod all difference to the rent he charges.

of course it does. Your rent is at least partially a function of maintenance costs. Maintenance costs are pushed onto renters.

Oh for fuck's sake. How does it benefit British builders, plumbers, gardeners, electricians, chefs, agricultural workers, and all these literally millions of people in jobs where there are now a large proportion of Eastern European workers, to have quality cheap competition?

It benefits British builders by getting better workers. And unless gardeners, electricians etc live in plumbless houses, it benefits them as well.

The only people it doesn't benefit through direct competition is other plumbers. So what? If you think plumbers are hard up I certainly don't see it. Bring them in I say. Plumbers get paid well or certainly the ones that come to my house do. Anyone who owns a house knows how much building work in general costs, and specifically how much plumbing costs. So, why should the interests of British plumbers outweigh everyone else's?

And part of overall housing costs are maintenance costs. if those go up, so does the cost of housing. Isn't housing one of the main issues we have to deal with here?

Bornfree you think the left didn't care about Iraq? I'd imagine that the vast majority of the 2million+ who took to the streets in protest against that illegal invasion were left-leaning in their political views.

also, not everyone enter the country is a polish plumber or cheap labourer. Lots of people who enter are bankers, engineers, academics and doctors.

Yes, those people who are in direct competition with cheaper labour suffer somewhat, but then they when the cost of food goes down.