Were you offended?

And sadly may well be true FarNorth.

DC is not evil he is just a rich boy who just does not understand the plight of the British poor and even less the very serious plight of the refugees and the "economic migrants" who are living in dire poverty with little hope of anything better.

He is Prime Minister Nellie. He should make sure he knows about these things.

Far North Exactly! He is so totally out of touch with real life and the effects of poverty and what resources are available.

As in the bedroom tax where a sound bite piece of legislation was introduced with no one trying to establish before hand if there would be enough smaller accommodation units in the right areas to house those being asked to move.

If I were dictator PM I would make the whole of the cabinet be made to live for three months in a very rural area on job seekers benefits. That might make them think.

Far North,..... 'Sniffer dogs, fencing etc' is that out of order to you?Should the French Police, and our own simply give up and allow the thousands who want to come through on the trains, not legal immigrants I remind you , to to that?not to mention the cost to our haulage industry.
if that is what you would do, total open borders to all in the world, then say so, otherwise what else do you suggest at Calais?
all the immigrants could apply to the country in the EU in which they arrive, but they want to come to Britain, this is the problem, which is why they all stay close to Calais.Any PM even Ed Miliband had he become the PM after the election would have had to do something, this is not a party political thing.

Here is an interesting article about migrants :

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/robin-lustig/calais-migrants-refugees_b_7909630.html

and here is an extract from it :

"Q.1: Why do they all want to come to the UK?

A: They don't. Far more migrants head for Germany and Sweden, which dealt with nearly half of all asylum applications into the EU last year. The ones at Calais are a tiny fraction of the overall number, probably no more than 3,000 out of a total of well over 175,000 who have entered the EU so far this year."

I suggest actually speaking to the people to find out what could be done to sort out the situation.
I also suggest that the UK should commit to taking slightly more than zero incomers.

FarNorth. If you take out the emotive issue of immigration, they are committing an offence. Did you listen to 'You and Yours' on radio 4 today.
People will soon be loosing jobs ( in this country) because of the holdup with lorries. Are you aware of the cost of destroying goods that have been ruined by illegals in the lorries.

Speaking to which people?

Far North it will not help the situation if you mean speaking to the illegal
Immigrants, and as Petra further points out, they are exactly that , illegal .

the EU is going to have to come up with a plan for the whole of Europe.

If people loose jobs petra that is the fault of the useless government not those people seeking a better life than the horrors they have left. Of course it serves the government's purpose to paint them as the problem hence, the offensive use (notice that I say offensive use not the use of an offensive word) of the word "swarm" to set in our minds a frightening scenario.

I feel extremely sorry for those people on "You and Yours" but what has the government done? Has it taken the lead and offered to send people to the countries of entry to process those who want to come to the UK. Those wanting to come are far, far lower in number from those wanting to go elsewhere. DC could have been a leader in setting up a system and working with other countries on this but no, this Little Englander had to stand like Canute pretending he can hold back the tide. The message from Canute was that he knew he could not hold back the tide and needed to show this to his court - a leader. The message from Cameron is that he thinks he can fool people but will end up showing himself to be the fool.

We will never know what the great Ed Miliband would have done, will we?
I suspect much the same as DC.

Not the issue rose we are where we are and DC is the PM.

Why do we think it's because DC has a privileged background that he pursues policies likely to make life worse for the poorest? It's unreasonable to suppose that politicians inevitably ally themselves with people like them or from their own class. Look at all the parties; there is a remarkable similarity among the backgrounds of the main players. People choose which policies to support and it isn't because they don't realise what the effects will be.

Every PM from whatever party has to think of the country, making borders safe and controlling immigration.
I should think that a great deal of politicians had privileged upbringings, including those from the Labour Party.This does not mean they cannot be good PM's nor does it mean they will be better ones.
So many people in Britain are complaining ( in some cases rightly so) that their area is strained to breaking point in the issue of low paid jobs, waiting times for hospitals, GP's and dentists etc with the people we already have here, that turning a blind eye to whoever chooses to illegally come here is just not on.DC is the PM and so far, all he has done wrong( in the eyes of a very few) is to use the word swarm.He is not evil incarnate.

At last something positive is happening. It's been announced that EU border guards will go into the camps in Calais to process the migrants.

Haven't read the whole thread,life being too short, but has no one else felt that the French are doing an appalling job and are being totally inhumane? I speak as aFrancophile. There is a film by a French journalist Daniel Mollard about the journey taken. I think it should be shown in the relevant countries.

What would you suggest they do, Stansgran. I think the French police are behaving/acting very well under such pressure.

Should refugees have a free choice of safe countries to go to? Just a thought...

Strange, thatbags, that you only mentioned the thuggishness in my last post and not the Italian prime minister who is setting up the shelters for the migrants, even though he knows it might cost him his job.
Is that not good news?
Do you only look for the bad?

This is a Full Fact article about a DM article.

fullfact.org/live/2015/aug/calais_migrants_seven_ten_enter_uk-46920

Many more people will read the DM article rather than the Full Fact article, and believe it, even on here.

Your posts are always so grumpy-seeming, dj. There is nothing wrong with my post. It's just saying that I wish there was more media attention paid to the good that is being done with regard to migrant camp dwellers. That is all.

I mentioned that you'd mentioned vandalism. What is there to criticise about that? You did mention vandalism. So you might have mentioed something else as well. So what? I wasn't criticising your post. Grouchy or what?

I think the French police are not giving two hoots about the "swarming " immigrants. If they had any sense wanting to get rid of the problem they would set up centres to process people and not antagonise truck drivers or holiday makers or Daily Mail readers. Take your pick. I feel I could manage it all a lot better. Ask the questions which country do you really want to get to,what are your skills and how would the country benefit from your arrival and where are all these relatives who would support you and why haven't they sent you the plane or ferry fare. The proportion of people taken into a country is relative to it's population and spare jobs surely.

Except for the UK which wants to take zero.
Other than that, I think you are right Stansgran that the situation is being unnecessarily aggravated by those who should be sorting it out.

Even bankrupt Greece appears to be doing better that the Calais debacle. The Calais 'drama' is 'easy' journalism and sells the news many people seem to want to hear because it reinforces their thinking.

Far more people are leaving war torn/poverty struck areas to go to other places than are trying to get to UK.

Still say if the richer/Western nations could do more in the places where some emigres come from to make life there better so leaving is less 'essential'

It is worrying though that England is now the most densely populated area of the EU, with more people per square kilometre than the Netherlands, which held that dubious honour for many years. Is this what we want for our grandchildren?