Cameron - friend of Muslim women?

Actually, more of a boulder than a chip!

Do excuse me Rosesarered, I yawned

Penstemmon that may be your view, but think you are way overthinking things.As another poster said , there will be years and years of all sorts of Conservative policies for people to have a pop at, but this one, really??

Are the Welsh competing to be the most balanced nation on earth then?
It is supposed to be the Australians, chips on both shoulders
(sorry, that is a DH joke, and it is a joke) [ducks for cover]

Well, it is well-meaning but ill-thought out imo
A friend had a mother who was German and her father was English. They lived in London. Neither got to grips with the other's language and she, from the age of about 3 or 4, used to interpret for her parents and for her mother when they went out.

roses, your post at 20:44:24. Been thinking the same thing. ?

roses when was the golden age in UK of welcoming immigrants?

I understand and accept (agree with) that point of view, pen. I think where my point of view perhaps differs from yours is that I also think that Islamism (the ideology, not the people) is a problem that our government (and other European governments) should have faced up to and tackled sooner. I don't accept that it is all our fault.

That was in answer to pen's post at 20:47.

Penstemmon, some will still deny it , but I for one thank you

My understanding is that the policy is supposed to help immigrant muslim women to learn English, especially those isolated by their circumstances and/or possibly not being encouraged by their menfolk to do so.

What's wrong with that?

The accusation that DC implied that non-English-speaking muslim women are somehow responsible for their children being recruited into terrorism is absurd and has been discussed at some length earlier in this thread.

Everyone I know personally has always been welcoming to immigrants. I bet a lot of gransnetters could say the same. I think the xenophobes are a minority. A troublseome and noisome minority, yes, but definitely a minority.

thatbags 'political Islam' is certainly a far more complex world wide issue. Western governments either did not see it coming or did and took the risk and, imo, in some cases took actions that aggravated it! It is now leading to some terrible knee jerk responses both at government levels and amongst some of the general public.

I suppose I see the domestic issue, of some older Muslim women not speaking English, as separate from the growth of political Islam.

I do think that if the government had promoted this project as re-funding classes for English as a Second Language for anyone in the UK, and not specifying Muslim women..(because there are other groups!) it would have been less 'political' and better welcomed!

Support for immigrants has always been poor and there has rarely been the political will (from any party in power) to take a real lead / investment in supporting positive integration. This has created some serious disenchantment over the years in UK (e.g. Brixton riots) and at the moment that is manifesting itself in recruitment, by radical Islamists, of some disenchanted youth from immigrant communities/ heritage.

Actually, it's not just about older Muslim women not speaking English, it will encompass all sorts of ages.
The UK has a long history of accepting and tolerating and welcoming all sorts of nationalities, but it seems to be a left wing fashion to denigrate anything that Britain does or has done.It makes you wonder where they would rather live really.There will always be a minority of people in any country that are xenophobic as thatbags says.
A lot of Hungarian people were welcomed here after 1956 ( pogroms)and also Ukrainian and Polish, going back to the 1800's plenty of German people settled here too.All integrated and spoke English outside of their own houses.

There is not enough money to give English classes to ALL.I would have thought that was obvious.

I believe any younger spouses have to pass an English test to get a spouse visa, as in link above. So it is only older ones that have no English.

When white anglo-saxons complain about people from other groups bearing resentment/ categorising themselves as minorities/ having chips on shoulders/ not making the effort to fit in, it just illustrates that they believe in white anglo-saxon superiority and are not really interested in/ don't give a toss about the experiences of those who are not.
I would not have experienced rudeness in relation to my language, because Welsh is not my first language.

Bags - why complain about the government? Because they are hammering through an unprecedented amount of legislation, at an unprecedented rate. These changes are damaging our country - possibly beyond repair in our lifetime. There is so much going on that some of it is getting very little coverage. They are very good at PR and they have the bulk of the press on their side. The BBC is under threat and its impartiality may therefore compromised.
This week they withdrew maintenance grants for poor students. For the first time the "English votes for English issues" thing (which has also been rushed through) was used to ensure a massive majority.

And finally - there are other elections coming up soon - Assembly, Scottish Government, local and a referendum.

What made me laugh was the categorising of all the Welsh as a minority group!What nonsense you talk, JessM white angloSaxon superiority indeed.The days of Empire will be brought up anytime soon, and if that fails, possibly some link with the Nazis.
All because of a proposal to teach women to speak English ( perhaps we should teach them Welsh instead?)??

jess, Please don't misinterpret what I said. OBVIOUSLY (I made it clear), I've no objection to complaints about damaging stuff the government is doing. ?

Incorrect, not all because of a proposal to teach women to speak English - as claimed by Rosesarered

Correct, all because of a proposal to teach only Muslim women to speak English with a warning if they do not they could be forced to leave the country plus dragging in IS into it

Of course Welsh people are a minority within the UK rosesarered. What do you think they are? There are 64 million people living in the UK and 3 million are Welsh. Is that plain enough. And as in the example given above, re the maths teacher, some of them have experienced direct discrimination by English people.
And Bags of course i am in favour of a full and reasonably priced ESOL service. But not in favour of a token gesture that appears to be a PR stunt.
If he wanted to find out what Muslim grans think and want, he'd have made the time to go and chat to them using a translator.

"Impartial BBC"? They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even mention immigration.

This is a book of hope. When you read know that there are people in the world who care. We want you to succeed, to grow up happy and feeling that you are loved. It has the tools you will need to build a better world for all of us, and also for your own children. I hope that in the future your world will be filled with tolerance and compassion, and that it will no longer be necessary for families to leave their homes and flee terror, hate and oppression. I hope that in the world you build no more children will know hunger or disease.

A message inside a book sent from a UK citizen to a refugee child.
I much prefer this sort of message to the one Cameron sends.

Please may I simply state the obvious? Politicians do things for political reasons - all of them! So now can we please stop talking about their motivation?

And putting my head above the parapet once again, sometimes people who are not 'welcomed' bring it upon themselves. A story I have told before:

A man was planning to move to a new place and stopped at a shop and asked what the locals were like. The shopkeeper asked what they were like where he came from and he replied that they were really nice. The shopkeeper said they were the same here. The following week another man asked the same question and when asked what they were like where he came from replied, unfriendly and the shopkeeper said it was the same here.

I found this when working in a large department of a large company. I was saying how nice everyone was and a colleague said the opposite was true. It was clear to me that it was the way she treated others that made them unfriendly.

If we are such a nasty, racist, unfriendly place to live why do people keep coming?

For those of you who think things should stay as they are: have you given any thought that speaking English could one day save their life.
Ie, having to have a translator when you might have a life threatening illness. But even worse, you have a husband that won't allow a translator because they don't want anyone in their community knowing their business.

People come here for work, to escape brutal regimes, because many can speak English, because they believe this is a friendly , welcoming country - then find it isn't - they do not come for the weather, because they can have enjoyable holidays , or to live on the benefits

petra I don't think anyone posted saying things should stay as they are, unless you mean the posters who think immigrants should pay for English lessons?

BTW as of 2014, 5% of the UK population is in Wales and 20% of the Welsh population speak Welsh. 4.4% of the UK population is Muslim and about 6% of Muslims struggle with or can't speak English. Both are minorities.