Our Towns Are Becoming Like Foreign Countries.

[anotheoldgit]

/// http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264799/Our-towns-like-foreign-country-Locals-cope-immigrants-says-mother-TV-clash-academic.html ///

Who should we believe, someone that actually lives in Boston, and who has person experience of the problem, or some Cambridge University classics professor?

[anotheoldgit]

I often wonder about those who wouldn't be at all concerned if the whole world tried to come to our small Island.

I have also wondered if these same liberal minded people, who are so accommodating that they would allow countless people to move into their homes, and then feed clothe, educate and take care of their health needs, all out of their own pockets?

[Kromovaracun]

"But don't you find it most strange, that she would know that there would be a member of the audience from Boston, who was going to ask a question about the particular problem with immigrants in Boston, so much so that she would be in possession of the appropriate report from Boston City Council? "

No, I don't.

The question she was answering wasn't a question about Boston specifically. The question was about immigration generally, and Beard responded with a quote from the Boston Council report, and before she did so she stressed that she thought the report was important because she felt that getting a local area perspective was more useful than the national terms in which the issue is usually spoken about.

After she had finished, this was then questioned by the woman in the audience who was from Boston. Which isn't particularly strange, because the programme was hosted in Lincoln.

[Kromovaracun]

Incidentally, if you didn't get a chance to see the programme, you can see it here:

[Kromovaracun]

stupid AB ate the rest of my post:

I forget exactly when this exchange happened, but I think it's somewhere shortly after the 20-minute mark.

[jake-the-peg]

That's because your wonderment has its own prejudice embedded in it.

Namely that all these immigrants are coming here sponging off of us when in fact most are working earning money and contributing to the economy.

Personally I wonder about reactionary old gits to arrogant to examine facts past their own opinion

I wonder if they'd refuse to be treated by doctors not born in the UK

Then I think

Do I really care what they think? - Not really

[sp1814]

AOG

No - as someone who knows a number of policemen, I can tell you as a fact that resources are stretched every single weekend policing town centres where certain young people turn the streets into urine-stained hell holes.

Do you agree or disagree that this is a serious problem?

Have you got friends who work in A&E, specifically on a Friday/Saturday night?

Doesn't the behaviour of our young people disgust you?

The resources allocated to Trident are a mere drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds (yes - it's actually hundreds) of officers drafted into control 20-somethings off their tits on coke and booze in town centres across the country every weekend.

With regards to crops. Prior to Eastern European workers coming over, you has students who would do seasonal work in the country.

Now, they're getting hammered each weekend which is far more enjoyable.

And prior to that, working class families used to take hop-picking holidays etc.

That doesn't happen any more.

So - are you happy for your strawberries to double in price?

Also, don't you understand the economics of agricultural labour?

If a Polish farm labourer could earn the equivalent of £40 per week back in Poland, but get £120 per week here, how is that exploitative?

I'm stunned you disappointed that you didn't work that one out.

[ummmm]

Kromo...did you use < or >?

[anotheoldgit]

So not a report from Lincoln, the county town council, but a report from Boston council 19 miles away.

How conveniently appropriate, amazing absolutely amazing.

[Kromovaracun]

Neither. The embedding happened on its own :/.

[sp1814]

I often wonder about those who wouldn't be at all concerned if the whole world tried to come to our small Island.

That's like saying, I wonder what people would say if the whole world were gay.

It's not a question that even merits consideration, because the whole world does not want to come here, in the same way that not everyone's gay.

It's a classic case of absurdo ad reductio.

[boxtops]

This person from Boston - it's not at all strange that the panel know who is in the audience. When QT came to Dover, we had to apply in writing to attend, and certain people in the audience were selected to ask certain questions. They know exactly who's there.

[Kromovaracun]

"So not a report from Lincoln, the county town council, but a report from Boston council 19 miles away."

It's the same county - and as any regular viewer knows, it's common for QT shows to draw audience members from across the hosting county. I would be surprised if Rachel Bull was the only Bostonian there.

What's amazing about it?

[jno]

not amazing at all, aog, she knew where the programme was hosted (as she had to go there) so she used a reasonably local report. She could not have known that someone from that particular town would be in the audience, but it was always likely. And so it came to pass.

