Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

(i know i probably am) To be disapointed that whilst at my local shopping parade all around me were foreign.

547 replies

MAMAZON · 02/02/2008 21:12

I don't want to start a UCM type thread but it just struck me how prety much everyone i saw at the shops earlier was foreign.

no one seemed to be speaking English at all.

OP posts:
VictorianSqualor · 21/08/2008 13:04

Watch this Shorty. It's the first part of the documentary I mentioned. All other parts are also on there.

There is also a pdf of the programme here which will show you, proportionally a much smaller percentage of Eastern Europeans claim benefits.

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:09

I will watch it when I get home. As for benefits if there children live in this country then there is no problem but when they claim benefits for children that live in another country I don't agree with that at all I never said That all of them do this I just know a few of them within my work that do this

VictorianSqualor · 21/08/2008 13:12

Their = belonging to
There = a place.

It is perfectly legal to claim child benefit for a child not living in the UK if they are in full time education in the EEA.

I really hope that our country' economy sorts itself out and we never have to be reliant on anyone within the EU.

spicemonster · 21/08/2008 13:12

But what is the problem with that? If our benefit system allows you to claim for children who live in another EC country, why is that the problems of the individuals? Or do you think you should not be allowed to claim benefits you're entitled to if you're Foreign (sic)? Or is it that it should be okay for South Africans to claim too? I'm very confused.

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:15

No my first point is if you were english and your children lived with there grandmother you would not be entitled to claim benefits for that child regardless if the grandmother was claiming or not. SO why should Foregin people be able to claim benefits for children they do not look after?! Also yes WHY shouldn't a South African be entitled to such benefits when they contribute as much as the polish for example espeically when there child is born in the UK which would make there child British so to say!

mamadiva · 21/08/2008 13:16

Would we be allowed to claim child benefit if we lived in Poland? Genuine question BTW.

Also I reckon that's fair enough it's an EU wide thing but why don't they pay road tax here? A guy that works with my DP said he doesn't pay road tax if they are here for less than 12 months, he goes home to Poland every December for a month and comes back here to work and because he has a month break every year he doesn't pay road tax. Seems a pointless benefit to me. Why shouldn't he have to pay when we do!

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:20

I just asked a polish girl about benefits if we lived there and she said they do have benefits there but on a money value there no where near as much as what the UK pay she thinks we would be able to claim child benefits but is not sure

LadyThompson · 21/08/2008 13:20

This country's always been a melting pot - Romans, Normans, Angles, Celts, Saxons....and so on. There was one period in history where we had a lot of Dutch immigrants. It's all helped to make us a rich and interesting nation. I have lived near Finsbury Pk and in the particular area I lived in, there were a lot of Greek and Turkish people. They weren't too keen on each other but I loved it because all the grocers were rather fab (fruit and veg and breads all interesting and good).

I think people are confusing deprived areas where there is a high rate of crime - and who wouldn't be intimidated by areas where a lot of crimes take place - with the fact that, sadly, immigrant population are sometimes forced to live in such areas. It doesn't necessarily follow that said immigrant population are responsible for the crimes, which tend to be instigated by the poor, disenfranchised and insufficiently loved and educated of ALL races, colours and creeds.

zippitippitoes · 21/08/2008 13:20

i dont know about road tax but sometimes i am glad that the government doesnt try and make things even more complicated by administering taxes which would probably cost more to do than the amount of money generated

there are not huge amounts of foreign cars here with foreign tax discs

VictorianSqualor · 21/08/2008 13:24

If your children lived with their grandmother she would claim the benefits, also if anyone who lives in this country that is an EEA citizen has children living abroad, as long as those children are still in the EEA they can claim the benefits.
i.e. I could bugger off to Poland, have a baby, leave it there, come back and claim child benefit once they started school.

The reason South Africans don't get it is they are not part of the EEA, they have to be granted a right to stay and get their British passports before they can claim anything.

I'm not sure about road tax but I assume it's because under 12 months is classed more as a holiday. If someone is reapplying after a month every year then they are defrauding.

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:25

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-510873/Polish-migrants-living-Britain-claiming-21m-child-ben efits-children-left-behind.html Read this and it explains about how much The UK are paying in child benefits to polish people for Kids that dont live in the country £21Millon! Thats without the rest of the EU!

zippitippitoes · 21/08/2008 13:25

and i am not at all convinced that many polish people drive to and fro from poland they nearly all fly

VeniVidiVickiQV · 21/08/2008 13:25

DD was invited to a party of one of her classmates a couple of months ago.

