UKIP - What is it they are going to do for you?

They are not opinions but experiences from 10 years ago, for all I know they might have improved since then. I have in my time known several Poles and have genuinely liked all of them, especially when there's vodka involved.
I have also worked alongside two black bricklayers on separate occasions, one was an excellent trowel the other absolute rubbish. Does that make me half a racist?

 

I think anyone who calls others a "racist" is a racist themselves, as they're always looking to turn expressions, or comments into a negative perspective of another race regardless of the persons intentions.

 

Racist :naughty:

 

Was waiting for that :]]

 

Actually maybe I was a bit harsh on the Poles, there is plenty to explain why they couldn't match us for speed and quality in those early days, not least that coming from an ex-communist country they will never have been under any real pressure before. I noticed the same thing with East Germans after unification, the old GDR may have boasted zero unemployment but Ossie* brickies would have to make their daily quota stretch and sometimes for several days longer than necessary. I'm no expert on Poland but it could be a factor.
Also this country's never been too hot on asking for qualifications, there are plenty of brickies working on labourers tickets even now (Brits included) and it seems that if you can pass an H&S test you're in, if you are cheap then naturally there's more leeway. I suspect there was a high percentage of chancers amongst the first wave, especially when client companies were being charged hourly; it is particularly then that the importers of labour made an absolute killing.
As I say I may've been harsh because I've seen quality Polish workers since; dry-liners, tilers, floor layers and others on various contracts and more recently.

*Ost-Deutsch

 

Polish builders are better than Engkish. Fact.

 

Some people are racist though and no amount of blabber about political correctness changes that. You have your overt racists and then people who generalise and are always negative about minorities, for example those people who see a black TV presenter and assume it's 'positive discrimination'. The latter may not be about to burn down the Reichstag, but it's their problem not one in my head.

 

Of course, whilst the comments you made were racist (according to definitions) as you were initially making negative judgements of all poles, I know that you aren't racist and my comment was definitely tongue in cheek, so sorry if it looked like I was being serious, as I wasn't.

But, I am being serious, when I say that the expression, racist or racism, is often used incorrectly and in the wrong circumstances.

The first definition of racist, when I googled it was, "someone who thinks that a particular race is superior to another". Of course there are many definitions, but I don't think any of them will cover someone who is worried that immigration will have a detrimental effect on the local or economy or social conditions. Yet the charge of racism is often used in that situation.

 

That's probably because you are a massive racist.

 

People just play the "race card" as they think it wins any argument and will shut that person up. Even our once prime minister played the race card when a life long labour supporter told Gordon brown she was worried about the amount of Eastern Europeans in town. Our great prime minister response was just to brand her a racist when he thought his mic was off. He even blamed this for losing election, not because he ruined the economy. Sol Campbell, a great footballer, was not England captain for 10 years because of "racists" not because he was a "****" or there were far better captains. Police pull drivers over because they are "racists" not because they are banned from driving, no insurance, no mot, no tax or the car is flagged for drug dealing. Let's see how many times this post will be disliked !

 

Joking aside ZZ the problem is people don't just express concerns about local services, they make sweeping generalisations about culture, or criminality, or intention that they wouldn't make about the 100's of thousands of white Australians living here.

 

Racism is a stupidly misused term. Personally, I don't want mass immigration - but I'm not against immigrants in general. I want controls in place, such as those which countries like Australia have. My major issue with mass immigration is housing. It's a struggle to get on the property ladder as it is, and for someone in there 20's - it's difficult enough without a flood of older people, with better income due to experience, coming into the country and snapping up the houses and sending the market prices up. For an island we are densely populated as it is. This is conceived by a majority of the UK as racist..... If it is - Diddums I couldn't give a sh*t.

As for jobs - No issue there. If you're good at your job and you work hard, you shouldn't be worried. If you're lazy and generally don't try your best, then yes I can see why your worried about immigration.

 

Yes, you are right and an accusation of racism may be appropriate in those circumstances. But again we should be careful. Overuse of the "racist" card devalues it's effect.

If you were looking for rented accommodation in West London a 20 years ago, like my sister was. you would have been cursing the mass of Australians there and probably far more politely than my sister was. But there are only around 15,000 Aussies working in the UK now (on visas), and there is a cap of around 20,000. Whereas there is no cap with Europeans, and that is the concern for many.

