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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A misunderstood man?
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
Of course, that's what a lot of the pro-EU folk want in the first place...
If people are emigrating in order to find work because of economic disparities between countries, then what we want is a policy that removes those economic disparities. And for all its faults, the EU has demonstrably raised the economies of a lot of the former Eastern Bloc.
Within the UK I agree that it's a Bad Thing that London swallows up so many people trying to get started on a career, but the solution is generally to develop the regions, rather than introducing internal migration controls. So I don't see why that doesn't apply on the European level as well.
If people are moving abroad because they want to, then how is that a problem?
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Does the presence of people with different cultures in your neighbourhood change you and the people you socialise with?
Yes, of course. Everybody is changed by the people they interact with.
A village culture is changed when a load of commuters move there. The culture of a Gaelic-speaking island is changed when a load of southerners move in. The culture of a single-sex school or college changes if it becomes mixed.
None of these changes are total - there will be remnants of the old culture around for a long time - but they are changes.
(And by and large, I think they are good changes, but that doesn't mean that no part of the change is bad.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Gareth
Shipmate
# 2494
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I've never really understood the call for people to use their vote, even if it has to be a negative thing. I get the difference between voter apathy and antipathy, but what is gained by using one's vote for the sake of it? It seems unlikely we'd ever lose our privilege to elect a government simply by low turnout. Anyone care to educate me on this?
There is a famous saying, often repeated: bad politicians are elected by good people who do not vote.
What else is there to say?
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"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope."
P. J. O'Rourke
Posts: 345 | From: Chaos | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Why not?
I think it's great. My son is nursing in Heidelberg and loving it. Why on Earth shouldn't he?
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
Of course, that's what a lot of the pro-EU folk want in the first place...
Why do you say HAVE to? Plenty of people LIKE to move elsewhere, see a different bit of the world.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
UKIP are, as has been noted, simply taking the last 10 years of Daily Heil headlines and turning them in policy.
Now the Right-wing vote has fractured, and the Right-wing press is having conniptions over it. You reap what you sow.
This.
Is it really any surprise that substantial portions of the UK population have become increasingly anti-EU, not for any logical reasons but because they have drunk deeply over many years at the wells of newspapers like the Mail, Telegraph and Express. These papers have been consistently anti-EU in often very covert ways. By that, I mean that it is not just the overt anti-EU articles they publish, but the whole tenor of their editorial policies, which have often tainted articles which have little to do with the EU.
Now when this visceral anti-EU mood was going to benefit the Tory party, all well and good! But suddenly UKIP are here and undesired results now seem impossible to avoid. No wonder some newspapers are panicking. Instead of bolstering the Tory vote, it looks like they will shatter it.
And don't believe the guff that all the UKIP vote in Euro elections will come back to the "normal" parties in 12 months' time. Some will. But if UKIP get enough votes to seem a credible force in UK politics, then it will be easier for them to retain some of those votes in subsequent elections.
But let's not be surprised at all of this. It has been on the cards for some time, due to the poisonous nature of much of the UK press. This is one reason why I was so glad to see the back of the UK and why I would be extremely reluctant to return any time soon. Let me tell you, people - there is a world out there which isn't as twisted and bitter as the world inhabited by most UK journalists. And life is actually fun again.
Another factor which no-one has raised yet is that UKIP have tapped into the underlying xenophobia of Little England that has never really gone away. Back in the 1930's, we weren't that different from Nazi Germany - which is why Hitler could never understand why he couldn't get us into an alliance. The reality is that much of "Little England" still exists. It didn't go away, it just went underground. Nigel Farage is simply expressing what the Little England underground have always thought. UKIP are going to do well tomorrow and will probably bounce from that into a place of serious contention in some constituencies for 2015. You're going to have to live with that, England. Suck it up.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Well, that's interesting! I've heard of English people leaving England due to their own xenophobia regarding their changing surroundings, but not due to the xenophobia of their countrymen (or their countrymen's newspapers)!
I suppose the long and short of it is that there's always a good reason to escape from these shores, irrespective of what Nigel Farage and co. might do or say!
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Morgan
Shipmate
# 15372
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I've never really understood the call for people to use their vote, even if it has to be a negative thing. I get the difference between voter apathy and antipathy, but what is gained by using one's vote for the sake of it? It seems unlikely we'd ever lose our privilege to elect a government simply by low turnout. Anyone care to educate me on this?
