Calais, migrants and everything related (Merged thread)

I just had to post this, from Eastbourne on Saturday.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]239932[/ATTACH]

Greenie, I don’t feel crowded away from organised events for the most part. I don’t often visit large cities as I feel claustrophobic but this has been the case since I was small and also means I don’t like being in lifts even on my own for example, but to suggest that immigration at the current level will make everywhere in the UK be like Duxford’s Tank Bank on airshow day is ludicrous, as I am sure you are aware.

Oh, I have just realised you were trying to make an amusing remark. Bless

From what I have heard, I am more likely to pick up stolen goods. Or have I just been brainwashed by the stereotyping prevalent in the tabloids? (Slaps himself on the wrist)

Edit: I’ll be honest, I don’t feel comfortable in crowds, never have, so the combination of loads of people moving slowly from stall to stall is an anathema to me. That’s why I don’t go to Duxford airshows any more. Old Warden I can cope with as it very rarely gets as densely packed. I know it is irrational, but there it is…

The county in which I live has a population density of 84 people per km2. I can cope with that!

“don’t feel comfortable in crowds”

You had better get some practice in.

Thank you trek buster for a breath of fresh air in this increasingly stale thread.

I’ve stopped commenting, as you have put it better than I can.

Fact is, we do have plenty of immigrants in Norfolk. They are of the hard working, fruit and vegetable picking type, with apologies for the stereotype. I have experience of just one, and frankly, he ran rings around me. I can’t say that I liked him much, but I do respect him..

From what I have heard, I am more likely to pick up stolen goods. Or have I just been brainwashed by the stereotyping prevalent in the tabloids? (Slaps himself on the wrist)

Edit: I’ll be honest, I don’t feel comfortable in crowds, never have, so the combination of loads of people moving slowly from stall to stall is an anathema to me. That’s why I don’t go to Duxford airshows any more. Old Warden I can cope with as it very rarely gets as densely packed. I know it is irrational, but there it is…

The county in which I live has a population density of 84 people per km2. I can cope with that!

Well you should, it would be educational for you, and as an aside, you may even pick up a bargain………….:D

Jim
Lincoln .7

2013, September.
I don’t do car boot sales. Never ever been to one. Can’t see the appeal, much rather be out on my bike on a Sunday morning
So, no, I have not been to a car boot sale in Wisbech, you have me there. what would I see?

TIP, Trekkie.

Just go to the Sunday car boot sale, thats a good starting point, I can only assume your last visit was more years ago than your letting on……..:confused:
Jim
Lincoln .7

I’ve been to Wisbech quite often over the past twenty years. I have not seen any problems there as a visitor. It may of course be different if I lived there*, but your comment about “just take a walk round..” doesn’t work for me I’m afraid.

Edit: I have of course noticed changes in Wisbech, but there have been changes pretty much everywhere in the UK. For example, when in 1963 my parents moved into the hamlet on the outskirts of a village in Hampshire in which they still live approx 2500 people lived in that parish. 20000 people now live there. 2500 more houses are due to be built within a mile of where they live. And no, this is not entirely, or even mostly due to immigration to the UK, it is because the motorway came and so opportunities for work came with it.

*I wouldn’t want to live there to be honest, far too flat a countryside for me

Oh John, Just let them take a walk around Boston, Holbeach, Lincs, and Wisbech Cambs. I don’t need to see “Manipulated” figures to know just how big a problem this Country is facing.God only knows just what it’s going to be like in 5 or 10yrs time.Too little, far too late.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

No one seems to know with any accuracy the scale of the problem.

Greenie,
As usual I afraid you are making an assertion based on your own opinion not what people have actually said in posts. If your comments were aimed rougly in my direction amongst others, I would like to point out politely that I have never said nor even implied or inferred that I am in favour of unrestricted immigration. Nor am I disputing ONS figures or any others that can be seen to have at least some relation to have been based based on facts. Your arguments are weakened by unsupported conjecture.

Where I do clearly differ from you is my interpretation of the figures. You think they support your position, I disagree on the scale of the problem, although a problem it may well be.

The issue in Calais seems to have gone out of the news over the past few days. Is this because it has all gone quiet there? Have people suddenly stopped trying to cross the channel illegally?

Very unlikely, it is just that the sensationalist parts of the media have moved on to another story to overhype.

I might also be one but as I have never IMPLIED my support for unrestricted immigration it would not be possible to INFER that I was in support.

