Refugees

Why do you think Chestnut?

Just because our hospitals are so comfortable?

More likely they have been trying to get here for months and the traffickers, who everybody agrees are exploiting the migrants, told her its now or never. Maybe her husband was waiting here for her. Maybe her children. Maybe her sister is here and she thinks here sister will help her with her pregnancy. Maybe she has nobody left in the world at all and she is desperate. Desperate people don't think, oh, its OK here, I'll just stay were I am.

Maybe none of these things is true. But to jump to the conclusion that she's only coming for the health service and because we're a soft touch, is just bizarre.

MaizieD

Chestnut

MaizieD

Chestnut

MaizieD

^ Pregnant women are risking their lives to get here so their babies are born in the NHS instead of in France, a safe country.^

How do you know that?

It was on the news!

On 'the news'? Which news?

Every single pregnant woman who risks her life, and that of her unborn baby, in a perilous channel crossing is doing it just for the sake of getting a free birth on our NHS? ?

I don't believe it.

A heavily pregnant woman came ashore on the south coast yesterday amongst the 444 who arrived that day. I don't know how many more were pregnant. So why are they doing it? They can give birth in France. Why risk a channel crossing?

Oh, Chestnut

I'm losing the will to live.

One pregnant woman disembarks and you've decided that the whole lot come here for free NHS births. (shakes head in disbelief)

My MP's mother did exactly that, before returning to Nigeria. Strangely enough, she's a Conservative and always votes with the government. In those days,the place where a person was born mattered - it doesn't give automatic citizenship now.

Chestnut

volver

I don't know where you live Chestnut. But you were telling a story about how the beautiful flat, presumably somewhere in the UK, had been occupied by many people but only one of them was English. Well there's lots of people in these islands who could have occupied that flat, but you make an exception for the English, whom you are singling out. By implication, the only people you think were entitled to stay there were English.

Well, that's us told.

I never said the English were the only people entitled to live there. I was simply quoting figures to answer another post. You have a clever way of twisting words.

So why didn't you write "British"?

Chestnut

volver

I don't know where you live Chestnut. But you were telling a story about how the beautiful flat, presumably somewhere in the UK, had been occupied by many people but only one of them was English. Well there's lots of people in these islands who could have occupied that flat, but you make an exception for the English, whom you are singling out. By implication, the only people you think were entitled to stay there were English.

Well, that's us told.

I never said the English were the only people entitled to live there. I was simply quoting figures to answer another post. You have a clever way of twisting words.

I have windows into people hearts

Or at least the way they think.

I've had too much experience of people saying English when the correct word is British. They give themselves and their preconceptions away.

GagaJo. David Attenborough describes the situation rather well. Population growth is a major concern but equally important is what the global population consumes and the challenge to developed nations to reduce their consumption.

Some extracts but the whole article is a worth reading:

www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/david-attenborough-warns-planet-cant-cope-with-overpopulation/

While it’s true that global fertility levels are in decline, leading to a slowing in overall population growth, fertility in the world’s 47 least developed countries is still relatively high - at 4.3 births per woman between 2010 and 2015 - meaning rapid growth of these countries at 2.4% per year.

One of the reasons population has increased as fast as it has, is that people like me are living longer than we did, so there are more and more people just because the expectancy of life has increased.”

… our consumption of resources varies massively across the globe.
“An average middle-class American consumes 3.3 times the subsistence level of food and almost 250 times the subsistence level of clean water,” according to Professors Stephen Dovers and Colin Butler in their paper, Population and Environment: A Global Challenge. So if everyone on Earth lived like a middle-class American, then the planet might have a carrying capacity of around 2 billion. However, if people only consumed what they actually needed, then the Earth could potentially support a much higher figure.”

As developing countries catch up with the rest of the world, you might think their carbon footprint grows at the same rate, but, according to research, between 1980 and 2005, many of the nations with the fastest population growth rates had the slowest increases in carbon emissions.

If we want to save Earth, we can no longer afford to keep eating meat: “We are omnivores, so biologically, if you could have a biological morality, you can say, yes we evolved to eat pretty well everything.

volver I've had too much experience of people saying English when the correct word is British. They give themselves and their preconceptions away.
Absolute nonsense. The family were English, not Welsh, not Scottish, not Irish. I would have said whatever they were. If I didn't know I would have said British.

Your tendency to twist people's words and change the meaning comes out in all your posts. It's often very clever, but sometimes total nonsense.

Not nonsense.

You don't get to deny my lived experience and then paint me as the bad guy. Maybe you're just not aware of the implications of what you posted.

Chestnut

volver I've had too much experience of people saying English when the correct word is British. They give themselves and their preconceptions away.
Absolute nonsense. The family were English, not Welsh, not Scottish, not Irish. I would have said whatever they were. If I didn't know I would have said British.

Your tendency to twist people's words and change the meaning comes out in all your posts. It's often very clever, but sometimes total nonsense.

I'm with volver on this one.

I'm with Urmstongran and JenniferEccles from the first page on this issue.

The main reason I voted to leave the EU was because our country can't keep overpopulating the way it had been doing. It doesn't have the resources, the infrastructure, housing, educational capacity, etc, etc, etc to offer. With the poverty and the housing squalor some people live in, we can't even provide for the people we do have, never mind thousands more. This situation can't go on ad infinitum and something has to be done. Some of the solutions will seem harsh and unpalatable to many, what is the alternative?