It's not a matter of endangering the right to vote but actually making a difference. If everyone votes for the least repulsive option every election, there will be a process of evolution, however slowly, to a less repulsive elected body as a whole. It won't be perfect, as we all value different things, but the worst elements should be reduced, if not weeded out, so that we actually have a representative body of representatives.
If everyone votes, and this is what we get, then this is what we chose and deserve. If those who care don't vote then we are in Edmund Burke territory All that is necessary for the triumph of evil [or self-interest, or mediocrity, or . . .] is that good men do nothing.
Posts: 111 | From: Canberra | Registered: Dec 2009
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Well, that's interesting! I've heard of English people leaving England due to their own xenophobia regarding their changing surroundings, but not due to the xenophobia of their countrymen (or their countrymen's newspapers)!
I suppose the long and short of it is that there's always a good reason to escape from these shores, irrespective of what Nigel Farage and co. might do or say!
No - not "due to". I had other - more positive - reasons. But once I had left, I quickly appreciated just what I had left behind and how better off I was without it. There is a poisonous attitude in the UK. I had realised this for some time but it is only when you are out of it that you can begin to see more clearly just how poisonous it is and how it infects almost everything.
Farage and UKIP are not the problem. They are just more overt than normal symptoms of the problem. One might even go so far as to say that they should be respected for being open in saying what so many people clearly think, but are too ashamed to admit to thinking.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
And don't believe the guff that all the UKIP vote in Euro elections will come back to the "normal" parties in 12 months' time. Some will. But if UKIP get enough votes to seem a credible force in UK politics, then it will be easier for them to retain some of those votes in subsequent elections.
I'm interested to see what impact a sizeable UKIP vote will have on the Scottish referendum. Two days ago, Danny Alexander, campaigning for a "no" vote in September said that "The break-up of the United Kingdom would represent a defeat for progressive ideals and a retreat from a shared vision of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-national state on these islands."
However, the rise of UKIP gives the lie to the idea that there is a "shared vision" of a "multi-ethnic" Britain.
It's also noteworthy that the mainstream media are giving much more coverage to Farage's frothings than, for example, Danny Alexander's vision of a multi-cultural society.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
And don't believe the guff that all the UKIP vote in Euro elections will come back to the "normal" parties in 12 months' time. Some will. But if UKIP get enough votes to seem a credible force in UK politics, then it will be easier for them to retain some of those votes in subsequent elections.
I'm interested to see what impact a sizeable UKIP vote will have on the Scottish referendum. Two days ago, Danny Alexander, campaigning for a "no" vote in September said that "The break-up of the United Kingdom would represent a defeat for progressive ideals and a retreat from a shared vision of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-national state on these islands."
However, the rise of UKIP gives the lie to the idea that there is a "shared vision" of a "multi-ethnic" Britain.
I'm also interested to be honest - particularly as the polls seem to be suggesting that after today Scotland may well NOT be a UKIP-free zone any longer. Quite apart from anything else that may suggest that the differences between the psyche of England and Scotland may well have been exaggerated by those who have a vested interest in stressing separatism.
Now, clearly the political history is different, but the fact that in the 1950s Scotland was actually majority Tory suggests that really the countries of the UK are not so different under the skin.
Independence for Scotland is a matter for the Scots (although, without haing a vote, it's clearly - given the impact of a yes vote - a matter for everyone else too; just one they can't get involved in until after the vote. I do think the negotiations post a Yes Vote are going to be a gloves-off bunfight to end all bunfights as both sides will have duty to negotiate to the advantage of their own constituents/future population and let what would be good for the other side go hang).
I rather suspect it's difficult to see what exactly is going to be the medium term impact on the politics both sides of the border in the event of a yes vote. I tend to think it may well be good for the Tories north of the border, and Labour south of it.
In future, there may be far more motivation for Labour supporters to get out and vote in rUK at elections (and, as an instinctive current supporter of FPTP, even I think the pressure for change to a more proportional voting system - ideally Irish STV+ - would become irresistible). That's because whilst I don't like the Labour Party I recognise that a lot of people do, and a healthy democracy shouldn't be making it difficult for large numbers of people to carry a point of view.
