Polish baby boom in UK

[WendyWeber]

blimey - I know they are a valuable addition to our economy, and work v hard, but from 1300 in 2003 to 13000 in 2007; that would be 130,000 in 2011 and 1,300,000 in 2015 if they carry on at the same rate

I have got to leave the PC now but will come back to this as I do believe it raises alot of questions.

MY GOD - THESE PEOPLE ARE BREEDING???

I wouldn't believe any of the Daily Mail's 'statistics'.
Funny how they didn't include any emigration statistics isn't it?

Yep and the Poles only need a bedsit for five and a tin kettle to keep them happy so they don't have our overheads...

ruty 18.08 - good post.

hear hear ruty
good post (s)

its in the nature of the beast

and vasts amounts of britons sit on their asses not having to work either

travelled extensively in east europe after the fall of the iron curtain,
we were welcomed by educated polite articulate people and will never forget the random spontaneous kindnesses shown to us
they are an asset
they are working
paying tax
its the indequate laws and lack of political thinking planning that makes this situation what it is imho

dont laugh at the back...

every single one of the easetrn europeans i hae met are lovely, hardworking, well mannered, polite, ecducated people.

Housing? How difficult it is to house Polish people? Did I misread somewhere here?

Why is it that most British people think that starting out a new life in a foreign country, where you have no family, where your education might not easily translate, is so easy? Why is it that most British people think that most immigrants who come are a drain on housing, and services in general?

Does anybody know how difficult it is to find a decent job here? Does anybody know how impossible it is to get council housing for a foreigner (unless asylum seeker etc)?

It is deluding yourselves that this is the land of milk and honey, it is not.

It is twice the hard work for a foreigner, and twice as difficult to get a decent place to live, when you lack a proper bank account, a fixed term address, when you are not on the electoral roll, when you have no credit history. You start a fresh. It is not easy, and you have very little to fall back upon.

Having a Polish husband, and spent a large chunk of my life here having seen young polish people come to work, as cleaners mostly, or builders and labourers, and live in squalor, and spend most their earnings on overpriced bedsits where landlords cram as many people into (ex)council flats in not exactly great ares, on emergency tax code, I can assure you, it is not easy, and my bet is they contribure more to the economy than they drain of it.

I come from a tiny country which, in 1980 had a population of 120,000. No, i didn't miss out a Zero somewhere. In the ensuing 5 yrs it took in 30,000 refugees (estimated by UNHCR) from 3 civil war-torn Central American republics.

So this tiny, poor, central american country, which had the GDP of a small town in the UK, took in 15% of its population in 5 yrs. Managed to quietly assimilate those peoples. Were services like education and health care stretched? Yes. Did the citizens moan? yes. Were there a few irrational people predicting doom and gloom? yes.

Did the country get hysterical? no.

I dread to think what would happen in the UK if it was called to do something similar in some day and age.

The Daily mail and the Daily Express also are dangerous newspapers IMO. They put stupid ideas into the heads of their often poorly educated readers who know very little about the world outside Britain.

my comment was based upon bbc news coverage.

I am the daughter of an immigrant, a white one, but all the same. I grew up with Polish friends and still have them. In our small village Pole, Czechs, Slovenes and Slovacks provide useful services. No question about that.

BUT...

This is a small (and pretty) island and to imagine it can be home for many more people than the current 60 million is unrealistic. Already acres of farmland near my home is being replaced with a large reservoir--for London, because THERE ISN'T ENOUGH WATER for the metropolitan population. Where is all the farmland we will need to grow food for all this enormous population? It's being dug up.

Or are we supposed to import even more food than we already do?

Sorry I meant to post this last night but the net went down.
Ruty I take the point about capitalism and how it works but failing a revolution how do you make the system work.
It's a kind of a false economy when you allow immigrants in as cheap labour when all it does is push other people onto benefits when they cannot compete with the labour market. What benefit to the economy does a growing social security bill have.
Bert, my point is that, that as economic migrants they will rent a room out and live in it and their overheads are lower, no family to feed, no mortgage etc. Like the electrician I spoke of earlier, he says he knows of three people who have become bankrupt because they cannot compete anymore. You obviously have no sympathy for people who now find themselves in such a situation.
Additionally what do you say to 2shoes then? Tough luck? We spend a fortune educating people in the UK investing in them and then create an employment market to undercut them.
Lastly Ruty as for capitalism you could easily argue that what would happen if there was no immigration regarding the nursing care you spoke of, if they could not find any helpers then the Care home would have to pay a decent wage and as such people would then apply for the jobs. That is capitalism too the free market dictating job values.

Am at not allowing translation during labour. WTF is that about? Is that general policy? If so, its a real issue in terms of maternity services and needs addressing urgently, IMO.

When people whinge about "foreigners" I always think, if its so easy to bugger off to a foreign country and start a new life, do it! Or if its so great to live on benefits-well DO it then.

Unfortunately BigGitDad having witnessed how little the government, local councils, and in general, most of the population, care about old people who are dying in unpleasant ways, I cannot agree with you that the government would raise the wages of carers even if we did not have immigration. For a start, that would mean stopping immigration completely. that is impossible unless we become a fascist or communist state. Secondly, the care home my mother was in did not actually rely on general immigration, they were forced to actively recruit overseas [Africa on the whole] for their nurses and carers as they simply could not get the staff otherwise.

