Housing immigrants and queue jumping

[Jeremy]

The fact remains that there is a large inequality between us and our nearest neighbour when it comes to intake of asylum seekers. I think we've covered most of the possible reasons for this. Time for me to bow out of this one now I think.

[????]

Germany until very recently didn't even grant 2nd generation turks proper citizenship and anectdotally racism is less entrenched, institutionalised and far less evident in the general population in the UK than anywhere else in europe, we also seem to have the highets per capita asylum seekers of the major EU nations according to your figures Sean. I suspect that a larger proportion of Asylum seekers are ultimately intent on coming to the UK than elsewhere in the EU - i'm purtting no value/politics on this it just seems fairly likely to me.

[SeanMacGabhann]

why does it matter if you are a "major" or "minor" eu nation?

[????]

Well it doesn't in some sense but if we are measuring 'most' rather than 'average' it does. Same as looking at per capita anything.

[Keef]

Exactly right.

[SeanMacGabhann]

To clarify - I come from one of the minor EU nations - one that has traditionally been a nation of emigrants

But they bitch like a motherf***** when it comes to immigrants

I hate my countrypeople infinitely more than I get annoyed by some Brits complaining about immigration

But the point is it's always the same argument - "it's not fair! why are they coming HERE??? Why can't they stay where they are or go somewhere else - we seem to be getting most of them"

[Keef]

But the point is it's always the same argument - "it's not fair! why are they coming HERE??? Why can't they stay where they are or go somewhere else - we seem to be getting most of them"

Absolutely true Sean, but I think in the case of the UK, we do get a lot. I don't think this is a bad thing at all, just a fact.

I've kind of lost the thread of what the current debate is now.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Yeah the UK get's a lot for sure

But if the debate (the wider one, not the one on here) is to be useful it's no good radio phone ins and "mates" and newspapers talking about being swamped. Smaller countries will feel the effects more, and the UK is a long way from being the most "swamped" (on average, per capita, per GDP or whatever)

[????]

Sean - get your heart out of your head (and post) so we have these debates based on fact sometimes - you get so emotive about these things and start bandying around "Daily Mail', and semi-accusaitions of little englander just because your figures are 'challenged'. Is it really an honest debate is it to accuse poeple of small mindeness and prejudice when all other are doing is pointing out some other ways of looking at the 'facts'?

[????]

Personally, I think trying to be objective and non-selective about the reality isn't a bad start on all these potentiall thorny issues. Certainly the idiots on the right have a valuable weapon in their armoury and get some traction when they say that 'liberals' and the 'liberal establishment' won't debate these issues properly.....and I'd rather not give the BNP any debating ground to stand on howver tenous.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Not sure I follow your post quids...

I haven't band-ied around the Daily Mail at all - where have you got this from?

As for little Englander, I' m sure I said - just a couple of posts previously that I despise my own country's attidtude to this more than I do the UK's

And most of what I have posted is based on what facts I can find - which aren't as up to date as I would like

How have I been emotive? I have said there is a wider discourse where people (far emotive than I) are spitting blood on a radio phone in saying "it's not right" how the UK is only country taking this many - when "this many" depends on how you look at it.

And the UK isn't alone in this so I'm not overly happy about being accused of bandying around semi-accusations and Daily Mail isms

[bigbadwolf]

Yeah Sean.....get your dick out like the rest of us real men!

[Chick]

Asylum seekers make up just 0.3% of the UK population.

[????]

"But the point is it's always the same argument - "it's not fair! why are they coming HERE??? Why can't they stay where they are or go somewhere else - we seem to be getting most of them"...

When I'd just posted that objectively given your stats per capita didn't measure the most. You're debating on the EDF not aginst Talk Radio...or I suspect many Daily Mail..you can challenge liberal consensus views whilst still being a liberal and without being one of 'them'

[SeanMacGabhann]

But I'm not saying the phrase

"But the point is it's always the same argument - "it's not fair! why are they coming HERE??? Why can't they stay where they are or go somewhere else - we seem to be getting most of them"...

is exclusive to any country - I'm saying it's the same everywhere I have listened to the debate. Be that minor or major EU countries. Or the US. So by definition it's that comlaint/phrase quoted above which is emotive - not anything I have said?