I’m not for a moment advocating an open door policy and indeed I am against uncontrolled immigration however to speak in terms of how to prevent people wanting to escape poor conditions is bonkers.

There are four possibly five on this forum, who, thru’ their comments are clearly in favour of unrestricted immigration to this country.

I suspect I may well be one of those four or five, how exactly do you reconcile your statement with my own statement I quote above?
Are you calling me a liar?
Or do you simply enjoy making statements that bear no relation to facts?

There are four possibly five on this forum, who, thru’ their comments are clearly in favour of unrestricted immigration to this country. They have their agenda, the nub of which – they write – is that numbers do not matter, keep ’em coming. Cheap and accessible plumbers are a plus. Picking peas ? Pick Portuguese ! Cheap as chips.

They infer there is no problem. Immigration ? What immigration ? All who have an opposing opinion are idiots and just plain wrong. The facts are staring at you. No one is coming to this country, much less to enrich themselves on a generous British benefits system. The very idea !

Turmoil at Calais ? This does not exist. It is quite truthfully just a film set for a remake of ‘War & Peace’. There is next to no anxiety in the general population about immigration. This is borne out by the dismal failure of UKIP to secure more than 4 million votes at the last election. Hints by politicians of reductions in intakes to ‘tens of thousands’ can be easily dismissed as political hype.

Claims by the ONS regarding immigrant workers are fraudulent. Plainly the result of a ‘backhander’ or two from a union busybody in thrall to capitalism and the advantages of low wages. Ssh. Keep it quiet, no one will notice.

It is plain to most. There is no large accumulation of either anecdotal or circumstantial evidence to support the rather fanciful idea that we are importing rather too many people. In the absence of deliberately unreliable, statistical data, those of us who have clear insight into this problem that doesn’t exist can rest easy. All that you have seen to the contrary is simply make believe, some part of an Orwellian Big Brother plot to maintain a heightened sense of unease and unrest and keep the public from knowing the truth

There, you now know, you have nothing to worry about.

I think you may have decimal point in the wrong place. 1960 applicants divided by approx 250000km2 makes 0.008 assylum applications per km2 in the UK, Germany would be 0.08. Your figures would be correct for seekers per 1000km2

Thanks, trekbuster – I edited the original post an in doing so “lost” the “thousands”!!:)

You were most clear the figures related to ‘foreign workers’

On the contrary, this area has seen mass immigration from both Poland and Portugal. Our new citizens and the shops they have brought with them add much to the area. Compete for goods? What on earth are you rattling on about? As for services? Plumbers have become much more available, as have a number of other trades.

Moggy

The ONS called them ‘foreign workers’ – I didn’t. My comment ‘migrants on benefits’ related to the TV programs, Benefits Britain.

Population of Germany 82 million. So 1 assylum application per 2950 people
Population of France, 66 million. 1assylum application per 11,680 people
Poulation of Hungary 9.9 million, 1 assylum application per 1500 people
Population of UK 64 million. 1assylum application per 32,650 people

To put that into perspective, my nearest town has a population of 33,000 people, so we would have had 1 person apply for assylum in proportion to the rest of the UK. Assuming this were true of the entire year 12 people. Or 0.00036% of the population.

In otherwords, the chances of me ever meeting an assylum seeker in my town would be minute. I have eight or 10 ex colleagues who live within two miles of me and I haven’t ever met them by chance in the town in the twenty years I have lived in the area.

Trekkie that explanation is very fulsome and explains much. So, our esteemed moderator is extremely fortunate in that to use almost his words; his locality is experiencing mass immigration from Portugal and Poland and he would not
suffer your deprivation in never meeting an asylum seeker. That’s life ! Maybe we should introduce an exchange system ?

Except that the figures are for the UK, that collection of islands off north west continental Europe and with a larger surface area than Hungary, if that’s the rather specious point you are trying to make…

France 10 asylum seekers per km2
Germany 78 “
Hungary 72 “
UK 8 “

I think you may have decimal point in the wrong place. 1960 applicants divided by approx 250000km2 makes 0.008 assylum applications per km2 in the UK, Germany would be 0.08. Your figures would be correct for seekers per 1000km2

Get a map and find Germany, France and Hungary.
Then get a magnifying glass and look for England.
Clue: It’s part of that tiny island off the west coast of mainland Europe.

Except that the figures are for the UK, that collection of islands off north west continental Europe and with a larger surface area than Hungary, if that’s the rather specious point you are trying to make…

France 10 asylum seekers per km2
Germany 78 “
Hungary 72 “
UK 8 “