Foreigners

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

Exactly Neversaydie and daphnedill.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

vimeo.com/130619176

Brilliant, granjura.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

53 years ago Granny23
Some Grans on here are not that old!

We have moved on since then

That poster made me think back to 1964 and where I was. Still at home in Woolwich with black neighbours, a black friend who took me to my first Ska club where I wasn't allowed in because I was white ( there's irony for you) my fathers best friend, black.
I can't equate to this poster, or the attitude we were supposed to have at all.

inews.co.uk/essentials/news/education/parents-call-racist-country-birth-request-policy-schools-scrapped/

Some people are fighting against it.

Hope you are okay, smileless.

Well, I'm old enough to remember the 1964 election...though I was only 11 at the time. That poster is actually the refined version - the saying was, "If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour."

Have we really moved on? Increasing numbers of racially-motivated attacks suggest otherwise, though now you don't have to be black or brown to be attacked - a foreign accent seems to have been enough to trigger violence against people from Eastern Europe.

It's a sad, sad world.

They weren't shocked. Although the Conservatives denied producing them, Peter Griffiths, who won the Smethwick seat for the Conservatives (beating Labour), said, "I should think that is a manifestation of popular feeling. I would not condemn anyone who said that."

After the election, an official policy of racial segregation was put into place in Smethwick's housing allocation, with houses on Marshall Street in Smethwick being let only to white British residents. The Tory-led and fully white British council decided to buy vacant houses to prevent "coloureds" from buying the houses, claiming the area had been "completely taken over by immigrants". (Wiki)

petra I think the poster illustrates what many people privately thought about non-white people in the 60's and early 70's. It is very sad and worrying to see these sorts of sentiments creeping back into our country again.

All the film footage I have seen of ska and reggae clubs in the 60's show black and white clientele so you must have been extremely unlucky.

I started my first job in 1967 in the general office of a psychiatric hospital. Then, as now, there were many overseas student and trained nurses and I can recall on many occasions challenging two of the young men in the office about their racist (and homophobic) attitudes and remarks. My slightly older work colleague said her husband didn't really like her working at the hospital because of the all the blacks there. My views, whilst tolerated, were considered rather eccentric at that time.

I can't believe that we are having this conversation!!!
It does however show how entrenched some views are and not so easily changed as many hoped.