In Scotland post a Yes vote, unless the SNP becomes a sort of ANC/ZANU/Congress and thus the beneficiary of "we delivered independence so continue to vote for us" it's going to be in the interesting position of having shot its own fox; particularly if the last Scottish elections which gave it a majority were to be taken as a protest vote *against* the other parties rather than a positive endorsement of the SNP and it's policies. Shorn of the Westminster drag, the SNP may struggle to find a voice if people now think it's safe to vote for a purely Scottish Labour, or a purely Scottish Conservatives.
There's a case to be made that even Salmond's career will end, like all political careers, in failure if he delivers independence and kills the SNP in the process. I'm sure that's a bargain he'd probably go for, but even so, there may be a few disappointed people with careers in his party....
Interesting times anyway. In some ways I the referendum could be like one of those polls where people are asked for the best film ever and invariably something released in the last ten years makes the top 10 because people are instinctively short-termist.
A vote to leave the Uk because they believe it's right and the best thing for Scotland is fine.
A vote to leave the UK on the grounds that they don't particularly like the Conservatives, and haven't for the last 20 years is a bit daft given that that's not always been the case since the Act of Union, and may well not be again in the future - it's a snapshot of now.
A vote to leave the UK on the grounds that UKIP have done awfully well at the elections is a bit daft given that independence may well boost the fortunes of such a party in Scotland given that there will no longer be the political focus of independence to consider (which has been bubbling away since the late 1970s) and nature abhors a vacuum.
Just my thoughts - others may well differ. I think you're absolutely right that it's all linked together; it's just that with my psephological hat on I'm not sure that it necessarily links in a positive way, rather than a knee-jerk one.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Does the presence of people with different cultures in your neighbourhood change you and the people you socialise with?
Yes, of course. Everybody is changed by the people they interact with.
A village culture is changed when a load of commuters move there. The culture of a Gaelic-speaking island is changed when a load of southerners move in. The culture of a single-sex school or college changes if it becomes mixed.
But, we're not talking about substantial changes by and large. So, not quadrupling the size of a village by building new homes for commuters. Not loads of people with a different culture moving in. Not enforcing a single sex school to become mixed.
Most immigrants end up in cities (a few seasonal agricultural workers being the exception). In a city of 50,000+ people, a few hundred immigrant, even a thousand, is going to make no difference. People can choose not to interact with them most of the time. If the UK experience so far is a guide, you'll likely find that someone from another culture takes over running the corner store - but you'll still be able to buy your daily paper there, just a different face behind the counter (and, quite often a desire to succeed that has them opening the shop for longer hours).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
But let's not be surprised at all of this. It has been on the cards for some time, due to the poisonous nature of much of the UK press. This is one reason why I was so glad to see the back of the UK and why I would be extremely reluctant to return any time soon. Let me tell you, people - there is a world out there which isn't as twisted and bitter as the world inhabited by most UK journalists. And life is actually fun again.
Another factor which no-one has raised yet is that UKIP have tapped into the underlying xenophobia of Little England that has never really gone away. Back in the 1930's, we weren't that different from Nazi Germany - which is why Hitler could never understand why he couldn't get us into an alliance. The reality is that much of "Little England" still exists. It didn't go away, it just went underground. Nigel Farage is simply expressing what the Little England underground have always thought. UKIP are going to do well tomorrow and will probably bounce from that into a place of serious contention in some constituencies for 2015. You're going to have to live with that, England. Suck it up.
The mask slips every now and then and we see the depths of contempt and loathing for fellow citizens - remarkably common on the left. The use of terms like blackshirt on this thread contribute to a poisonous atmosphere in which people are smeared and dismissed. And then we have the ahistorical comparisons between 1930s England and Nazi Germany to tar so-called 'little Englanders' with the spectre of the holocaust. I don't see any real difference between the stereotyping of the English with which you indulge yourself and the characterisations of Romanians which you complain about. At least, Farage tends to qualify his remarks by talking about poverty amongst the Romanies and how they have been discriminated against resulting in much greater criminality in the population.