 

If you got told a family of "gypsies" or a family of "Australians" was moving in the house next door to you is there one you would prefer over the other without meeting them first ?

 

There's a misconception that immigrants are the main cause of the property shortage. Most of the problem is that rich foreigners aren't immigrating, but are buying up all of London's property for tax and investment reasons. They've given nothing to the country other than some injections of short-term cash, which most likely will lead to more being withdrawn in 10-20 years anyway.

 

I know which family would be more likely to invite us to a BBQ

 

One family may BBQ your house if you upset them !

 

I am not sure that many people think that immigrants are the MAIN cause across the whole of the UK, but they obviously make it worse, when there are too few houses available anyway, their effect would be wore in some areas than others.

 

But a majority of the immigrants are the ones building the houses

 

In that case they're slow and crap at their jobs

 

This may sound stupid and I am no economic expert but I think a big problem of the "housing shortage" is low interest rates, people with money no longer get a return from having it in interest accounts is invest in property to get a return. Also young people are not encouraged to save for a deposit as they get no return. This then to more demand for renting and less property to buy, the low interest rates then encourage prices up as money is cheap. I don't think building loads more homes is the answer, it will be like the m25 no matter how many lanes there are there will always be traffic jams.

My opinion is that immigration is partly to blame for house shortage as it is basic demand and supply whether in the private or public sector.

 

From my experience of British builders, a lot of them don't put much pride in their job either, will cut any corner possible if they can get away with it in the short term. Cut any cost or time to finish a few minutes earlier.

I think it is just the industry as a whole

 

You can think what you like despite what the anti PC brigade say. You can buy a Golli*** if you are sufficiently weird enough to want one. But you can't discriminate and whatever your preconceptions you should try to get on with your neighbours.

But supposing we get down to the level of your post, what of it?

 

You make a good point, it's difficult to save for a deposit. I think around this area you probably need around £50k to put down to buy a basic flat - and even then the monthly mortgage payments are hard to meet for a single person. I haven't looked to much into it, but I'm also wary of these new lump sum pensions. I can see a lot of people investing their pension into property for buy-to-let purposes.

 

True in part. There are few investments that perform as well as property at the moment simply due to the bank of England keeping interest rates artificially low. This has to be so, to ensure that we don't start overpaying fro the massive debts that have been racked up in the last few years.

The FCA's attempts to interfere off the back of the banking crash have largely changed nothing with respect to risk and have had the side effect of putting costs up and running IFAs out of business whilst the big companies have escaped the moderation required due to the FCAs impotency.

Whilst you can tinker with the economy to help housing a little, there's nothing that will fix it better than simply building more homes. Trying to curtail one arm of the demand is only a sticking plaster for the problem which can only be solved on a supply and demand basis.

Building legislation needs to be looked at. Builders have to produce a percentage of affordable homes in developments. They can not make a profit on these units so either have to inflate the price of other houses to compensate or just hang on to their land banks in the vain hope legislation will change so that they can operate before going bust.

One change recently put in place is it is now easier to turn offices into flats. In fact all of the offices in Pinner, bar the one I work in are in the process of conversion. We actually have multiple parties fighting over renting out our spare office space the situation has become so bad.

What we will see over the next year or so is a huge amount of pokey 1 & 2 bedroom converted flats on the market which 75% of the population have no use for. The price of flats and the rental market will crash and the people who borrowed heavily for buy to let will be screwed.

The government needs to relax building and planning regulations to allow building of decent family homes. Even at the top end it will help people getting on the ladder as house moves will filter down to first time buyers as people trade up. It will also offer a cash injection to the economy for builders decorators diy & furniture shops etc. They also need to look at Stamp duty. A family house in Meister manor is worth £500K plus. To buy that you need to pay the government 4% or £20,000 for the privilege of moving.

 

Absolutely. See the price of housing on the foot of the ladder escalate massively as soon as people can liquidate their pensions.

If anyone is considering getting their foot on the ladder, do it now.

 

What get me is when the headlines "petrol to rocket" or energy bills to go up then we all get the ump, but when the headlines are "property to rise by xx%" people seem to think that is good for the economy and in the long term it is not because it is all relative. Unless you live in central m
London and moving to burnley then property prices going up is not such a good thing.

