Are you ready to welcome the apparent flood of bulgarians and romanians....

Penstemmon - good post, so succinct, and spot on analysis.
I don't minimise the way in which some recent immigrants/asylum seekers place increased demands on public services. To balance that out, we have so many new arrivals who contribute hugely, to our social fabric and to public services, by working in them. Our service industries have been influenced positively by the Eastern Europeans who work in them. Pride in whatever work we do is important to all of us.

There isn't one (that flood of Romanians and Bulgarians that is):

metro.co.uk/2014/01/01/romanians-and-bulgarians-completely-fail-to-flood-to-the-uk-the-best-of-twitters-reaction-4246521/

This is worth a read. Don't be put off by the title.

archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/romanians-bulgarians-and-jesus.html

I just popped over to Mumsnet, first time in ages, and enjoyed their thread on the much feared influx of Bulgarians and Romanians. It made me laugh, one comment was about the high level of disappointment not to have found gangs camped out in their back garden. Thank goodness the younger women aren't taken in by the Daily Fail approach to immigration and benefit fraud.
Mind you, there were some scary MIL comments, level of aggression pretty high on those threads.

Very good post POGS.

I wouldn't mind betting that many of those who take a relaxed view on immigration aren't really adversely affected by it.

I believe it is total media hype as usually Rev one group up against another and you so get what you have prophesied

The BBC announced today that we have something like 3 quarters of a million young people in our country who feel they have no reason to live, a section of these at times contemplate suicide. Many are unemployed and those who are lucky enough to be employed are often underemployed on the ghastly zero hour contracts. How we will ever get rid of them when we have such a surplus of people for the jobs on offer is beyond me. I just don't see how the long term effect of having so many without any sort of future can be sustainable without it leading to some sort of dissent.

It of course remains to be seen just how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come here, but we were told the last time to expect something in the region of 13,000 and I think we all know how way off the mark that was.

Our young have the double whammy of a sub standard education system which business leaders tell us regularly does not equip them for the workplace. There is also a section of young who are not able to switch from street slang, they simply don't have enough English or basic grammar to express themselves in an interview, in spite of English being their mother tongue, having spent 12 years in our education system. I believe Tescos had to send some of their young staff to remedial maths and English lessons because they were not up to par. We are also told that the Eastern Europeans are well equipped for the rigours of the workplace, many speak excellent English and presumably their schooling can take some credit for that. It seems that they are prepared to do the jobs English people wont do, such as seasonal fruit picking etc. Would it have been so awful to ask young people who are fit and able to rise early at times to do this in return for benefits, it seems somewhere along the line, it was deemed that this would be asking too much of them, regardless of whether or not this may have helped them develop into a useful person in the long run. I think I came from a generation where when you went to work there were an army of older people who were prepared to stick with you and somehow knock off the rough edges until you became a fully functioning member of the workforce. Going to work for me was always a far greater learning curve than school. Sadly the luxury of this sort of "apprentership" isn't there any more. Clearly something has been going wrong in our schools for a period of time here if we cannot compete with countries that were suppressed for years by communism. When they were liberated from that, the only way was up. Not for them the mollycoddling nonsense dished out from a toxic mix of bad schooling, mindless celebrity culture and a benefit system that would give them an income straight from school, which appears not only to have eroded their usefulness but given some a weird sense of entitlement. Unfortunately, there is a supposition that many of our young don't want to work and the constant drip drip effect of being told how lazy and useless their generation is, must be damaging to the morale of those who are anxious to secure employment as it appears at times they are all tarred with the same brush.

My paramount concern is for our own "jilted generation" how this new influx fares is completely secondary for me.

Apprenticeships are alive and kicking. My daughter has another 22 this year in her care at her college, and her colleagues in hairdressing, catering, mechanics and plumbing also have apprentices. This is happening across the country. BAE are taking on a record number of apprentices this year, and there is a national apprenticeship week in March.

www.apprenticeships.org.uk/be-an-apprentice.aspx

Oh dear me, such criticism and negativity about our own country. I don't want to go all Pollyanna on everyone, but what about counting our blessings instead of over stating the problems we face as a nation.

I live in the north west, in a former cotton town, where there are few job opportunities, large numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers, and heavy demands on public services, which are being slashed and destroyed by government policies.
One of my children is a primary school teacher, in an area of Gtr Manchester that has been the home of successive generations of immigrants. In her class of 30 last year, she had 10 Roma gypsy children along with a children of mixed heritage and indigenous white/irish/irish travelling children. I worked in social care for over 30 years, and inevitably have worked across all kinds of indigenous, immigrant, asylum seeking etc etc communities. So, our family don't fit into a category that haven't been affected by immigration, as some posters suggest.
Britain has always had it's share of the feckless and lazy, look at the Hogarth prints, and read Dickens. It's also had it's share of good, hard working, creative, caring people, and I know a lot of them. I do believe if the media took a slightly more balanced view of the world, it'd be a happier place

My DDH has several Romanian nurses caring for him in ICU and they were wonderful. One in particular took a liking to him and went out of her way to make sure he was calmed and reassured. She would lay her hands on his chest and speak softly to him . When carrying out procedures such as suction of his lungs she would gently rock him before suctioning and talk him through it. Laying her hands on him to calm him after wards. Sadly she was moved wards before he was awake and able to meet her.

