The Royal Navy intercepted three boatloads of people off the coast of Kent today.
This placed the Navy in an awkward position, as the boats were not heading to, but away from Kent towards France.
Another surprise finding was that they were loaded with British people who were all seniors of pension age.
Their claim was that they were trying to get to Calais so as to be able to return to the UK as illegal immigrants and therefore be entitled to far more benefits than they were receiving as legitimate UK pensioners.
The Navy, it is believed, gave them food, water and fuel and assisted them on their journey.
We are booking the next boat out, Let me know if you want to come.
The people who get offered million-pound houses are very few and far between. Most of the immigrant population who live in my road are hard-working people with job,s looking after their families.
Still doesn't mean that most pensioners are looking to leave the country, or bemoaning their lot, though.
The people who DO annoy me are not immigrant, they are the locals who sit on their backsides all day, never looking for work - not disabled, just not working. I think we should do as they do in other countries - if you make no attempt to find work, your benefits are reduced.
>>>The people who get offered million-pound houses are very few and far between.
Why should ANY of them get given million pound homes.
They chose to come here, we have plenty of empty army bases and other simialr sites that could be "done up" to provide basic but adequate accomodaiton.
I bet there is not one other country in the world stupid enough to give an asylum seeker a home worth 1 million pounds.
No wonder we are a magnet for those that want to come here and scrounge off us.
>>>I think we should do as they do in other countries - if you make no attempt to find work, your benefits are reduced.
That of course is a totally different matter.
I saw and old "Yes Minister" the other day (so this is a program from many years ago).
Sir Humphry said in a radio broadcast (when the thought he was "off air")
"We could halve unemployment at a stoke. Politicians have as many unemployed as they are willing to pay for".
Just as true then as it is now.
My daughter spent a year in Australia and came back and got a job in the UK within 2 weeks. There are jobs around if people are willing to look for them.
It is meant to be ironic, whether it is funny would depend on whether one find irony funny.
It is my understanding that foreigners just arrived in an unfamiliar country tick all the important boxes on the "in need of help" checks, and so tend to get to the head of queues. i don't have information on exact benefits available to different folk.
I also think that the expression "asylum seeker" needs careful use. If you are a genuine asylum seeking, fleeing oppression, I have great sympathy. Most of the guys in the Jungle at Calais at the moment appear to be economic migrants - "when I get to England, I'll get a job, I'll buy an house, I'll get married" - they are not in danger of their lives if they stay in their home countries.
There are jobs around for some, there are not suitable jobs around for all. Because some can do something and can say if they can do it so can others, doesn't mean all can do it. An extreme example is that someone is now Prime Minister, so if they can do it we all can, except of course we all can't.
But jobs are a different issue anyway: many immigrants will find some jobs well paid and want them, whist those growing up here will know they are awful wages and feel justified in refusing.