Biggest population in Europe?

lostinrates

treliac wrote: »

No, really, she's not Heston.

I find heston kinda sexy though. Exciting.

My ideal would be to only eat meat we produce, but I have major issues with abbatoirs and I'm not even going to pretend I find 'the drive' easy. The sheep are difficult, and they are my neighbours' ewes and we go in on the grazing for a lamb or two and I hate sheep. I love, love love cows, so that wouldbe a lot harder

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

I don't know about elegant, but strictly a townie, that's for sure. My DH still can't get over the fact that I have shoes for walking. Apparently that's what all of his are for.

I have shoes I won't wear out side

vivatifosi

treliac wrote: »

No, really, she's not Heston.

I couldn't get my head round that until I realised you were talking Blumenthal and not Charlton. Tis obviously too late for me you late birds, so I'm off to bed now. Thanks for being excellent company as usual!

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

Tis obviously too late for me you late birds, so I'm off to bed now. Thanks for being excellent company as usual!

I'm off too.

treliac

Same here - the ironing will have to wait.

ninky_2

cocktail wrote: »

note-legal migrants do not get any benefits and most of them are productive for the economy
illegal immigrants would continue to pour in and bearing in mind that these would be the most unproductive group of people--claiming benefits,social housing,etc

FACTUAL CORRECTION;

Illegal immigrants are NOT entitled to ANY benefits. Illegal immigrants include failed asylum seekers, visa overstayers and others with no legal right to be in the UK. The fact the are not entitled to benefits or allowed to work legally means they will be in the lowest (underpaid) jobs with none of the rights others have. Many will turn to criminal activities to support themselves such as drug dealing and unlicensed mini cab driving. Unless they have been here for several years when the rules were slacker, or are overstayers, they will also not have a driving licence so are more likely to be driving unlicensed and uninsured. They are also not legally entitled to health care but it is hard for doctors and hospitals turn away those in need away so many a blind eye is turned in this instance.

Legal immigrants ARE entitled to the SAME benefits as us. This includes immigrants from EU. A qualifying period does apply but after 2 years all legal immigrants have access to JSA, housing benefit etc etc. Some benefits are also exportable back to their country of origin, so they will be entitled to them even after they return home. Note, successful asylum seekers are LEGAL immigrants. They can have their benefits backdated to the time they arrived in the UK as a judge has decided they legally had the right to come here.

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

Checks at airports will not work as many illegals will use other means of entering the country such as hiding underneath lorries.

The reasons people destroy their passport includes hiding the fact they have passed through another country (e.g Turkey) that they could have claimed asylum in as under the legislation they should have claimed asylum there.

Hi Ninky,

Some thoughts on this. I think that checks at airports are another weapon in the armoury. They cannot be seen as solving the whole problem, but do have the potential to solve some of the problem. In addition, if we have - as we do - immigration officials working out of Calais and putting carbon dioxide probes in trucks to stop illegal immigrants, then spotting people hanging on the underside of a trucks would also be possible.

It is not beyond the abilities of this nation to do this at all overseas ports, or to install even more sophisticated equipment (such as thermal imaging) to spot pockets of heat in containers.

Could there still be ways of getting people here - sure - but we are an island, which should make things substantially tougher as realistically we know the places that people are likely to arrive and can list them out: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Manchester etc airports.... Dover, Folkestone, Harwich, Newcastle etc ports. We don't have a 500 mile land border that people can just walk over and our geography means that we don't have rickety boats turning up on our shores the same way that happens in Southern Europe and the Canaries.

In terms of the passport issue, we are not a Schengen nation and passports should be shown at our border. If people are arriving without passports from a safe place of passage (ie another EU country) then they should be returned there.

Would this catch every illegal immigrant - no. Would it catch more illegal immigrants - yes. Therefore the question is whether the cost of implementing such a system would be worthwhile. Personally I think I'd rather that my money went on this than a useless and very expensive ID card system.

ruggedtoast

This will be the same kind of prediction that said a studio flat was going to cost 50 billion pounds by July 2012 then?

I work in an area affected by immigration. Its about to get much harder for non EUs to enter the UK, or bring in family members.

Its unlikely that vast amounts of EU workers are going to want to migrate here considering how poor their employment prospects are now. And despite the daily mail hyperbole there is limited appeal in living indefinitely from Britain's stingy benefits system, poor schooling and cruddy hospitals.

If someone really wants to live at the tax payers expense they'd be better off in France or Germany. Actually I may join them, we have a nipper on the way and it would be nice if they could graduate from a secondary education system capable of making them literate in at least one European language. Something that looks increasingly improbable here.

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

Hi Ninky,

Some thoughts on this. I think that checks at airports are another weapon in the armoury. They cannot be seen as solving the whole problem, but do have the potential to solve some of the problem. In addition, if we have - as we do - immigration officials working out of Calais and putting carbon dioxide probes in trucks to stop illegal immigrants, then spotting people hanging on the underside of a trucks would also be possible.

It is not beyond the abilities of this nation to do this at all overseas ports, or to install even more sophisticated equipment (such as thermal imaging) to spot pockets of heat in containers.

Could there still be ways of getting people here - sure - but we are an island, which should make things substantially tougher as realistically we know the places that people are likely to arrive and can list them out: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Manchester etc airports.... Dover, Folkestone, Harwich, Newcastle etc ports. We don't have a 500 mile land border that people can just walk over and our geography means that we don't have rickety boats turning up on our shores the same way that happens in Southern Europe and the Canaries.

In terms of the passport issue, we are not a Schengen nation and passports should be shown at our border. If people are arriving without passports from a safe place of passage (ie another EU country) then they should be returned there.

Would this catch every illegal immigrant - no. Would it catch more illegal immigrants - yes. Therefore the question is whether the cost of implementing such a system would be worthwhile. Personally I think I'd rather that my money went on this than a useless and very expensive ID card system.

If every single lorry that comes was checked there would be MASSIVE delays for all travellers. I agree spot checks will catch some but it won't stop people trying. And are you going to police every single small vessel, yacht etc that has been out to sea? When someone is desperate enough to hide underneath a lorry all the way from Calais to a UK motorway service station they will find a way to get here.

I actually think ID cards would be far more effective. But then you have the issue of what to do when you catch someone, especially if they have no travel documents.

I think some time in the future (assuming we don't all die off from global warming or some such) there will be no countries. People will be able to live where they wish as human beings on one earth and future civilization will look back at this time as a sort of 'them' and 'us' global feudalism....that's the dream anyway.

chris_spackman

Our green and pleasent land seems to attract people for all the wrong reasons. NHS, benefit handouts and the fact that if you come here the chance of being sent home is very low, more so if you have been doing things you shouldn't have in your own country.

I am all for people coming here who can offer something in return but those who hate us, our way of life and what we stand for and try to harm us have no right to be here but they are here as it suits them.

This countyr is a soft target and the Government does not help itself in a sense that when they try and get people deported they have to jump through EU hoops and spend lots of money in the process and it is a very small chance that the outcome will be in their favour.

Australia has the righ idea, most other countries do but when we try and do the same there is uproar.

For example: A man goes to Pakistan on 'holiday' to kick a drug habit. Jumps on a bus to cross the border and is caught with an AK47 with a group of others with RPG's etc fighting British troops yet the British Government have to let him return to the UK. Bloody madness