I do wish, though, that individuals could choose in which direction the taxes they pay would be allocated. I wonder how many would say that a large proportion of their taxes should go to paying to help refugees, at the expense of something else dear to their hearts?

The main reason I voted to leave the EU was because our country can't keep overpopulating the way it had been doing.

And how's that working for you?

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Reported this it's on the wrong thread Doh!

CatsCatsCats

I'm with Urmstongran and JenniferEccles from the first page on this issue.

The main reason I voted to leave the EU was because our country can't keep overpopulating the way it had been doing. It doesn't have the resources, the infrastructure, housing, educational capacity, etc, etc, etc to offer. With the poverty and the housing squalor some people live in, we can't even provide for the people we do have, never mind thousands more. This situation can't go on ad infinitum and something has to be done. Some of the solutions will seem harsh and unpalatable to many, what is the alternative?

I do wish, though, that individuals could choose in which direction the taxes they pay would be allocated. I wonder how many would say that a large proportion of their taxes should go to paying to help refugees, at the expense of something else dear to their hearts?

What's that got to do with refugees?

I assume you know that migration from non-EU countries has risen quite sharply since 2016 and is now the highest it's ever been.

I do wish, though, that individuals could choose in which direction the taxes they pay would be allocated. I wonder how many would say that a large proportion of their taxes should go to paying to help refugees, at the expense of something else dear to their hearts?

As taxation doesn't fund spending, this is irrelevant. Government is the sole issuer of money, it spends then taxes back money to ensure there isn't so much in the system as to cause inflation (and other reasons).

Government failure to spend in certain areas is a purely ideological one, such as 'the tories don't believe in state spending. as much as possible should be provided by the private sector'.

What you need to do to change this is to vote for a party that will spend money/invest in failing, but essential, sectors. Like the Home Office which is so chaotic and underfunded that it cannot handle asylum claims in a timely fashion.

Telling people that they can only spend money if they tax heavily is a complete and utter lie.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with state spending. It all puts money into people's pockets, into private sector businesses and into the economy. Money is money, whether it is spent by the private or the state sector. In fact, state spending could be viewed as better in one way because the state doesn't have to make a profit for ludicrous CEO & Directors' salaries and dividends to shareholders.

Whether or not the state runs things more efficiently than the private sector is for the voters to judge. Excessive sewage discharges into our rivers and rail companies having to be taken back into public ownership don't fill some people with confidence in privatisation.

But, if the voter knows that spending isn't tax dependent, but is a result of different ideologies, they can make a more informed choice about parties' spending policies.

MaizieD I wonder why whenever a chancellor/shadow chancellor or most government/shadow government ministers are interviewed why the taxes increase to pay back X, Y & Z is never challenged by the interviewer?

It’s almost as if the media are complicit…

volver

Not nonsense.

You don't get to deny my lived experience and then paint me as the bad guy. Maybe you're just not aware of the implications of what you posted.

If someone constantly twists my words to put a different meaning on them then I will call it out. Other posters can decide for themselves who is the bad guy.

A person in England, who considers themselvers English (I assume) says that we are "sharing our gifts", and that a flat is being occupied by a succession of people, but only one of them is English. The implication is that anybody who is not English is somehow the beneficiary of our gift giving. The implication is that all those non-English people are getting something that they should be grateful for.

We are often told on here that the UK is a country, we're all one big happy family. But by using the word English in this context instead of British you are marginalising all those of us in this country who are not English.

growstuff gets it.

The government’s estimate of how much "deliberate health tourism" and those taking advantage of free NHS services cost the NHS every year was around 0.3% of NHS spending allocated to specific services in 2012/13. It’s still roughly around 0.3% of total health spending.
From Full Fact

Almost 15% of NHS staff in England report a nationality other than British.
From the House of Commons Library

As more of the world becomes uninhabitable because of climate change more and more people will need to move to the UK. It is the tip of the iceberg that we have seen up to now. We need to learn to share our resources and be mindful of our own impact on the planet and on resources.

What’s this obsession with expecting people to stay in France. Our border is more difficult to cross because we are an island. That doesn’t mean refugees/asylum seekers with historical or family connections to the UK should stay in France, a country that takes more refugees than Britain does.

It’s illinformed nonsense to suggest pregnant women take a risky, hugely expensive trip in a rubber dinghy so their baby will be delivered by the NHS
Wilful misunderstanding of the reality of the lives endured that leads desperate people to make that high risk journey.

France has a equal and in someways better health service than the U.K. If a refugee was in labour they would be well cared for. It’s ridiculous to suggest women only want to get here to use the health service. Actually many of those working in the NHS are immigrants.

The NHS would have collapsed long ago without doctors and nurses from abroad

CatsCatsCats 'The main reason I voted to leave the EU was because our country can't keep overpopulating the way it had been doing'.

You must be furious then, as leaving the EU hasn't stopped immigration (and was never going to).

volver

A person in England, who considers themselvers English (I assume) says that we are "sharing our gifts", and that a flat is being occupied by a succession of people, but only one of them is English. The implication is that anybody who is not English is somehow the beneficiary of our gift giving. The implication is that all those non-English people are getting something that they should be grateful for.

We are often told on here that the UK is a country, we're all one big happy family. But by using the word English in this context instead of British you are marginalising all those of us in this country who are not English.

growstuff gets it.

What absolute nonsense. The family were English, born in England, so what is wrong with calling them English? It is not a dirty word you know. You just create hidden meanings in everything and then twist it to suit your agenda.
I give up. I'm just not that devious. ?‍♀️