Cameron - friend of Muslim women?

He did. And I am not misthinking the two and a half years thing, bags, according to the BBC article where he is quoted.

"New rules will mean that, from October, people coming to the UK on five-year spousal visas will have to take a test half way through that period to show they are making efforts to improve their English.

Asked what would happen to those who failed, Mr Cameron said: "They can't guarantee that they'll be able to stay."

He later expanded, saying that if they were not found to be making progress after two-and-a-half years there would be no guarantee they would be able to "go to the full stage and retain their visa"."

Did he not speak of radicalisation ?

Only just read original post, I must have been listening to something entirely different, at no time did Cameron link non English speaking Muslims with terrorism. It is ridiculous living in a country and not speaking the mother tongue, it should be a condition on settling here, how can you integrate without speaking the language, how can they work to earn money, do immigrants just live in their own little communities pretending they are in a little part of their original homeland, but accepting just the things from this country that they want. It costs a fortune employing so many different interpreters and he is quite right in what he said. If you live here, you work, that meNs you speak the language. It really annoys me the way everything is turned into a racial slur when it isn't.

I've just watched a channel 4 programme shown on Tuesday, The Jihadi next door. It's slightly off he subject of Cameron's proposals but does link to the discussion here about the way in which some people are drawn into what is called radical Islam.

Did anyone else watch it? It was filmed over a year and I found it chilling. Men who were born here in England who it seems support Daesh and hope to see the black flag of what they see as Islam flying over Downing Street .

I agree that it's unlikely that recruiters would speak in the hearing of parents, but it is likely that they'd be using English to spread their propaganda in any event.

I also accept that Cameron's speech didn't quite make sense, but I did think the gist of is was that a lack of ability to speak or understand English could leave people vulnerable to influences from the culture and language that they may be more familiar with.

Ana I think Iam was referring to the last part of my post at 22.34 last night when I quoted part of DC's speech that didn't make sense to me (I could be wrong).

I don't believe recruiters would speak in the hearing of parents full stop. It would be far too risky. I think most recruiting (and grooming) will be going on online and the recruiters will have advised on the technical precautions to take in case a parent insists on looking at a laptop or other piece of equipment.

Of course the children would speak both languages. I meant that if the mothers don't understand English they're never going to pick up on anything untoward that their children may be talking about in English either between themselves or with friends.

And how do you know recruiters wouldn't speak in front of parents? If they knew there was no way they'd be understood by them, possibly they would.

The recruiters are not going to speak in front of parents, and speaking from personal experience, the children will speak English and their parents language

It wasn't the women who have gone to Daesh that Cameron was talking about, it was non-English-speaking women, some of whom may be the mothers of children who might at some time be targetted by recruiters for Daesh. If they can't speak the same language as their children and those recruiters, how are they to know what's going on?

JessM I accept your earlier comments were made in good faith and apologise if I sounded grumpy in my response. I do feel the former mill towns are struggling and often ignored or sneered at (not for a second suggesting you were sneering)

The red door debate today highlighted the fact that some northern towns have far more than their "fair share" of asylum seekers, resulting in all kinds of difficulties for the current population and those seeking asylum. The news this evening confirmed that the south east has far fewer asylum seekers than the north west (Bolton, Rochdale, Blackburn) and areas in the north east (middlesborough etc) where employment opportunities are dire but housing is cheap. Our public services have been slashed, tory councils in the south have fared better. it's just wrong. We have an active 'welcome to refugee" committee in our town, lots of work is going on and our council has always been good in supporting asylum seekers. But, our front line services, many excellent family centres are being closed. Schools in our poor/low rent areas are struggling with an influx of children for whom English is a language to be learned from scratch. We have a great centre here for children arriving with no English, a growing band of delightful children (in my experience)

I fully accept that the women who have gone to Daesh are largely educated 2nd or 3rd generation and with fluent English. Despite that, I don't criticise Cameron for the attempt to offer English language lessons - i just wish he hadn't cut existing, excellent services.

I am in favour of inclusion, not exclusion and don't begrudge the cost of translation services, especially when it comes to printed matter. But in general, I think it has been made easy to live in the UK and not learn English.

We can talk about this until the cows come home, but the truth is only women have the ability to reform Islam and it may take several generations. Learning English is a good start. How can mothers raise their sons differently in the UK than if they were still back in their country of birth if they don’t have the words?

I do not believe in single sex faith schools or free schools and think they should be shut down with no more allowed to open. It is one of the worst ideas in recent times to allow schools to opt out of the national curriculum or to only teach about their own religion.

As Oprah Winfrey says: Educate the women.

