Foreigners

Thought Yannis was great and spoke from a strong basis having experienced how Greece has taken in immigrants after the collapse of communism and now.
By all means discuss who fought in WW1 & 2 anything rather than look at the present situation.
We could also talk about the actions of ordinary families. My DCs were members of the Woodcraft Folk, when WW2 was threatened the WF asked the government to admit the children of socialist activists from Germany, they knew these people would be targeted. The gov refused to do anything, so after an International camp British families simply took the children home with them, and kept them through the war. I wonder how many of us would do something similar?
(Most of the children's parents were imprisoned and killed by the way)

Yannis did say that Greece is a great country.

Well, yes, in many ways but not economically!! This interview with The Australian earlier this year makes me think he gives out confusing messages:

he resigned as Greece’s finance minister, in the wake of the referendum in which the Greek people voted to reject the demands of the ­country’s creditors, the so-called “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It was the result that Varoufakis and the Greek prime minster Alexis Tsipras had campaigned for. But within 24 hours ­Tsipras performed a volte-face, accepting the troika’s terms. Varoufakis resigned.

A politician without office, Varoufakis now spends his time writing, giving speeches and campaigning to reform Europe from the grass roots up. In February he launched Diem25, a pan-European umbrella group aiming to pull together left-wing parties, protest movements and “rebel regions” from across the continent, with the object, as he puts it, to “shake Europe — gently, compassionately, but firmly” and bring “democracy back to EU decision-making”.

He has published a new book, And the Weak Suffer What They Must? — a detailed historical analysis of the origins of Europe’s financial crisis. Its basic thesis is that the eurozone is not the route to shared prosperity it was intended to be but “a pyramid scheme of debt with countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain at its bottom”. Its conclusion, put bluntly, is that Europe “is too important to be left to its clueless rulers”, and that the eurozone must be fully recalibrated if Europe is to avoid a repetition of the 1930s, with financial chaos, the rise of ­fascism and the spectre of conflict

Too important to be left to its clueless leaders - yes, but trying to implement change was like beating heads against proverbial walls, which I think is why some people I know voted Brexit. They thought that change from within was nigh on impossible.

I did think that David Dimbleby was very ineffectual last night, allowing everyone to talk over the top of everyone else. DH said that it is way past the time he should retire and give way to a better chairman.

I hear Jeremy Paxman is very keen to take his place!

By all means discuss who fought in WW1 & 2 anything rather than look at the present situation.
but then you went on to tell us an interesting story about what happened in WW2.

I think thousands of British families took in children during the war, from Europe and evacuees from cities. Some of them were well cared for, but some had a terrible time.

He would be too combative!!

It would turn into the Jeremy Paxman Show

Threads meander a bit trisher.... so what, and I found the anecdotes interesting.

Jalima I think that Dimbleby should have gone ages ago!

This has meandered from the OP, my post was more to do with Brexit but that is because I was thinking of QT because someone mentioned Yannis Varoufakis.
I don't really think he can teach this country a lot about the benefits of people coming to live here from other countries.

GREECE despite not sharing a border with Syria,but the relatively short sail from Turkey has made it a prime destination for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Syria and other countries. Nearly 250,000 refugees have landed on Greek shores in 2015 after perilous sea journeys, overwhelming a number of islands where physical and administrative infrastructure are insufficient. While a small number have been given temporary housing in Athens, most refugees aim to use Greece as a land bridge through the Balkans and into Northern Europe.
Apparently refugees do not see Greece as an ultimate destination - and why would they?
Youth Unemployment Rate in Greece decreased to 42.70 percent in July from 47.70 percent in June of 2016. Youth Unemployment Rate in Greece averaged 34.61 percent from 1998 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 60 percent in March of 2013 and a record low of 20.10 percent in May of 2008. Youth Unemployment Rate in Greece is reported by the Eurostat.

Of course, Yannis Varoufakis was Greece's Finance Minister for a few months - he is now on the lecture circuit telling us how we should conduct ourselves and disparaging other people's IQs.
Interesting, really, it makes one wonder how many people who would seem not to be that competent at their jobs are now on the preaching lecture circuit.

Interesting reading about Greece, Jalima.

Probably TLDRM for most!!

i0.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/161020-Another-Angry-Voice-DM-hypocrisy.jpg

How do we tell the age of refugees?

I thought Varoufakis made some very valid points about refugees, but I was very worried by the Hartlepool audience.

