UKIP

Bags that is rather sweeping re negativity. I was referring to my own hyperbole - I thought you were agreeing with some of the points I made?

There may be statistics out there but I don't have any links because I haven't looked.

However, anecdotally, I know someone who went to the job centre looking for unskilled work (anything, he was desperate) and he remarked gloomily that many of the other people also there looking were from E U.

It seems common sense to me that if there is a dearth of jobs the more people there are competing, the less likely chance there is of each individual being successful.

One often reads that a certain job attracted 200 applicants!

Although I notice that you say 'those people who want them' which makes me wonder if you subscribe to the idea that UK born people who are unemployed are that way through choice.

I agree that people who are well educated/highly qualified don't have much to fear from immigration.

I probably feel rather bitter when people say immigration is not a problem.

I couple of years ago my 20 year old GS was desperate for work. He found something through an Agency at a local Asos warehouse. He would ride 6 miles on his bycicle at 5.30 a.m. only to be told, more often than not when he arrived, that he wasn't needed that day. Eventually he had to give up the job and go back on benefits because he was only earning a few pounds a week.

All of the permanent staff at the warehouse were recruited in Poland.

Although a life long Labour supporter, I seriously considered voting UKIP last week but in the end couldn't quite bring myself to without examining their other policies in more detail.

I was referring to your hyperbole too, jess. I was trying to temper it with my comments because it made me uncomfortable.

Around here UKIP have done well mainly because we have had a Conservative county council for so long they have become conceited prigs who think they are real land owners and can overrule the common populous. Even when ALL the local MPs and ALL the district councils - mostly Conservative too - join said common populous and go against them too.

Petallus, I sympathise because my own grandson has made dozens of applications for unskilled jobs or apprenticeships, but he lives in the Hull area and there is huge unemployment - nothing to do with immigration, though, everything to do with the poor regulation of the financial industry by both major parties for many years.
Did you ever find out why the employers preferred to employ Poles? Did they consider them more hard-working, or reliable - I suppose they had to pay them the minimum wage. I am sure your son is very hard-working but the employer may have gained an unfavourable impression of some British workers like the ones who gave up fruit picking after one day because it was too hard and that kind of 'news' is eagerly seized on by the right wing press.

Good morning greatnan.

I don't think I go along with the idea, oft expressed, that generally speaking UK workers are layabouts and Polish/EU ones are hardworking, reliable etc.

I know some employers say that is the reason they employ foreign workers but then, they would, wouldn't they? (Thanks Mandy Rice Davies).

There was an article in the Guardian a couple of years ago about the awful conditions which EU workers are prepared to put up with when working in this country, real abuse in some cases.

Yes, employers are supposed to pay the minimum wage but I read recently that some then charge rent out of that sum for very sub-standard accommodation which they provide.

It probably is the case that EU workers are unlikely to have ideas about worker solidarity in this country, are handicapped by not speaking the language and are prepared to put up with bad conditions in the short term (often they are only here for a year or two) and are in a number of way a more maleable workforce.

Incidentally my GS eventually managed to get a good permanent job which he has been in for three years or so. I hope yours did too.

Wasn't meaning to be negative bags just to set things in a different context rather than the simplistic "we are being invaded by migrants" point of view.
When my DS was unemployed in the Thatcher era it was certainly not because of immigration.

Understood , but I think the what-about-our-horrible-imperialism meme is often simplistic as well.

Of course it is, but it should not be forgotten. It is a raw wound here in WA Bags. It is not ancient history. Within my lifetime huge numbers of children were forcibly taken from their aboriginal families and brought up in horrible institutions to try to teach them white ways of doing things. These are the grandparents of today's children. At that time the victimised parents did not even have a vote. Life expectancy of Aboriginal people is currently 20 years less than white citizens today.
This forcible removal of children was a crime against humanity carried out while Australia still under the wing of the UK government (full legal independence did not occur until 1980s)
And it was carried out in the main by people who had migrated from the UK.
So actually - those immigrants did terrible things to the local population, and continued to do terrible things until quite recently. Puts a few people who want to come over from EU to Uk to fill job vacancies and pay taxes into persecutive, surely?

Thank you, Petallus, and I agree that the media has managed to present a very unfair pictures of most British workers. My grandson is waiting for the final written and physical tests to get into the Royal Navy, for specialist diver training. His older brother, who has an MSc, is currently his mother's carer, as she is very ill, mentally and physically.
Not much of a life for a 29-year old man but she won't accept help from me.

This was a local council election dealing with local issues I don't think our County Council has ever had much of an input into Government immigration policy, much as they'd like to.

There's more to UKIP than just immigration -and even then they don't want to stop it completely, just put the brakes on and be a bit more picky - just like Canada, Australia, USA and most other countries outside the EU.

In Norfolk the UKIP success was a protest against Conservatives riding roughshod over public opinion ans wasting enormous amounts of money.

Yes, jess, it does. But I have never complained about EU workers coming to Britain.

I'm glad you reminded me about the forceful removal of Aboriginal children from their families. I hope and presume the present Australian government (and several previous) has apologised and is trying to make amends.

Heard on the news just now that UKIP are going to look at the health effects of wind turbines...talk about knowing which buttons to press in their target market!

Well - that'll keep them out of everybody's way, at least. Next they can look at ley lines and coffee enemas...

Hmm...I don't think wind turbines are quite in the same league as ley lines and coffee enemas, feetlebaum. A lot of people have serious concerns about the efficiency of wind farms.

Bags no I know you didn't but UKIP do. They are on the bandwagon.

ariadne Oh FFS! The mobile phone masts old chestnut next week? Oh no sorry everyone loves their phone coverage these days.

Ana - efficiency yes, but health effects is really out there in the silliness zone. We are surrounded in our lives by machines that rotate and make noises along with electricity and radio waves. No reason at all to suppose that turbines would be any different to all the other stuff.

Just in case you were in any doubt ....

Neil & Christine Hamilton

Something else the EU does - animal welfare. Docks here in Australia stink of sheep urine on days when they are loading up thousands of sheep for export to Indonesia.
And then there are the bees - our esteemed government swaying to pressure to support the pesticide manufacturers last week. But the EU passed a temporary ban at least. Less vulnerable to party donations and local lobbying.

I think the wind turbines can be very noisy - humming sort of thing - if you live near them and people find it impacts on their life not being able to get away from the noise. There is a minimum distance they are supposed to be from housing but the plans which look like going through in S wAles have some turbine much closer than this distance.
Solar panels are my favourite for Eco energy.

Solar panels are fine on the roofs of factories etc. but round here they are trying to plant fields of them covering acres of good agricultural land.

i think more should be made of hydro.

Don't worry too much about UKIP - the proof of the pudding....ie when it comes to doing the work for which they were elected, many of them will be lacking.

We had the same with our anti-immigration federal MP Pauline Hanson back in the 1990s here in Australia. She was MP for my area, but no-one could get any help with federal matters because she and her staff were equal parts incompetent and unwilling. They were severely useless! And the woman never got elected again. Mind you, 11 of her lot got elected to State parliament. That didn't last either - a right useless bunch of thick bigots.

I do believe the immigration problem is much worse in the UK though. I guess the main parties will have to address the question.

So agree about Hydro - DH is always on about it especially in the Welsh valleys where there are so many tumbling streams and rivers. He says it would be easy to do localised hydros. Isn't it funny how some things are almost ignored but others which are also controversial just get the go ahead. Vested interests maybe?

Can't say I blame the anti-wind farm lobby when I hear about this kind of stuff

Worse than what or when joan?