Well said Pogs and BAnanas

Archbishop Cranmer needs to get in the real world. Has he got children who can't get a job or their own place to live. Has he got children who can't get a place at their local school or get left behind because their class mates need extra help because they can't speak english. He's living in a bubble not the real world.

Hmm. Let me think. Next time I have a hospital appointment and it turns out my Romanian neighbour is the doctor, should I stage a small protest? Or if the person behind the customer service desk is Bulgarian should I refuse their help? All change comes with positives and negatives.

JessM Get off your high horse and get into the real world.

JessM I have just read your profile and read that your sons are in Australia and New Zealand, I understand now why you are not worried about jobs and education in the UK.

Some good [and some not so good] comments on this thread. BAnanas I have read and agreed with all you say.It's fairly easy for all us grandparents to take the high moral ground and be 'relaxed' about mass immigration, as we [or I suspect most of us] own our own homes, and no longer have mortgages to pay, are not worried about jobs and have some disposable income.
I accept that some GNetters are maybe not so lucky. However, there really IS a let down generation out there in the UK of all colours and races that have grown up here.The price of rented flats/houses is at an all time high, jobs at a low and although there are some well entrenched lazy people grabbing all the benfits they can, they are the minority. Joining the EU was the worst mistake we ever made. We would still have had some immigration, but it would be wanted and asked for, we could have allowed who we wanted to come in, now we have no say at all, past governments have been pathetic.

Goodness me ninny that is an uncalled for comment. In fact both of them. Launching a personal attack is not exactly known to support your argument and is sailing very close to the guidelines for posting on this site.
If I was so uncaring about education then why, I wonder, did i slog away as Chair of Governors in a very challenged secondary school for ten years? Certainly was not for the money or the public acclaim.

Commenting in a derogatory manner about someone's profile when you don't have one ninny is a bit rich!

An article in today's Guardian makes the point that whilst immigration is fine for those who are educated and relatively well off, even beneficial as it gives them access to cheaper services, it is not so good for those competing for low skilled jobs and desperate to find housing.

Iam64 a well educated professional working in areas of high immigration wasn't what I had in mind when I mentioned adverse effects. What would concern me about the class you describe is not the teacher but the child trying to get a decent education in such an unfavourable environment.

I defy any Gnetter to say they would be happy for their DGC to be in a class of 30 where 10 were Roma and others were travellers and so on.

There are positives and negatives Anyone who believes not getting jobs is only down to immigrants is way off course IMO not getting jobs many times is because we (over here) have been trained into believing we should start at the top or start on a good salary no one knows how to make do on the way up any more. I know companies who prefer overseas workers because they accept unsocial hours and work hard without all the whinging generous benefits give us Also in my area there are MANY not a few people who don't have a clue about working and see it as their right to have money without work Of course there are some genuine hard workers out of work through no fault of their own
As for schools how wonderful to have the joy of a multicultural upbringing realising your way is not the only way your religion is not the only religion and what better way to help the world than all playing and learning together
However I do agree totally about the EU and felt it was the worst move we could ever make and it has been and has continued to get worse

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Isn't Archbishop Cranmer just a bit dead?

Not that one, jingl...

He has a blog, just like Guido Fawkes!

This is getting quite unpleasant on GN sadly. Yes, most waves of immigration into UK did came in BIG groups, and did upset the apple-cart hugely in places. So I can understand how some areas and some people do feel threatened and under pressure. But please- those who are trying to keep a sensible balance are not fairies in cuckooland. Talking of which- here in cuckooland- the locals are up in arms about all the jobs going to Frontaliers (French who work here in Switzerland but commute every day back to France)- accepting lower wages and not spending any money here, or pay taxes where they work- and with 10% local unemployment. And also about all the British expats who also take jobs, do all their shopping on-line from UK or regular trips to French super-markets- and drop their kids into local schools without a word of French or any preparation (despite coming over for very good jobs and many months of advance warning- but not taking trouble to get kiddos lessons to give them a bit of help prior to coming...). Funny though how British immigrants call themselves 'expats' and other immigrants are called ... all sorts of other and often unpleasant names.

I lived in Leicestershire when the Ugandan Asians arrived in the early 70s, kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin. The backlash was huge, and I remember the reaction of people in the suburbs where I lived, when some of the kids where bussed to said suburbs to 'dilute' the effect on inner City Schools. Many people took the kids out of those schools and sent them to private schools. Within a decade the Ugandan Asians had moved out of the innter city to those suburbs, and sent their own kids to the very same private schools- and their kids were hugely successful in the local State school system too- with very high ambitions and achieving them in a large % of cases. It is very hard not to see that some of the local kids have too often no ambitions whatsoever, and are very low achievers in school. It is complex, and I am being the devil's advocate. Other European countries are also bracing themselves, and are seen as much more attractive to many than the UK.