When I was young all I wanted was my own flat, I saved and worked every hour possible to get one, my deposit was about £10000' and my mortgage was just a bit more than I pay in council tax today. I struggled to afford this and unless the bank of mum and dad help out I can't see how young people will ever own their own property unless they have a starting salary of £40000 or someone leaves them some money.

Not sure what the answer is.

All the people that have borrowed to the brink at these interest rates won't know what has hit them when interest rates go up and property stops going up in value .

 

Yes, you are right, we should try and get on with our neighbours, but that doesn't mean that people do not have a natural preference to living amongst their own culture to start with. Quite often tolerance (both ways) is in short supply. That is often why immigrants tend to populate certain areas, rather than mix evenly. It wasn't a particular employment reason why around a third of the Leicester population is foreign born but only a tenth of the East Midland (including Derby and Nottingham) population is foreign born.

Mosques are built in Leicester, there are massive religious carnivals and festivals held in the City yet Muslim pressure groups have opposed Christians having Virgin Mary statues in their own house bay windows as it offends them if they are seen from the street. Libraries have been forced to change the layout of their books, because in the religious section the Koran came below the bible alphabetically and was therefore on a lower shelf which "offended" muslims, Christian assembly services are not allowed in schools, yet other religious services are.

Christian nurses have to have their lower arms bare up to the elbows, with no jewellery for hygeine reasons, but muslim nurses are allowed to cover their arms up, and seikh nurses are allowed to wear bangles on their wrists. Some muslim medics wont even "scrub-up" lest they exposed their arms.

Unfortunately, tolerance/common sense and compromise is often lacking.

It doesn't affect me in my circumstances, but I can imagine how it can annoy those that have this constant chipping away at their own lifestyles to appease other groups.

 

Time and again these examples are proved to be false ZZ. There was no 'Winterval' no 'Baa baa Rainbow Sheep'. It's almost all invention. Equally I tend not to believe yours. To stop people displaying their religious beliefs at home is obviously discriminatory it's laughable. And was it in this one case true it would be wrong, not tolerable, and yet still tell you very little about the behaviour of the vast majority of people.

Far from wanting to ban Xmas most Muslims I've worked with have been as keen on lunch out and and afternoon off as everybody else. Do you honestly get prevented from doing anything you want because of minorities?

 

Actually I was making a professional judgement on their work and on reflection I suppose that making comparisons against lads that had worked for me previously was a little unfair as mine included some of London's finest. I did point out the Poles reliability and that's something I could never say about my boys because with them any Monday appearances were a pure bonus (it was the same for many London tradesmen in the eighties but I'll admit that mine were particularly notorious). As far as German opinion goes I can't comment too much except that the Poles reputation is (or was then), rather poor.

 

I know that you don't believe anything that argues against your case. I havn't been able to find the initial local news regarding the religious symbols, but here is a couple of links to some of the other things I have mentioned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-wearing-crucifix-health-safety-reasons.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/rel...-on-top-shelf-in-move-to-appease-Muslims.html

I am not a liar, I was working in Leicester at the time (around 2007/8 I think), and most of my information came from the local Leicester Mercury and local radio - and I cant find an online link at the moment. I think it is a shame that you so often claim that I must be lying when I try and give examples to back up my opinion. You rarely give hard and fast examples to back up your points, and I rarely ask for them, because I accept your opinion has some merit and that neither of us are totally right or wrong, even if it differs from mine.

 

Crikey. The Daily Telegraph quoting a man who was quoted in the Daily Mail and then quoting someone from the Christian Institute. I need to sit down.

 

While Muslims have been bought up - Why have Lloyds made a special "Sharia Banking" account? Apparently it' so they can't get interest or charges for overdrafts?

If that's the case why the special case for them? Surely the answer is just don't go overdrawn, and we'll automatically transfer the interest you would have received to a charity of your choice?

 

If someone asked me to do that, i'd ask to be pointed to the specific reference in the Koran that quotes "It is a great offensive for this book to be placed below other books on the shelf"

Besides - Surely if you're religious (regardless of which faith) then you wouldn't need to hire your own holy book from the library....