[jno]

scrub my last post, boxtops has explained it.

[anotheoldgit]

/// I wonder if they'd refuse to be treated by doctors not born in the UK ///

Oh dear oh dear that old worn out chestnut again.

There is nothing wrong with immigrants coming here who can bring with them certain advantages to our country, but how many of those who are straining at the leash to get here will be Doctors etc.

We should follow Australia's approach on immigration, but then that is not possible seeing that our country is ruled by Europe.

[New Judge]

“…what would happen if the Poles and other Eastern European workers suddenly stopped coming over to do the menial work that we won't do? “

We could then point out to those who “will not do” the menial work that jobs are available and they can either get out of bed in the morning to do them or face having their benefits stopped. The students to which sp refers who, apparently, used to crop the cabbages now have so much money they can get "hammerede" at the weekend instead of working. Perhaps the amount of cash they are being left with also needs a lool. As Mr Farage correctly pointed out on QT, the cabbages in the East Anglian fields that the newcomers are picking did not remain to rot in the fields prior to their arrival. Somebody must have gathered them. As I have said many, many times before, to pay millions of people to lay in bed and then have to import labour to do essential work is absolute madness.

As far as multi-lingual schools go, I have done some work in schools where large numbers of pupils do not have a good grasp of basic English and I can tell you that it is an absolute nightmare for the teachers. I have been in classes where they have had five (yes, five) classroom assistants whose sole job it is to help the children understand what is being said. If anybody believes this is not having an effect on the education of all the pupils they are being extremely naïve.

Ms Beard is a professor of “Classical Studies” at Newnham College Cambridge. She , probably lives in an agreeable East Anglian village where everybody knows everybody and where people are still called “the newcomers” unless they’ve lived there for at least thirty years. Apart from brief forays into Cambridge between lectures, I doubt she sees much of some of the larger towns in the East of England. I expect she has about as much idea of life in Boston as I have of some of her obscure classical literature. She is described in the Times Literary Supplement as “…is a wickedly subversive commentator on both the modern and the ancient world.” I did not notice any of her subversion on Thursday evening. Although I know she was referring to a report I’m not sure she is best placed to comment on Boston’s problems. Mrs Bull by contrast lives and works in Boston, has family connections there and has a Polish background. She also put her points across perfectly reasonably with the benefit of personal experience, so I know whose opinion I would prefer to rely on.

I have read Boston’s “Task and Finish” report which was referred to in QT and some of its conclusions and recommendations are eye-opening. Too much to go into here, but just a brief snippet:

“The population of that small town has risen There is no doubt that the scale of in-migration we have experienced means that Boston is now a very different place today than it was a few years ago. Community tensions have increased and are reflected by how parts of our community feel towards other parts. There is a strain on local services and we are often the subject of high media interest because of the impacts that migration has had locally.”

The fact that such a report has to be commissioned at all speaks volumes.

[pdq1]

I suppose the white residents of Boston can always move to another city as has happened in London. Might be a bit difficult though as not many exist.
That Cambridge professor must have been talking about a different kind of Integration, that favoured by mathematicians.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

Yes I agree drunkenness on our streets is a problem but it pals into insignificance compared to all the other issues that I pointed out, but up failed to address.

May I ask you an hypothetical question, would you rather get rid of the drink problems on our streets, or the crime problems in certain areas of our cities?

You have a choice one or the other?

I know what the police would rather see go.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814


/// It's not a question that even merits consideration, because the whole world does not want to come here, in the same way that not everyone's gay. ///

Are you really unable to read what is actually there? I don't think you are.

It is blatantly obvious to most that I really didn't mean the 'whole world' it was just an over exaggerated term, meaning a large amount.

But if you want to be seen to be sensible in your quoter of immigrants into this country of ours, give me a figure when we should say enough and no more.

Or are you satisfied to let in an unlimited number?

We are now back to that over exaggeration figure, 'The Whole world'?

[jno]

[i]I’m not sure she is best placed to comment on Boston’s problems.[i]

What, by citing a council report? Presumably they don't know anything either. Only Mrs Bull knows the truth, and the fact that she comes of Polish stock somehow proves this. (And no, no, there's no long-standing animosity between Poles and Bulgarians.)