Channel 5, Gypsies on Benefits and Proud

How's it going petra?

So you didn't watch the programme and you see one house.

Brilliant.

ask any policeman Really ? any?

Romanian people Romania...a country inhabited by ethnic Romanians
Roma, an ethnic minority with in said country.

I remember chatting with a Traveller who was driving his white van and was stopped by the police and asked to open the back. It was full of antique furniture, and the police assumed they were stolen and started to interrogate the driver, who produced a receipt from Sothebys. He kept protesting his innocence and eventually persuaded the police to ring Sotheby's, who confirmed that he was one of their best customers and had indeed bought the furniture entirely legitimately.

I think all benefits should be means tested - I know someone who is on DISABILITY benefits. She doesn't need the money, she has 3 pensions , her state pension, her work pension and widows pension. which she sends to her relatives abroad. And btw she is not disabled - she has arthritis, which most of us over a certain age have anyway. No I am not jealous. I am just angry with a system that allows this.

I would appreciate posts from those that watched the programme (of course allposts are valid) and I also respect the views of those who think the whole programme was biased.

However, if the situations that the programme depicted are in any way accurate, then we have a sick and broken system

Homeless people living on the streets, while others can arrive in the UK. and access so many benefits.

Those who "know" me will know that this sort of post is so very far removed from my usual "fluffy" stuff, but the programme really did get to me.

It was a very old programme.

And with a title like that, how can you , infact how can anyone with half a brain take it seriously?

Phoenix ....you are not wrong.Unfortunately we had no choice but to allow them in, but we did have a choice of allowing benefits straightaway and decided to allow it, big mistake!

Welcome back in your new form coggie

What do you mean? Who are " them" Romanians or Roma?

Hows your mate petra who isn't petra doing?

It was a very old programme

And? What's the age of the programme got to do with anything? The fact that it's very recently been aired makes it a valid subject for discussion.

phoenix, any discussion about traveller people tends to polarise fairly quickly as you'll remember. I didn't see the programme but like Luckygirl, had a lot of contact with members of what's known as the Irish traveller community. Agree with Lucky, that community, like any other has a wide range of people within in. My memories of getting to know many families are generally very positive.

Roma gypsies- are persecuted and excluded in Romania. School I know well in areas of Manchester had a number of pupils. As they moved into higher education, some of those young people talked about how fortunate they felt to have been educated here, in Romania they'd have been refused school places, here some went on to University.
Like most people, I'm not thrilled with exploitation of our benefit system.

Iam64
From my own experience it's not always the authority's refusing education to the Roma children. Their parents often want them to work in agriculture. That can be from April to October.
But the biggest problem is the non Roma who don't want their children taught with the Roma children.
I know adults who have been shunned for employing adult Roma.
For myself: I've employed ( not in the uk) the best and the worst.

coggie I take exception to your post of 19.51.

I have a brain, more than half a brain actually!

I do not condone exploitation of the benefits system by anyone. It is in no-one's interests.

But I do find such programmes disturbing - they set out to target a particular group, who are already negatively perceived and easy meat. A more balanced approach would be a programme which sought to tackle the problem of misuse of the benefits systems by all groups in society.

I suspect that the best people for working the benefits system are those rich people (and maybe even parliamentarians) who know how to manipulate the tax system to their own benefit.

Well said Luckygirl

MerylStreep, yes, the racism and bigotry towards the Roma community in Romania is one of the reasons so many came to the UK.
The desire to have children working in agriculture that you mention, was reflected in our traveller communities until the need for basic literacy and numeracy was recognised by parents. Their way of life changed, with usual stopping stops no longer available. Many were housed in the areas where they'd traditionally stopped to work in the fields etc. The families I knew, still travelled between June and September. Extended families would share a trailer, so one family group wouldn't necessarily be away for three months.
Local primary schools were good at involving the traveller community and ran literacy/numeracy classes for parents.

Why are so many posters commenting on a program that they haven't even seen.!!!

Yes Iam64 my sons school has been really proactive in engaging with the local traveller community and supporting the children, its one of the reasons I like the school.

Galaxy.
The OP was asking for comments about the TV program.

Firstly didn't see the programme. I've always thought the fact that the Roma community have been ostracised by the mainstream cultures of certain eastern European countries speaks volumes about those places. From what I've learnt the Roma gradually moved west from the Indian sub continent 1000 years ago and it's unfathomable therefore they haven't been assimilated into eastern European society over the years. It poses the chicken and egg question, were they always social pariahs because they are perceived to conduct themselves in a socially unacceptable way, or were they forcibly kept at the margins and excluded from society and their way of life a by product of being denied the benefits that other citizens enjoyed. Hitler did his best to wipe them out. I think it's fair to say that racism in certain parts of Europe is far worse than it is here. Maybe we weren't so great at one time, but if we look at our history in the past 1,000 years, and before that, we have had wave upon wave of immigration and have done a much better job at assimilating non indigenous people than some. I can't see that the EU has done anything much to persuade parts of eastern Europe to be more tolerant, if anything parts of Europe seem to be getting worse in their overt racism, which I imagine is why so many of the Roma up sticks in the first place.

Terribull......You didn't see the program..!!!! If you are not responding to the OP....you are not being fair to Phoenix .You should start a new thread or watch the program and then make comments on the actual content.

Ok I take your point Jillykins I have digressed somewhat. For what it's worth I sympathise with anyone who had paid all their taxes, and then, through no fault of their own, hit hard times and needed government assistance but were precluded from that, whilst incomers who had never made any contributions were getting all sorts of benefits. I would feel the same.

TerriBull - thank you for that succinct history of Roma persecution - very helpful.

Unfortunately, due to reciprocal systems within the EU, we can all travel and claim in each other’s countries. The problem is, all systems differ. This provides an uneven playing field. Our system in the UK provides a basic amount which the state expect you to live on, whether you have paid in or not to stop people starving. In other countries they have their own systems that do not pay a basic amount but how many contributions you have paid in or even how long. This is why they come. Our system is not as generous as Germany.

The difference between Romanians and travellers in the UK, not a lot. Those that escape their communities are lucky. From what I saw, I wouldn’t like their lot, especially the
women.