Life can be fun, wherever you live, as long as you enjoy diversity and the many different views that are expressed in everyday life. If you set yourself above all your fellow citizens in your ideologically-pure ghetto of the like minded you'll only ever be miserable.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by Betjemaniac:
quote:
Now, clearly the political history is different, but the fact that in the 1950s Scotland was actually majority Tory suggests that really the countries of the UK are not so different under the skin.
I was trying to discuss the different rhetoric re immigration north and south of the border vis a vis Farange, rather than discussing Scottish independence. But I completely agree with the above. If Scotland votes for independence, I'm sure there will be a resurgence of Scottish Toryism. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories, female, state educated, lesbian, doesn't carry with her the "posh-boy" ethos of the Westminster Tories. Free of that baggage, I think a successful Scottish Tory party is a given.
The impression I'm getting here (and, bear in mind, the mainstream media publishes slightly different accounts of the news north and south of the border) is that speeches like Danny Alexander's aren't regarded as vote-winning in the way that Farange's speeches are.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
The mask slips every now and then and we see the depths of contempt and loathing for fellow citizens
quote:
The sheer desperation is highly amusing. Liberals having to face up to the fact that their outlook is not the only one around and perhaps it won't prevail.
was your first post on this thread.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
The mask slips every now and then and we see the depths of contempt and loathing for fellow citizens
quote:
The sheer desperation is highly amusing. Liberals having to face up to the fact that their outlook is not the only one around and perhaps it won't prevail.
was your first post on this thread.
The point you are making.....?
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Ford withdrawing after being in the UK for a long time - well before we were part of the EU - is not comparable to companies coming here explicitly because we are part of the EU.
OK, they wouldn't pull out immediately. But we would be a whole lot less attractive. The world is not the same as it was 30 years ago. We cannot just roll time back and pretend things are the same.
OK, my analysis of what would happen might not be entirely accurate, but there are significant implications that Farage chooses to dismiss.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn
And then we have the ahistorical comparisons between 1930s England and Nazi Germany to tar so-called 'little Englanders' with the spectre of the holocaust. I don't see any real difference between the stereotyping of the English with which you indulge yourself and the characterisations of Romanians which you complain about.
I think you have done a good job on this thread of showing that those who accuse others of stereotyping are guilty of the same. PC culture is not about not stereotyping, but rather: "all stereotyping is equally wrong, but some forms of stereotyping are more equally wrong than others"!! Hideous stuff, of course.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
And yet when the question is how to assure affordable housing for people on low incomes in London, your answer is that they should just move away from their 'communities' to places where they can afford housing and spend all their time commuting.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
It has been on the cards for some time, due to the poisonous nature of much of the UK press. This is one reason why I was so glad to see the back of the UK and why I would be extremely reluctant to return any time soon. Let me tell you, people - there is a world out there which isn't as twisted and bitter as the world inhabited by most UK journalists. And life is actually fun again.
Out of interest, would you be willing to share with us where in the world you now are, where life is fun again?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
If people are moving abroad because they want to, then how is that a problem?
I just don't understand it. I've lived my whole life (bar university and holidays) within a roughly ten-mile radius of where I was born, and I've never seen any need to leave. I mean, holidays are fine but to actually live somewhere else I'd need to learn a whole new language, learn how to fit in to a whole new culture, and start again from zero in terms of friends I can spend time with. I cannot see the attraction in that at all.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
If one is a Pole, one has probably learnt English as a second language from a very young age. If one is from the West Midlands, one probably hasn't learnt Polish from a very young age. That might well affect the whole 'should I move abroad given all the upheavals' debate in the two countries.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
It is well shown that immigration makes an overall positive contribution to the economy.
I've never been entirely convnced of this argument. The only ones who really benefit are big business: they get people willing to work for tuppence. Go to a building site in Helsinki and most of the workers a Estonian. Nothing against Estonians (I wouldn't blame anyone for trying to improve their standard of living) but the money they earn is then sent back to Estonia.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Out of interest, would you be willing to share with us where in the world you now are, where life is fun again?
And please confirm that you locked the door and posted your keys through the letter box when you left.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Betjemaniac:
quote:
Now, clearly the political history is different, but the fact that in the 1950s Scotland was actually majority Tory suggests that really the countries of the UK are not so different under the skin.
I was trying to discuss the different rhetoric re immigration north and south of the border vis a vis Farange, rather than discussing Scottish independence.
