We live in a society where it is always somebody else's fault. Too many people want to find a scapegoat and blame all of their problems or failings on something or somebody else. A large basis of the immigration debate seems to be based on this misguided view that the "foreigners are coming over here and taking our jobs". It's an absolute bollocks argument and in my experience I often find that it's the foreigners who come over here who are less likely to progress in a job because of their accent rather than being handed things on a plate.
Good post. But here's a flip side to the argument.
A few years back my kids school was rebuilt. Within it was a room designated to be a 'community' room. The headmaster approached a number of parents to see if you could find uses for the room and get things organised. As we had 3 kids at the school and my Mrs wasn't working she got heavily involved. She sorta begged & borrowed and even got some funding from a school budget, and was able to set-up various groups using the room. Mother & Toddler groups, Parents coffee mornings etc. All of this being done by un-paid volunteers.
18 months on and things had become a real success, so much so that Sure-Start decided they wanted to get involved. They wanted to put 3 or 4 part time/full time paid people in to run & organise things, and further expand what was on offer.
And with this they wanted my Mrs to apply for one of the positions. The money was good and they were also willing to arrange for attendance/time off for Uni courses, so that relevant qualifications could be gained.
My Mrs applied, and was even coached/helped by one of the local Sure-Start managers for the application, and was considered by most to be a shoe-in for one of the positions.
So it kinda come as a shock to a lot of people when she wasn't successful and didn't get a position. And the main reason why she wasn't successful?
She couldn't speak 2 languages. The school came under Oldham's control and it seemed they had a policy where they looked more favourably at applicants that could speak more than just English (especially Urdu, Punjabi, Bangladeshi etc). 4 woman of Asian decent therefore got the positions.
Probably the saddest part was that not long after, one of them went on long term sick and another quit, and just over 12 months later things went pear shaped, and the groups etc all closed. And afaik the supposed 'community room' now just sits there not being used except as a school store room.
So i've never had any real issues about controlled immigration, but have seen first hand how uncontrolled immigration & the extra requirement it produces can have a detriment to native english people.