I am incandescant with rage!

You should see the overpayment case I'm dealing with tomorrow!

Im watching it too and it makes me mad to think they are so blatant in getting money for nothing and still the government lets them in. No disrespect but I think there has to be a limit to the numbers coming in and they should all have good qualifications.
when I think how I work for minimum wage and they sit on their backsides. I get really annoyed

David Cameron has been trying his hardest to protect Britain from the effects of the enlargement of the EC. And he only gets slated for it.

We watched it too. Both of us speechless for once.

Yes. Although any minute now we'll have calls for 'compassion' for these people.

I have every sympathy with those who fall on hard times and need a helping hand to get back on their feet Phoenix. What the 'bleeding heart brigade' can't, or won't, see is that there are those who are deliberately taking benefits out of the system that ought to be available for those in genuine need.

I don't blame you for being incandescent.

I'm incandescant right there with you, Phoenix. It's outraegeous and blatantly so unfair. We seem to be penalised for being born here, hard working all our lives, honest, paid our dues for donkey's years, and yet have to scrape along on the minimum income considered necessary to live on .

Ditto all the above. I think back to the time when we had two small children. Low wages, pitiful family allowance, strikes, inflation. You just got on with it and work hard to provide for your kids and pay the mortgage.

Why should people who have contributed nothing and have no intentions of ever doing so get so much?

We watched it last night almost wished we hadn't really. Agree absolutely with Henetha's post no more to say than that.

I haven't seen the program but are we talking about immigrants claiming benefits and social housing?

How do you defend the indefensible? As Diane Abbot once said.

yes petallus the programme showed a family getting on the coach in their village to travel to Britain with the express intention of getting a house and claiming benefits.

It's bound to happen.

I agree with you but would add that I don't blame them for coming here and taking advantage when you see how little they had at home. Why wouldn't they when it is so blatantly offered?

I thought all countries wanting to join the EU had to show that they were solvent and suitable? It must have been clear that this would happen as soon as they were admitted.

The focus should be on the 'Clanmasters' They are the ones organising the transport/accommodation/help with claiming the maximum amount of benefits etc., and then they take a substantial cut. Are they paying tax on this no doubt sizeable income?

I noticed the couple who came here with the intention of working for a better life had to go back to Romania because they couldn't find work. They obviously didn't belong to a clan!!!

This case illustrates the dissatisfaction that some of us have with the wholesale movement of EU citizens. Clearly there is a great disparity in the standard of living between western Europe and some of the former communist bloc who still haven't fully emerged from the poor conditions that prevailed before they were liberated. Coupled with the fact that parts of Eastern Europe have never really assimilated their Roma population, in spite of the fact that they have been there for centuries. There is an overt racism in parts of Eastern Europe and being part of the European Union doesn't appear to have alleviated that in any way. As you say Nonnie who can blame them, There was a complicity in the collusion that took place in allowing the insolvent and corrupt counties in, before they were ready. There just seems to be a malaise in the EU that we are expected to accept, many of us feel that the issues that adversely affect us in this country won't be changed, for all David Cameron's bluster.

I'm glad Phoenix brought the subject up, why should a person in her position who has contributed all their life through tax and NI be made to jump through hoops, when a whole raft of benefits can be granted to EU citizens who don't even intend to work here.

Isn't this part of the reason why Cameron didn't want Juncker to be the next President of the EU? Because he (Juncker) wants even more power for the EU laws, including the right of free movement of people from member states within the EU?

Yes, and now he's got the job, we can expect much more of the same...

Well, we have to keep badgering away. And you can rely on DC to do it.

(this is not a party political broadcast)

I just think he's got the right idea. Would any of the others be brave enough to take the stand he did? Can't have been easy.

We see it all the time round here, E.European immigrants, no job, yet plenty of cash to spend on booze and cigarettes, always full trolleys at the supermarket, and cards to use public phone boxes, it`s just not fair, when people who have worked all their lives, and paid all their dues, have to scrimp and scrape all the time.

That's another good reason to leave the EU.

We haven't managed to assimilate our own gypsies let alone from other countries.

Perhaps we should bombard them all with messages like The Borg [ Star Trek] 'Resistance is useless! You will be assimilated!'

Not good enough IMO.