Iam64 only trying to highlight that the issue of Muslim brides who do not speak English is not spread evenly across the country and mostly concentrated in the areas where there was immigration from rural areas. If I recall parts of the East End and parts of N England. What may be generally true in those areas, may not be valid generalisation elsewhere. e.g. where I live most Muslim women are either students or the wives of students.
Where I lived before, there was a small Bangladeshi community and a small Pakistani community, with a whole range of Muslim women from other backgrounds living across the city and living more integrated lives.
Delivering anything via volunteers is not as easy as they have to be recruited, trained, organised, supported and monitored. I think it is a good way though of introducing a Muslim family to someone from another part of the community. But maybe not enough to get someone fluent in a difficult language.
Annie - mae Cymraeg yn iath annod, fel Saesneg. As long as the visitors are polite and friendly it's a bit OTT to expect them to learn a bit of Welsh before coming here. After all the service staff are bilingual in 2 tricky languages. And their business is more than welcome.

Wilma you may be right regarding Germany and Switzerland but my Dutch friend said it is not provided there. They also don't provide documentation in several languages. She was very surprised at how much we do for people coming to live here.

As I said in a previous post DS learnt French and Dutch very quickly because he was motivated to do so. He didn't learn German because he didn't like his job or the city he lived in.

I don't understand why people who choose to live in the UK don't think they should learn about us and our language without being given so much help. Surely the onus should be on them, not us? I can think of so many more important ways we could spend the money rather than on lessons, interpreters, printing etc.

I am of the belief that when Muslim women live in this country they should enjoy its benefits and its freedoms. I loathe the fact that many Muslim women are oppressed by the males in their culture. Oh they are 'revered' but only if they toe the line, know their place and are happy to be chained to the kitchen sink, looking after their menfolk and keeping their faces covered.

How can we be happy that men living in this country lack enlightenment?

Integration is key to peace and there will never be integration when in certain parts of society women are subjected to medieval norms. It's wholly out of step with western ideals. Learning to speak English, to communicate and express their opinions has to be a massive step in the right direction for Muslim women in the UK. How on earth can anyone object to Cameron's plans?

It's sad that there has to be legislation to ensure women are able to attend language classes, but it is right imo that all people settling here should learn to communicate. One has to hope that articulate women in Islam may one day bring about the cultural reforms so badly needed to enable multiculturalism to work in the UK at all levels.

Nonnie the fact your DS wasn't offered language classes doesn't mean they weren't available. Before the funding was cut here in the UK, classes weren't offered either. The demand for places always exceeded the supply and there were waiting lists for evening classes in particular. Women made up the majority of the students during the day for most types of courses and the venues very varied. Often classes were held at the school their children attended and child care was provided for younger children. Classes were offered where they seemed best placed in the community and could be single sex too.

Community education was a large part of the local authority's education department. The removal of the funding not only removed the learning opportunities, a whole infrastructure was dismantled with a lot of job losses. I'm not sure if some people on this thread appreciate the community services that have been lost through cuts in funding, services that existed for decades. Many of these services had multiple purposes like education and integration, the very services we need now more than ever.

I would be the first to admit the administration and management of the Community Service education provision were I worked was chaotic (for many reasons). The whole system needed reforming, but to reduce it to virtually nothing was a short sighted decision that probably was an easy target to save money. The problem now is the infrastructure has gone, so a lot of the new funding will disappear in admin costs, or maybe outsourcing costs if the services are offered to private companies. I don't envy the decisions local authorities have to had to make in the last decade or so. Rock. Hard place.

It takes imagination, rapport with the women and planning - plus money is very useful stuff.

When this broke on the BBC TV news they only interviewed women who had learnt or were learning English and it was all very positive. Is there a way that these women could be encouraged to teach those from their communities who do not come forward so easily?

There used to be many voluntary projects all over the country, Elegran as well as home tutoring schemes so women didn't have to go out to classes. They involved a lot of background work engaging the support of communities and they had untold benefits because of the real friendships that developed and the mutual understanding that was encouraged. They were quite economical to run, because of being the model you suggest. I'm not sure that it could be revived, though. Pity.

It's typical Cameron spin. Cut budgets to education everywhere and then announce a huge spend on some speciality. One of the ways Muslim women have learned English in the past is through their children and through contact with their children's schools. It wasn't the best system and it could have done with a lot more funding, but it was a way of making contact and encouraging socialisation. Now there isn't any money in schools for ESL teaching and children struggle.

If their husbands are very conservative they will not be allowed to attend. Blimey who'd want to live like that?

I don't think anyone has discussed how to get the women to go to the classes. If they are living in the environment some suggest how do we get to them to persuade them to join the classes?

There are many volunteer groups around the country trying to help incomers to settle in. Perhaps spending money on training some of them to teach the language free would be a good investment?

Elegran the reason Moslem women were specifically mentioned was the conflation of not speaking English with radicalisation which raised hackles all round.I don't see how anyone could reasonably object to language classes being provided for immigrants (although if you look at some of the comments on other forums, lots do). I think it's highly unlikely that any meaningful costing has been attempted, particularly on the basis of savings to the NHS and social services. Lifelong learning of all kinds is nearly always undervalued.

Would just like to say that DS lived in Switzerland, Germany and now The Netherlands and none of those countries offered him free language lessons.