[????]

But cn you not see that when you post a deliberately emotive 'prejudiced' statement connected to 'most' after someone has pointed out that factually the 'most' might be true for the UK.... at some level the poster may feel that you are linking that statement with their post? Am i being over sensitive? (seems unlikely :))

[Moos]

????, I see your point, but I didn't read Sean's post as connected with yours. Dunno if that helps.

*hands Quids a cowboy hat and fringes for his trousers, provides gentle push in direction of Rancho Relaxo*

[????]

..have they got one of those bars you push beer down?

[SeanMacGabhann]

"But cn you not see that when you post a deliberately emotive 'prejudiced' statement"

Maybe I'm being slow tonight - but you (or Moos or someone) will have to point out which statement that was deliberately emotive prejudiced

When I paraphrased "most of them" it was just that - the paraphrase of legions of indignant callers. But even if UK is getting the "most" refugees, i would argue that that isn't something to get upset about if the UK is big enough to deal with the most - that's all

I haven't meant to be emotive on this one - I just wish other people (and I mean the wider debate not you quids) would take a breath and stop being SOOOO upset when they phone in to complain. "The most" just doesn't seem to be the most important measure to me

An island of 4 million people getting proportionately more people than an island of nearly 60 million people seems to have merit - and I still disagree more with the island of 4 million complaining.

I just wish people would stop complaining - it isn't really the thing that blights their lives

[LegalEagle-ish]

Mo, that would be the bankers!

[mockney piers]

I have to say I've kind of l skipped cursorily through the last forty posts or so but and I say but, this country is far better than .. Oh bollocks, better than Spain.... Aaah fuck it, have to work tommoroe dammit. (tommoroe being the plural of all our days)

[SteveT]

SeanMacGabhann wrote:-

An island of 4 million people getting proportionately more people than an island of nearly 60 million people seems to have merit - and I still disagree more with the island of 4 million complaining.

This little island has 60 million a tad more crowded than most other european countries why do we need more populace when we seem unable to house the ones we have already?

[Huguenot]

I don't think anyone was suggesting that the UK accepted immigration because it needed more population? That's an argument from the 50s and 60s. A straw man, no less.

I can see three principle forms of modern immigration: free movement of labour within the EU, asylum seekers/refugees and economic migration.

The disappearance of the Polish plumbers over the last year has demonstrated that the free movement of labour wasn't economic migration but supply and demand. Great for our country, bad news for local shirkers who charged obnoxious rates for shoddy services.

Asylum seekers and refugees are about a duty of care to our fellow man that the UK carries slightly more heavily than some countries because we once colonised half the world, and still reap the benefits.

Economic migration is 'illegal' into the UK, and thus these individuals are outside the purview of the social services, and don't receive benefits.

In practice some of the third group masquerade as some of the second, and the systems we have in place to weed them out are inefficient.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Huguenot Wrote:

The disappearance of the Polish plumbers over the last year has demonstrated that the free movement of labour wasn't economic migration but supply and demand. Great for our country, bad news for local shirkers who charged obnoxious rates for shoddy services.

The demand for Plumbers for The UK is, on average, no more or no less, than before the Polish Plumbers arrived.

The demand was from The Employers in their Industry who could pay them much less per hour than the equivalent Guys who were doing those jobs before them.

Now the wages have increased in Poland to achieve a state of nearer parity to the British wage there is no further incentive for the Polish Guys to remain here.

What evidence do you have that the Polish workers, in general, did a a better job than the Guys that they substituted from those same jobs?

Also what evidence do you have that Guys doing those same Plumbing jobs previously, "charged obnoxious rates for shoddy services " ??

[mockney piers]

I once knew an English bloke who charged obnoxious rates for shoddy services.