...
The impression I'm getting here (and, bear in mind, the mainstream media publishes slightly different accounts of the news north and south of the border) is that speeches like Danny Alexander's aren't regarded as vote-winning in the way that Farange's speeches are.
Ah, ok - well that's entirely possible. There is a school of thought, and I'm going to be very careful how I put this, that Scotland tends to pay much more lip service to being welcoming and multi-cultural because it's far less multi-cultural. Ie it hasn't had to confront the massive changes that have happened south of the border so it can feel really good about itself...
If Scotland had more/any cities that were going to be majority non-white Scottish in the next decade or two the debate would be completely different because the chances are the situation would generate the exact same rabble rousers and trouble makers playing on peoples' fears that it does in England.
Scotland is exceptional not because the people are lovely (although obviously the people are lovely), but because the debate *is* different. However, turn Glasgow into Leicester and there's no reason to believe that it very quickly wouldn't be because the economically and socially disadvantaged do tend to fear differences and "the other."
Consequently Danny Alexander's speeches about multiculturalism won't get cut-through south of the border because the debate's moved on, rightly or wrongly to post-multiculturalism and a promotion of integration. In Scotland, I get the impression that multiculturalism is less of a dirty word because the problems of integration are - so far - less pressing, and a lot of it can be talk about being tolerant and welcoming because there isn't as much of a bill.
For the sake of clarity, I'm entirely supportive of England being just as tolerant and welcoming as Scotland, but I can see why the rabble rousers get traction down here, and I'm not sure what the answer is, because a lot of the rabble are increasingly unprepared to listen to reason (at least in the context of "pointless" Euro elections - I'm hopeful that things will subside next year when there's more of a feeling that the vote "counts").
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
The mask slips every now and then and we see the depths of contempt and loathing for fellow citizens
quote:
The sheer desperation is highly amusing. Liberals having to face up to the fact that their outlook is not the only one around and perhaps it won't prevail.
was your first post on this thread.
The point you are making.....?
That your contempt and loathing for your fellow citizens is quite clear.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
The mask slips every now and then and we see the depths of contempt and loathing for fellow citizens
quote:
The sheer desperation is highly amusing. Liberals having to face up to the fact that their outlook is not the only one around and perhaps it won't prevail.
was your first post on this thread.
The point you are making.....?
That your contempt and loathing for your fellow citizens is quite clear.
I thought it said more about my admirable consistency. But hey, you're the one who threw in the blackshirt comment.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
If one is a Pole, one has probably learnt English as a second language from a very young age. If one is from the West Midlands, one probably hasn't learnt Polish from a very young age. That might well affect the whole 'should I move abroad given all the upheavals' debate in the two countries.
Point of order - the West Midlands, Kidderminster in particular - had a massive Polish community long before the EU, because it was where a large part of the Free Polish army was based in the latter years of WW2. I know it's slightly unfair to pick you up, but it's more just that you hit the bullseye of one of the few places in the UK where there's been 70 years of Polish-English intermarriage, high incidence of Kidderminster accent/Polish surname, and one of the few places where bilingualism was relatively common and hearing Polish in the streets has been common for half a century.
In the 1980s, at my primary school we'd got multiple Oborskis, Sikorskys, Michlewskis, etc - to say nothing of all the Italian surnames because their grandads had been POWs in Bewdley and decided not to go home in 1945...
It's also why so many Poles came to the Wyre Forest when Poland joined the EU - they'd got relatives!
I had no Polish relatives, but enough of my friends did that I picked up Polish words, cuisine, and parties/nights out down the White Eagle Club. Obviously if you'd said Belgian you'd have been more accurate - it was just the Poland/W Mids thing was too obvious not to jump in on - sorry! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
I thought it said more about my admirable consistency. But hey, you're the one who threw in the blackshirt comment.
Consistently what, though?
Also, I think you'll find the blackshirt comment was the Daily Mail's, circa 1934.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
And yet when the question is how to assure affordable housing for people on low incomes in London, your answer is that they should just move away from their 'communities' to places where they can afford housing and spend all their time commuting.
Well, you go where the work is, don't you? And you go where you can afford to live. The combo of those two processes should determine where you end up.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
I thought it said more about my admirable consistency. But hey, you're the one who threw in the blackshirt comment.
