AIBU to ask about this whole ‘painting flags on roundabouts’ thing?

[Ticktockk]

England flags have appeared all over my nice town, painted on to the mini roundabouts. What kind of a ‘thing’ is this? Is it a Reform thing, a football thing or a ‘proud to be English’ thing?
If it’s a reform thing, WIBU to go down and add “England welcomes you to our country” to all the red crosses?

I don't think i can make it any simpler than my last post on the matter, I'll try but this will be my last attempt at it because its already become repetitive and circular.

On this forum and many like it, there is a tendency for people to reply with "that didn't happen", "where's your evidence", "prove it or you're lying" type responses. In this case, the broad theme is whether the occupants of migrant hotels pose a risk and a danger to the people of the local community and its an argument which has been rumbling on for months on here.

There are more than enough confirmed reports of asylum seekers perpetuating all manner of crimes but if that's not enough, asylum seeking women and children have also reported being sexually assaulted and raped by fellow asylum seekers on a scale which brought the matter to the attention of that well known far right rag, The Guardian. Either we believe these women and children and accept that the occupants of asylum hotels also pose a threat to the local communities, or we don't believe them. Simple. You can have the last word by all means because I can't make it any clearer.

Well, if that's as clear as you can make it, let me try and further clear things up.

There is no data to support that asylum seekers, as a cohort, regularly engage in crimes. The "most damning" statistics available are that, in the period between 2021 and the end of 2024, around 50 of the 32,000 asylum seekers living in hotels had been charged with sexual offences. That's a significantly lower rate than the general population (and, although numbers are not available, that ~50 will include crimes committed against other asylum seekers. For the sake of avoiding bias that supports my position, here's GB News's coverage: https://www.gbnews.com/news/migrant-crisis-sex-crimes-taxpayer-funded-hotels

So, that makes claims like "asylum seekers committed 18 rapes last week" seem extremely dubious, particularly when the person making the claim wont give any details to back it up.

And, no, there's a world of difference between believing someone who apleges they were a victim of crime vs believing random statements made by random people on the internet (particularly in the absence of supporting evidence).

To use the court example:

• where women report being victim of a crime by an asylum seeker, their accusation is direct evidence.

* if someone asserts "person A told me XYD", that's hearsay evidence.

• if someone makes a claim, not based on either direct evidence or even hearsay evidence, it's just a random, unsourced claim.

I think you'll find that these are the very people who are doing other community projects. They care - about their family, community, country and other people in general. The people who complain about this behaviour are those that keep their heads down and concentrate on their own selfish lives.