Foreigners

Oh dear dd that sounds like we are well and truly stuffed then!

Talking of sandwich courses...

MacDonalds has created a foundation degree with Manchester Metropolitan. Plymouth University runs a surf studies degree.

People get a bit snobby about these kind of degrees, but they are providing advanced vocational skills, which is what the country needs.

I'd love to see academia working more closely with industry, full supported by the government, especially the Treasury.

BUT it takes time, planning and commitment, which the UK isn't very good at. I think there will always be a place for immigrants, because it's just not possible for anybody to foresee what kind of skills will be needed in 10 or 20 years. That's why the free movement of labour, facilitated by the EU, should have been an advantage and, in fact, many British citizens have taken advantage of the opportunities.

One of Corbyn's ideas is to get EU unions working together to increase the minimum wage in other countries so that their workers will not need to come here to get a better wage.

That could take a long time.

What I can't understand is how here in the SE we will manage if unskilled workers are not allowed in. One example, our care homes all always have vacancies for social care assistants even when paying above the living wage. Of those in employment, many are EU citizens. Unemployed people can't afford to move here from elsewhere

Rigby,

If the UK unemployed can't afford to move to the SE how do the EU migrant workers manage? They can't all be living 5 to a room in substandard housing...or can they?

Sadly this is one of the consequences of focussing resources/companies on London instead of developing the regions. London seems to me to be like a voracious monster, eating up all in its path and getting larger and larger and hungrier and hungrier! I'm glad we moved away from the SE 40 years ago...

Still, maybe it's slow down a bit post Brexit when all the jobs have gone off to the EU...

Not 'it's', 'it'll'

Not five to a room, but some do live in cramped conditions. I know somebody who rents out a three bed house to six Eastern European adults. Even students aren't keen on sharing rooms these days.

We moved away many years ago too MaizieD and my heart has sunk on occasional visits back again. It seems so busy, crowded and so much traffic .....

We also have people from the North East living in town, mainly as weekly boarders, so it's not just EU citizens. Most of them seem to live in spare rooms in family homes.

DH did that for very many years, it was nicer and less impersonal than living in a hotel or boarding house during the week.

speye.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/no-job-no-council-house-in-labour-run-slough/

Do you know anyone living in Slough in a council house?

Yes there are still "sandwich" courses in universities. I think its called "a year in industry".
The question about why people can move from EU but not from outer reaches of N England and Wales...
I have thought about this quite a bit. Many of the EU migrants that come to London etc are pretty well educated and are looking to improve their English as much as anything (try talking to someone from E Europe working in a hotel for instance - many are graduates). They are able to move to London because they know someone who can put them up (or even recommend them for a job in a hotel or similar). They have a couch to crash on and some friends or relations to show them the ropes. They also presumably have a few euros in their pockets to get by until they get a pay packet.
If you live in a god forsaken estate somewhere and know not a sole in London, launching off to find a job and somewhere to live is a huge hurdle. If you've been on benefits and come from a poor family, you aren't going to have the money to even get to London, let alone survive your first month.
Always interesting talking to immigrants. Spoke to a taxi driver earlier who had a strong Pakistani accent. Asked him about his family. His son has just done a master's in Durham in natural sciences and got a research job in Kent. His daughter is in university, also studying science.

Jess you are so right about setting yourself up with home and job. We know a young man who was living with in laws which was not a total success so wanted to branch out with his partner and 2 small children. At the time they qualified for no benefits they knew about because of living with family. They needed £1,000 to actually get a place to rent - half for deposit and half for the first rent. As luck would have it his family were able to help with this and more till they got on their feet - they needed to buy furniture etc and the BHF shop was a great help with this!

I was just thinking of single youngsters without jobs - but the same principle applies.

People don't move just to London for jobs. There are jobs for people with manual skills in other areas of the South East, where accommodation is (slightly) more affordable. The people we have living here from the North East are mainly electricians and machine engineers and some builders. They're mainly sub-contractors working on short term projects. The Eastern Europeans work as car washers, window cleaners, removal people, gardeners, carpet fitters (males) and catering, care work, supermarket staff (females). Most of the people I know about are here without family. Some of them have left their families at home, so it's not an ideal life, but it's do-able. People do move from the North.

In the fifth richest economy in the world people shouldn't have to live lives that are do-able

There are plenty of people in the richest economies in the world who have to just get by, for whatever reason.

I think weve gone down to sixth recently. But I live in inner London and there are plenty of Polish, Lithuanian,Somalian, Turkish you name it here who live in social housing, shared flats etc who are happy as its better than they had at home.

inews.co.uk/opinion/time-stopped-counting-foreign-students-immigrants/

This is how May gets the number of immigrants down.

Well, she could dj, but she refuses to do so. It makes me wonder if she is hell bent herself on perpetuating the anti-immigration feeling.

Why?

I think there's a difference between immigrants coming here for whatever reason and a society in which there are such huge disparities in employment opportunities for indigenous citizens . I felt really sad talking to a man delivering our new wheelie bins several years ago that he had to work away from home (Cornwall) all week to be able to keep his family properly. I know lots of people are in similar situations but that doesn't make it acceptable.

I don't think that has anything to do with immigrants, Rigby.
Three times in our married life my husband lived away from the family for up to a year, because he was in danger of being made redundant as an architect.It was to do with the economic situation in the country. Building is usually the first occupation to feel a downturn.

Maizie, this is from the first bit of the article.

'Paul Saunders was stunned when, after marrying a Cuban earlier this year, he discovered they were banned from living together in Britain. The problem was simple: he does not earn enough as a taxi driver, so under discriminatory rules that restrict poorer people from bringing in foreign spouses, the couple must live apart.

Yet many workers in his home city of Hull earn less than the £18,600 bar set by government. And how repellent to have regulations that target only less wealthy members of society. As Paul says, this is the kind of “heartless, unfair and illogical” edict that causes huge pain for those caught in the snare.

An estimated 33,000 Britons fail to earn enough to bring their spouses from overseas to this country. I have spoken to several, all living in regions where incomes are low and who are being cruelly punished for comparative poverty after falling in love with a foreigner.

The threshold is too high for four in 10 British citizens, hitting women especially hard. This vile rule was introduced four years ago by the then Home Secretary Theresa May as part of her doomed effort to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands” a year.'

33,000 more immigrants could have come here before the Tory party invented this cruel law, splitting up families even more than in this country, Rigby.

I don't think it s a god given right for people to live or work in the immediate area they were born, people have always upped sticks and got on their bikes in search of work. My eldest Dd has worked in about 4 locations, 3 different countries for her job. I'm sure every family has similar stories.