Consistently what, though?
Also, I think you'll find the blackshirt comment was the Daily Mail's, circa 1934.
And you threw it into the discussion as a smear.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Point of order - the West Midlands, Kidderminster in particular - had a massive Polish community long before the EU
Yeah, but that's Kidderminster. A town noted primarily for dodgy carpets and having a certain analogous resemblance to the contents of a Glastonbury portaloo on Monday morning.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I am one of those British citizens living and working in another EU country. I have exactly zero intention of moving back to the UK because I personally appreciate the quality of life more here.
I think one of the things that skews the migration for work question is the willingness to learn a foreign language. I can earn more here (as a legal assistant) than I would doing a comparable job in London, but the reason is that I speak fluent French. To put it bluntly, very few British people achieve this kind of competency in a foreign language (‘cause everyone speaks English, innit?). Nonetheless a person like me (completely English-French bilingual with several years secretarial experience) can guarantee that they will basically never be out of work in a city like Paris. Last time I put myself on the market, my phone was ringing off the hook.
I think the day is going to come when the general crapness of British language-learning is going to bite the UK in the butt, actually. When we all welcome our new Chinese overlords, I don’t reckon our utter flummoxation in the face of the Mandarin language is going to help us any (joking – but not entirely ).
(FWIW, and speaking only for myself, should my compatriots vote to leave the EU, my very first move will be to apply for a French passport forthwith. I am planning to marry a French citizen in the meantime and would have no trouble getting one. Actually I’ve been here so long I could get one of the basis of residence but applying on the basis of marriage involves less paperwork. Being completely selfish for a moment, I have no interest in losing the advantages of being a citizen of an EU member state.)
On a completely different topic – Marine Le Pen’s odious Front National is courting Nigel Farage. She’s too toxic for him to handle (instead he’s been allying himself with a little anti-EU party headed by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan who exactly nobody is going to vote for come Sunday). Nonetheless I shall watch with interest to see whether he is prepared to do deals with the FN once they get into Parliament. The polls suggest that the FN are going to do extremely well – a combination of sticking it to the man, and frustration over unemployment and the economy. Marine Le Pen scares me immensely. She’s taken her father’s obviously xenophobic and racist party and turned it into something that outwardly looks quite modern, professional and respectable. The voter base is la France profonde especially in areas with high unemployment. Bashing migrants and the EU is the FN’s tartine* and UKIP is much closer to them than they like to admit.
* bread and butter
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
And yet when the question is how to assure affordable housing for people on low incomes in London, your answer is that they should just move away from their 'communities' to places where they can afford housing and spend all their time commuting.
Well, you go where the work is, don't you? And you go where you can afford to live. The combo of those two processes should determine where you end up.
What when the intersection of those two sets - the set of place where there's work, and the set of places where you can afford to live, is a null set?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Point of order - the West Midlands, Kidderminster in particular - had a massive Polish community long before the EU
Yeah, but that's Kidderminster. A town noted primarily for dodgy carpets and having a certain analogous resemblance to the contents of a Glastonbury portaloo on Monday morning.
You make it sound like that's meant to be a bad thing...
Incidentally, the Wyre Forest UKIP candidate has been in the past ex-TVAM chef Rustie Lee, who popularised Caribbean cooking in 1980s England... Personally, I've always found her a really nice person - she lived in Kidderminster and more than once I've been in a car park lift with her) and a hell of a lot more plausible than Farage (not that even when I lived there I voted for her).
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
I thought it said more about my admirable consistency. But hey, you're the one who threw in the blackshirt comment.
Consistently what, though?
Also, I think you'll find the blackshirt comment was the Daily Mail's, circa 1934.
And you threw it into the discussion as a smear.
For a journalist, you have a particularly tin ear for context.
Your observation: liberals have just woken up to the fact that not everybody shares their opinion and it's funny.
My observation: liberals know that not everybody shares their opinion, as evidenced by the fact that they share a world with the Daily Mail, who haven't changed their tune since "hurrah for the blackshirts" was an editorial.