There were about 20 children invited. I was the only one there who couldn't speak Turkish or Albanian and Romanian. I felt quite awkward at first - not being able to join in the group conversation. But I made a point of greeting all the other parents there when I arrived, and, at various stages, several of them came and spoke to me too. I thought it was great that they were trying to include me despite the language barrier. It was great that DD was included despite my not being in the parents 'social group' as well iykwim?

I get the point that Mamazon is trying to make.

The world is changing and a great many of us have yet to catch up - in terms of culture and language I guess. That doesnt make us bigotted at all. Just highlights what a small country this is sometimes.

I went to Amsterdam recently and pretty much everyone we came across spoke English. I dont see why we cant adapt in the same way adn speak in more languages than just German or French, considering the number of folk living here now that speak different languages - and they arent usually German or French are they?

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:26

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-510873/Polish-migrants-living-Britain-claiming-21m-child-benefits-c hildren-left-behind.html

Sorry here is the link

zippitippitoes · 21/08/2008 13:26

the daily mail does have such interesting articles

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:30

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "When will Gordon Brown get a grip?

"Some 3.8million British children are living in poverty and yet £21million of taxpayers' money is going to Poland because our benefits system is such a shambles.

"We need to know how much this Government-sanctioned scam is really costing the taxpayer."

zippitippitoes · 21/08/2008 13:30

any unfamiliar group feels intimidating tho

i felt intimadted when i started my course last year and the majority of students were 16 year old lads and they felt the same about me but once we broke down the barriers we thought each other were quite ok and fun really

people say the same about mums in the playground etc

FairyMum · 21/08/2008 13:33

Most foreign people I know speak much better English than most English!

The main "threat" from Polish people is not that they claim child benefits, but that they are becoming very attractive to British employers (not just as cleaners), because they are often much more highly educated and hard working than the general British population. I think Daily Mail-readers think of Eastern Europeans as poor uneducated immigrants. This is missing the point.Eastern Europe is the new mecca for business!

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:33

Anyways Thanks for all your feedback I will take all of your opinions on bored Time for a name change me thinks since I have been branded a racist! stay blessed all.

ConstanceWearing · 21/08/2008 13:34

I've lived in my road for 15 years (I'm in my 40s), and I live on A Greater London Council overflow estate. I am very working class white girl.

I've watched the neighbours turn from a white British majority, to a mix of Nepalese, Polish, French, Japanese, Moslem and goodness knows how many others. It doesn't enter my head who's getting what benefit, and what they're all doing here. Nor do I care how many jobs they are taking from white people who (let's face it) don't want to work at McDonald's or clean the streets anyway. These are not good jobs these people take, just the ones the British won't do, because low wages and low social status are attached.

If these jobs were paid according to the monotony and filth involved, as opposed to the amount of education a person needs to do them, the British would do them themselves and there would be no need for all this "bloody foreigners, coming over here, taking our jobs and social security" nonsense.

ConstanceWearing · 21/08/2008 13:38

Ahem, sorry fairymum. Sounds like I was being a snob. But a lot of my neighbours do jobs like cleaning. I wasn't meaning to put them down by implying they all did. My neighbours just do.

Shorty84 · 21/08/2008 13:38

O Fairy mum I know that they are not un educated I work for a company that deals with greeting cards some of u will know it but anyways alot of them are DR's Teachers lawyers etc in Poland but here they pick greeting cards 7.30 to 4 monday to friday and get more money for doing that than what they get in Poland. I personally don't pick cards I work in the office and alot of them work in the office on the phones and speak very good english but then can be so arrogant to speak in there mother tonuge to each other whilst other people can't understand them not that I want to listen to there convo but when there shouting across the office all day in a different langauge and your the minority it gets a bit much espeically when you know they can speak english

HappypillsGalore · 21/08/2008 13:39

it dismays me that anyone would be dismayed by a presence of 'foreigners' anywhere.
truly.
i cant see why one would feel one way or the other about it.

ConstanceWearing · 21/08/2008 13:40

The caring profession is another job that is inundated with foreigners, because the govt won't pay decent wages for this either and the British left it in droves. Who blames the foreigners for taking this advantage?

LadyThompson · 21/08/2008 13:41

I think people forget that it can be a strain having to speak in a language that's not your first. I have a Czech friend who actually lives in Africa - no other Czechs there! - and she longs to be able to speak her mother tongue to someone. I am sure they don't mean to be rude, Shorty.