Foreigners

That poster is shocking. Even more shocking is that most of people would not have been horrified by it at the time. I thought we had come a long way since then but recent developments (and compulsive reading of the comments after reports in the Daily Express) have made me reassess that comfortable conclusion.

Oops just realised I'm going off-thread. As you were.

I've also finished reading "Born a Crime" by the South African comedian Trevor Noah. He was born to a Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father in a time when it was illegal to have inter-racial relationships. (I was interested to read that the Immorality Act was since 1927 when South Africa was still a Union, I just assumed it was an apartheid government law).

Trevor and his mother went through a lot of hardship when he was growing up but this is not a "misery memoir" it is written with humour and an acute sense of observation of social history and not a trace of bitterness, self-pity or resentment. His mother is a great character in her own right, feisty, progressive and independent and that shines through in the book. It is a great read.

granjura (and others) I've just read an advance review copy of Trevor Noah's autobiography, it's brilliantly insightful. I can recommend it. Will copy and paste what I wrote about it on the "Books" thread.

Ethnic origin is not the same thing as country of birth, which is what people are being asked for now.

Fabulous granjura! Smileless, hope the storm has passed by without too much damage.

Brilliant, granjura.

A friend just posted this on my FB. I just love Trevor Noah - here he is talking about British Colionalism:

vimeo.com/130619176

Well, that's funny, I was first asked to fill in forms about my ethnic origins when Tony Blair was in power.

Just been reminded of this poster from the 1964 election... Maybe the Tories have some copies hanging around somewhere in their archives.

Ed Miliband did not say name and shame companies. He said work with jobcentres to find out why these companies had to employ so many overseas workers, find out where the gaps were in training in local areas.
That sounds more reasonable.
British jobs for British workers is no good if the unemployed do not have the skills needed.

My husband used to work as a section manager for "a store beginning with M", years ago. It was real nose-to-the-grindstone stuff - on the one occasion he took time off on the sick, his store manager rang and had a go at me, even though I'd explained he was seriously ill with pneumonia - but I can't imagine how they could get away with employing illegal immigrants. When my husband employed a new member of staff, he had to ask for all the usual stuff, i.e. National Insurance number, etc.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, as they were certainly not over-generous when it came to wages, but I'm not sure how they would get away with it.

Just seen this thread and had to smile at your first comment Jalima-we moved to Devon from Sussex about 40 years ago and wondered where all the foreigners were. The local press complained about them regularly! They meant us.

neversaydie I don't think Australia has got it right with regard to the indigenous population, compensating with over-generous benefits payments they have created a dependency amongst some communities which can cause resentment amongst others who see this happening.

However, opportunities are there because how else would there be indigenous MPs, leaders, people working in all areas?

Did it make people's blood run cold and boil at the same time (interesting new condition btw) when Ed Miliband made similar proposals when he was Leader of the Labour Party?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/amber-rudd-ed-miliband-name-and-shame-list-foreign-workers-migrants_uk_57f66063e4b0efc7e3c529b8
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30474521

Presumably, had he won the GE he would have proceeded with this, an idea which Amber Rudd seems to have lifted from Labour.

I don't remember such outrage and shouts of prejudice, nationalism and yellow stars then or did I miss it?
They didn't get elected so we will never know if it would have been implemented, but the present Labour Party can hardly claim to be anti-prejudice.

I think the government does crack down on gang-masters, and does spot checks/raids all the time on business premises , particularly those on the food industry, and finds a lot of illegal immigrants.We don't see all the behind the scenes stuff.

Exactly Neversaydie and daphnedill.

Thanks daphnedil, it's 8.00pm here now and things are beginning to happen.

@Neversaydie

Good point! It's interesting to think what kind of country the US would be without immigrants too.

Why should an employer be ashamed of employing legal immigrants? The Cambridge science and research companies employ thousands of them. A high percentage of my language teaching colleagues were immigrants. These people make a net contribution to the UK. Foreign students contribute about £2.5 billion to higher education budgets, which helps keep down the cost to domestic students.

Rather than spending millions on gathering data, why doesn't the government spend more on cracking down on exploitative gangmasters and doing spot checks on people suspected of employing illegal immigrants or paying below the minimum wage? This seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but of course it keeps some sectors of the public happy.

As I understand it, Australia does not give their indigenous Aborigines priority for anything ...

Daphne, we may soon be told how many foreign employees Morrison's has. Name and shame, I think the phrase was.
Andy Parsons said tonight that the department for Brexit might have to name and shame itself if it has to employ lots of EU people to sort out Brexit.

Up here the hourly rate for Morrison's is more than that for a qualified teaching assistant.
Both can be immigrants, at the moment.

I suspect it's winning back Ukip defectors which is of greater interest to Rudd and her puppet mistress, May.

Do you mean Morrisons? We don't have them round here, so I don't know.

Are you suggesting that people are working illegally or that the supermarket is paying them a lower rate than others?

Presumably a supermarket employs the best people it can. All other things being equal, why would an employer employ people who perhaps have poor language skills and little work experience in this country, if there others who have applied for the jobs?

What percentage of foreign-born people does this supermarket employ? How does that justify treating other people who are here filling skills gaps (just like your children) with suspicion?