Your hair-trigger response was enlightening, however.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
Doc Tor. I can see what you are saying about context. I've looked back at the post several times and I think it is the fact that the reference to blackshirts comes in a list of UKIP 'policies'. It looked to me that you were making a comparison of UKIP to the blackshirts (evidently down to my 'tin ear'). I accept your explanation that you are not making that comparison.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I think la vie en rouge has a very important point - that most British people don't actually have the language skills to make a move, and so feel very content at home. Actually, many people across the EU also feel very content at home.
But there is always likely to be more people wanting to come here because they have at least basic English than people from here wanting to go and live and work abroad. Because this has been the case for a while, it does mean that there are enclaves where those with less English can cope - apparently, if you go to East Anglia at harvest season, you may struggle to find anyone who speaks English, because most of them don't need to.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
If people are moving abroad because they want to, then how is that a problem?
I just don't understand it. I've lived my whole life (bar university and holidays) within a roughly ten-mile radius of where I was born, and I've never seen any need to leave. I mean, holidays are fine but to actually live somewhere else I'd need to learn a whole new language, learn how to fit in to a whole new culture, and start again from zero in terms of friends I can spend time with. I cannot see the attraction in that at all.
Because it's fun.
I have worked in both France and the Czech Republic, admittedly on a temporary basis in both cases. I value quite highly my ability to do that again.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's bad enough for local communities that people have to move all over the country looking for work. How much worse will it be when people have to move all over the continent? There won't even be a sense of national community any more.
And yet when the question is how to assure affordable housing for people on low incomes in London, your answer is that they should just move away from their 'communities' to places where they can afford housing and spend all their time commuting.
Well, you go where the work is, don't you? And you go where you can afford to live. The combo of those two processes should determine where you end up.
What when the intersection of those two sets - the set of place where there's work, and the set of places where you can afford to live, is a null set?
Commute
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
And when you can't afford the commute, because it's 70 miles?
Tangential, but we have a massive problem with trying to force the population into the SE corner of the country to work in London.
Commuting is part of the problem. The road and rail networks are congested, because we now consider it perfectly reasonable to expect people to live tens of miles from where they work. It's bonkers.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Australia is still a major point of relocation for people from the UK. In fact I'm fairly sure it's the number one choice, not anywhere in the EU. And conversely, the latest data I could find says that the UK is our largest source of migrants.
Okay okay, so I guess it does take some of you quite a long time to learn the language.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I just don't understand it. I've lived my whole life (bar university and holidays) within a roughly ten-mile radius of where I was born, and I've never seen any need to leave. I mean, holidays are fine but to actually live somewhere else I'd need to learn a whole new language, learn how to fit in to a whole new culture, and start again from zero in terms of friends I can spend time with. I cannot see the attraction in that at all.
I have this theory. To adopt Le Guin's terms, people are either stabiles or mobiles. One likes familiarity, stability, continuity, tradition, values the things they know because they know them. The others like novelty, experimentation, are adapters and adopters.
I am of the latter type: I never feel 'X is a threat to my way of life' because life to me is essentially fluid. But I do try to imagine what the opposite - such as Marvin has outlined - feels like. Not easy, since after about five minutes I'm bored witless.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And when you can't afford the commute, because it's 70 miles?
thanks to recessionary office consolidation I no longer have a 10 minute walk to work - it's been replaced for the last 4 years by a daily 80 mile round trip car journey to the outskirts of London.
It's awesome.
Given however I love the job but hate London, I think I'm just stuck with it. I listen to far too much Radio 4 on the way to and from work.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
When I see the contortions politicians from other parties get into now to side-step the question of whether Farage is a racist, whether his party are racists, whether his policies are racist, I am scared about the future of this country.
But then, I'm not white.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I have this theory. To adopt Le Guin's terms, people are either stabiles or mobiles. One likes familiarity, stability, continuity, tradition, values the things they know because they know them. The others like novelty, experimentation, are adapters and adopters.
That's a good theory. And of course those in the former group have just as much right to campaign and vote for policies that suit them as those in the latter group.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
I think Farage is a perfectly understood man. He's a small minded millionaire out for a bigger slice of the pie for other small minded xenophobic millionaires. And the accusations of racism are because at the very least he panders to small minded racist tendencies (and really doesn't like it pointed out that his wife's native language isn't English).