What about big companies who relocate to India because their overheads are so much reduced over there? you can't blame that on immigration. that is robbing UK people of jobs in a very real, direct way. And what about big companies who pay accountants to avoid paying billions in tax? That is robbing our economy of huge amounts of money, why does no one get het up about that? Because it is easier to blame a group of hard working people who dare to come and take jobs that are desperate to be filled.

You say I do not care about 2shoes's dh. Do you care about mine? He is Eastern European. According to you he should not be allowed to work hard here, pay his taxes and support my family, because he is foreign. Obviously we should care about everyone, be they British or foreign. And improve the system so that all equally get a chance. Looking at lower taxation, a stop to greedy estate agents and house prices that have escalated out of control in a way unheard of in the rest of Europe, those kind of things would help all of us, rather than make essentially Capitalist competition in the market place selective, so only some people [British] can be competitive, and not foreigners.

It is incredibly patronizing to assume economic migrants have no family to provide for, and fewer overheads. Most economic migrants come over because they are forced to, to provide for their families. You have no idea what it is like in some countries in the world. Many of the people doing third rate jobs here have PHDs, let alone university degrees. they live on very little because they send all their money home to their families. They still pay their taxes here and contribute to the economy. The fact that they are willing to live in a cramped bedsit and live on tinned food in order to provide for their families is again a symptom of the way our society works. We'd be very happy for them to do so, as long as it didn't impinge on our choices. Well sorry, but I think we are incredibly spoilt and selfish.

i think people live too much in their own limited worlds. people are people for christs sake. we all have the same human needs, the same human wants. why the hell should any one set of people, by luck of the birthright draw be any more entitled to peace and prosperity than any other individual on earth? eh? what makes one person any more entitled than any other? hmm?

sheesh.

oh yes, and British companies are making huge amounts of money in virgin democracies in Eastern Europe. So just like in colonial times, when the UK got rich by exploiting Africa, we like to benefit from business in other countries but do not want them to benefit from us.

well bloody said ruty, and thank you for being far more eloquent and informed than i.

Big fat YES to HeyThereBert. Those who object so much to immigration should make it their business to campaign against obscene global disparities in wealth and living standards.

quite policywonk. god, this crap makes me so angry...

Applauds Ruty.

My DM said that when West Indians were invited to come to the UK by the Tory government, British people were happy for them to do the work that they refused to do but did not want to see them.

The new immigrants are doing the those type of jobs now and wish them all the best.

My DM was an auxillary nurse and finished her career working in a care home. All the workers were black and the home was run by a Nigerian woman. All the residents were white and most were lucky to get a visit from their family once a month let alone once a week.

A few months before my DM retired, the home employed a young man who was white. He started Monday and by Wednesday of the same week, he had left. He could not even be bothered to finish the week in order to get paid.

I sincerely wish all the hard working immigrants all the best and they should ignore the ungrateful, spiteful xenophobes because chances are, they will emigrate to Spain, Australia or New Zealand to get away from all the immigrants. Trouble is, these people are so stupid that they won't realise that they themselves become classed as immigrants.

Threadworm - lol! I adopted my husbands long hard name beause I liked it - at the time it was quite exotic - not quite so much now. Applying for schools for the Dc, I am always politely asked 'what is their first language'

makes my blood boil too guys

i am scottish i guess, born glasgow
my father was born in scotland to a irish father and borders mother
borders..neither scottish NOR english in her humble opinion..lol
my mother was born in scotland to canadaian father and mother from lithuania...

arent we are all immigrants shomehow, shomeway down the line..

well, apart from the inbreds, that is...

my anger is vented at the exploiters of these capitalistic crimes, that deliberately pit poor against ever so slightly poorer
and sit back enjoy the fight and count their coffers..
the finger is firmly UP to:
all those that
that use and flought laws on working practices
buy and bribe their way to what they want
the government that cant seem to organise reasonable provision and planning in healthcare, education and housing...

the whole ruddy lot of them
you know who you are!!

if you are here and contributing you should have decent standard of life..its a no braine

or it should be....

Hear Hear.

I think BigGitDad was making a fair point about immigrants living on wages that wouldn't support a British family. Even if they are sending money back. Immigrants are often in dire accommodation and even if not they aren't paid enough to afford a family home or support a family in the UK to basic living standards. So employers use their cheap labour to undercut British workers. If employers paid decent wages, then they could recruit locally.

FOr instance, there's a high profile case where a care home group was helping its assistants (100s of them) appeal against an immigration decision. The authorities actually changed the rules. But to qualify to stay under the new rules, workers would have to earn another 80p an hour. The employers are refusing to pay the extra 80p so the people are still facing deportation. I know 80p per hour x 24 hours a day x much of your workforce adds up, but for heaven's sake, the group makes millions of pounds of profit each year off the back of their workers' labour. I'm sure if they limited the director's bonuses they could give the frontline workers an 80p per hour pay rise.

that's what happens when you force councils to sell off their own residential homes, of course - the money saved is actually made by worsening workers' terms and conditions.

yes but campaigning for better wages [as well as better funding for care homes, etc] is the key there, not a close down on immigration.