I've just read this, as well. Very powerful.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/10/21/vilification-of-child-refugees-makes-me-fear-for-my-country

I don't know where your information came from Jalima but the
International Rescue Committee (headed by David Milliband) has these comments
The EU-Turkey deal that went into effect on March 20 left more than 57,000 refugees stranded in Greece. Asylum and relocation services are overburdened and under-resourced, so the process is slow.
And about Greece
Population: 11 million
Refugee population in Greece: 57,000+ (over half of them women and children)
IRC response
Started work in Greece: July 2015
People assisted: 13,618 (one quarter of all refugees in Greece)
People we hope to reach in 2016: 16,000
The Greek government is doing its best but it is coping with huge numbers
Over one million people in search of sanctuary have traveled through Greece since 2015. Although the Greek government has created temporary housing for the tens of thousands stranded by the EU-Turkey agreement, many of these camps do not meet accepted humanitarian standards.

No country could successfully integrate so many refugees and no country should have to. The fact that we have left all of these people to suffer (and many of them are women and children traveling without men) is disgraceful. And one of the reasons more men are found in the camps in France is because they are more likely to resort to dangerous and illegal means to get away from Greece. Of course women and children may be trying to do the same and just disappearing It is horrific.
If you are interested www.rescue.org/country/greece#what-caused-the-crisis-in-greece

@Jalima

I assume you realise that Varoufakis was an academic for many years before he was Greek Finance Minister. He already had a job on the lecture circuit before the 'call' came. He didn't cause Greece's financial problems. A succession of governments had already done that.

I thought Varoufakis made some very valid points about refugees, but I was very worried by the Hartlepool audience.
Well, you could always send them all to a re-education centre if their thinking is wrong.

I don't know where your information came from Jalima
Well, as stated in my post, it came from The Australian, an interview with Varoufakis earlier this year.
ps I would not think that the Australians are prejudiced against the Greeks, as it has one of the largest Greek populations in the world - many, I presume, now Australians.

The other information came from Eurostat (as stated) and a Canadian immigration site
www.immigration.ca/en/quebecimmigration-topmenu/187-canada-immigration-news-articles/2015/september/1992-countries-for-syrian-refugees.html

I was very surprised at how aggressive the audience was last night. They would seem to be very anti immigrant and were rude and unkind to the Polish lady who had lived there for over twenty years and married a British man. However for all their rudeness the panel and the Polish lady remained calm and polite and Ken Clarke stuck to his guns despite what was said to him.

I agree, Welshwife. I always thought that audiences for Question Time were supposed to be organised along political lines.
However, I don't think I would have liked to have said anything last night if I'd been there, because of the obvious hostility.

All I could think was "This is Hartlepool and they did hang a monkey because they thought it was a French spy."
www.thisishartlepool.co.uk/history/thehartlepoolmonkey.asp
Things have obviously not improved.

Hope they don't bring the UKIP head office up here.

politicalscrapbook.net/2016/10/ukip-dont-have-enough-money-to-pay-their-rent/

Isn't it funny how UKIP members speak out against immigration but when introduced to someone like Yanis Varoufakis or the Polish woman in the audience they always say "Oh but we didn't mean you!"

I thik what upsets me most about attitudes to the Polish is that they fought alongside the British in WW2 (while we're swoppping WW2 stories) and made a valued contribution. Many settled in the UK after the war (indeed, we had a Polish butcher at a hospital I worked in in the 1970s and a very nice man he was) and were welcome. Now that the War is long in the past this seems to have been forgotten in the general anti-immigrant feeling which some Brits seem to have. I would imagine that those who settled here then, and their descendants, must be feeling quite upset and devalued by the attitudes of some of the UK population and media.

Also when it suited us in the 50s/60s we advertised for people from the Carribean to come and work on London Transport. Most of them had happy sunny natures despite what must have been awful weather to them and all the 'no blacks' (along with 'no irish') notices in boarding house windows. People were ignorant about foreigners then and it does not seem to have improved much in the fifty years since.

Polish people have the lowest rate of unemployment in the UK.
It is horrendous and frightening the way that politicians and the right wing press continue to whip up fear and racism. I can only conclude it is designed to distract people from the evils being done to poorer people in our country by the last government and by the present one. It's not the government that is making your life more difficult it's the immigrants! (Can't you just imagine them, behind closed doors, swilling expensive champagne while laughing about the gullibility of the ill-educated common people, who are so easily gulled?)