It's hard to find out specifics of UKIP policy - their issues statement is very thin. They want to leave the EU, to cut taxes (especially Inheritance Taxes, thus unsurprisingly and disproportionately benefiting the wealthy), and increase our contribution to global warming. But I think the Yogic Flyers have more specifics in their manifesto. Which is telling.
So I'm going to go with Wikipedia on their policies.
The tax policy is a huge "More for the rich" windfall. Both flat taxes and abolishing inheritance tax are tax cuts that almost entirely benefit the rich. More for the haves, less for the have-nots.
The health policy is attempting to bureaucratise and thereby weaken the NHS. A voucher system meaning that the rich again don't help support the NHS, and adding piles of red tape. Local boards to add even more red tape while dismantling any expertise. Removing matrons from the job they understand to replace the managers who produce a tiny bureaucratic overhead. And fictional savings in procurement. (Of course UKIP have scrubbed the health page from their website since Wikipedia said what they would do). There is not one thing there that would make the NHS either more efficient or more effective at providing care. And a lot that would make it more expensive.
The EU policy is one part what they claim to set out to do (leave the EU) so I don't hold it against them, and one part wishful thinking (that there wouldn't be an effect of "We don't want you anyway" vastly weakening trade with Europe).
UKIP are against human rights. This is my shocked face. Never mind that the ECHR is one of the greatest British achievements of the past century. And one of the places where the small really can stand up to the big.
UKIP's immigration policy is under review. I dislike everything they have to say here but will leave it.
UKIP as a fundamentally reactionary party oppose gay marriage, favouring the unstable compromise of Civil Partnerships. Their reasons for opposing same sex marriage are as likely as Roman Catholics being forced to marry divorcees. But more on this is for Dead Horses.
UKIP are climate change denialists. At this point you need to stick your fingers in your ears and sing "Lalalala I can't hear you." to think it isn't happening. And they think that smokestacks are, for whatever reason, less of an eyesore than wind farms.
And they want to increase defence spending by £16 billion. In order to fund three floating targets that are almost as obsolete as the Battleship was in 1938.
So that's what UKIP's policies are. A giant tax cut for the rich, screwing up the NHS and sending it towards the current US system (the best thing of which can be said is that Obamacare is a vast improvement on what came before) and various degrees of stupid pettiness.
The racist and xenophobic nature of many of UKIP's candidates and at least one of their spokesmen on the other hand speaks for itself and shows what they appeal to.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
When my son first moved to Germany he spoke no German whatever. So the only jobs he could get were very low paid. He got free travel tickets for trains, buses and trams so that he could work at these jobs. So he could work where the work was and travel in.
Why why why why why don't they do that here for essential but low paid jobs?
Now that his German is near perfect he has been able to move on to a professional job (Nurse) and is loving it.
I would hate us to leave the EU - it would mean he'd become a German citizen. I see no point. A bit like the US - each country should be a 'state' of the EU imo.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
When I see the contortions politicians from other parties get into now to side-step the question of whether Farage is a racist, whether his party are racists, whether his policies are racist, I am scared about the future of this country.
But then, I'm not white.
Likewise. I'm not Anglo-Saxon.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And they want to increase defence spending by £16 billion. In order to fund three floating targets that are almost as obsolete as the Battleship was in 1938.
Agree with every word of your post except this para. There was a point in the late 1980s when this was (arguably) true, but current thinking from the coalface is that anti-missile missile technology coupled with phased array radar has progressed to the extent that, in a rare case of technological reversion, it probably isn't true again.
Like a lot of naval warfare in the 21st century, if something hits you, something's gone very wrong. So carriers are absolutely fine, provided the hunter/killer submarines and anti-air-warfare destroyers are doing their jobs properly. Maritime drones is also a new possibility for carriers.
Whether or not the UK wants to have carriers is a legitimate argument. Characterising them as "targets" and therefore comparable to the battleships of pre WW2 actually isn't.
No one wants to be on the wrongend of a Russian sunburn/shipwreck missile, and they could sink a carrier - but not if Sea Archer and Aster/Horizon/Samson has taken out the missile first.
Carrier on its own, absurdly vulnerable (although less so than a land airbase). Carrier in a carrier task group, probably one of the safer places to be in the world.
But, as you say, there's quite enough to excoriate them for without worrying about the fact they're not necessarily wrong on aircraft carriers.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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