Helmet Cole said:
The fact is we are in Europe and we are a Union. Part of this process will be a levelling of the economic playing field for the collective good. Overall this should lead to a more uniformly prosperous Europe without extremes of wealth or poverty. In the meantime it's only sensible to expect an influx of immigrants from the poorer parts of Europe to the wealthier parts. Despite the recession and all the gloom we are still one of the wealthiest countries, and it is indicative of our economic strength that we are a magnet for gypo's and the poor from less well of states. As things even out the UK should become poorer and the immigration will slow down to more realistic levels. We are victims of our own success - enjoy the fact that you live here and not Romania!
We do indeed attract people from all over the world chasing wealth, and you need only look as far as our beloved MCFC to realise that it's people of all along the wealth spectrum who come for a share of our massive (I know) pie.
We attract the good, the bad, and the ugly - but we want to pick and choose who gets in - well, you really can't in a European Union where, eventually, our children and our grandchildren will be free to move around as they please without all the red tape and bollocks that our generation has had to contend with - and that includes our less salubrious relatives, not just the nice ones.
We are going thru a huge period of flux, and of course there will be winners, and losers - the powers that be have deemed these casualties as a price worth paying - but to me, to demonise our fellow humans as the problem is just plain wrong, and of course is against the law - as Daz says, blame the bureaucrats and politicians who haven't allocated sufficient resources, not the Romanians, or whoever is the next set of scapegoats.
I didn't mean to come across as patronising to Mack when I shared a previous experience of being hung out to dry by a corporate decision - I suffered a breakdown because someone who makes these decisions pulled a department and dumped their work on my team - they knew the company would survive, and any casualties would be less costly than actually paying for more support - this is how big business works, and it is how Governments work - we will survive waves of immigration overall, and the vast majority of the country will carry on as if nothing has changed, history tells us that. So I got out of that particular rat race - I could have stayed on and lost my desire to really help the customers and colleagues, but that's not me, fair play to those who can clock out at 5 and leave it all at work - I couldn't.
I'd say we could have a debate on immigration, but we can't have people saying whole races are somehow different to us or anyone else, that's how the fucking Nazi's used to think, and I refuse to accept any of these stereotypes are of any benefit whatsoever to a proper discussion, it's not a case of stifling debate, it's a case of stifling xenophobia.
By all means let's limit discussions to allocation of resources, and which particular parts of society will benefit or lose, but at no point should descriptors such as scruffy, smelly, horrible etc.. come into it, that's just bigoted, and of course the language used to describe several waves of immigrants into this country, and of course no longer applies, miraculously, thanks to the fact that they worked hard, integrated well, and enjoy the same facilities we all do like hot running water, washing machines and Lynx deodorant.
