Cameron - friend of Muslim women?

I expect we can all find a minority to which we belong. I am in a minority in my constituency because I don't vote for my MP's party. Everybody in the UK is in a minority in the European Union. Everybody in the UK is in a minority in the Commonwealth, and was before that in the Empire. The inhabitants of Britannia were in a minority in the Roman Empire.

But the majority don't bang on about it ad nauseam - they assimilate, fit in, and get on with their lives.

Oh, and I declare an interest: I am half English and half Welsh by parentage. It must be a miracle I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic.

Not at all worried , just dislike racism no matter the race

Sorry, that's just plain silly.Most Welsh live in Wales and as I said how can that possibly have an impact on them as a 'minority', where as Muslims from say, Pakistan and living in the UK, will feel they are a minority.
Scottish grans are not feeling the victimhood of being a 'minority' and you seem to be the only Welsh gran ab who is worrying about it.

The Welsh are a minority in the UK , we live in the UK - obviously needs pointing out

The difference is ( as if it needs to be pointed out) that the Welsh are not a minority in their own country!

So 5% isn't a minority , then 4.4% cannot be classed a minority can it

Not snotty at all, sounds perfectly reasonable and sensible to me.

I guess that's where we differ on this then, jess: I don't tend to regard political 'token gestures' as a problem unless and until they can actually be shown to be harmful. Until that moment I reserve judgment in the hope that it might not only not be harmful but might even do some good, whichever political party is in government.

As nonnie puts it so succinctly: "Politicians do things for political reasons".
Putting aside the supposed political reason for the measure under discussion in order to think about its possible effect appeals to my sense of hope and positivity. I think where I differ from many is that I don't automatically regard everything the current government does as bad, just as I didn't regard as automatically good everything the Labour government did when it was in power.

Moderation is all things is my fall back position, including reactions to political token gestures.

Sorry if this post reads as a bit snotty. It's quite difficult stuff to put into words and snottiness is not my intention.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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. ?

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?)??

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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