Only freedom will do

edinburgher

• £80 paid into Mrs E's SIPP to buy bonds. We weren't planning on adding to the SIPPs, but there was some orphaned tax relief hanging about!
• £24.44 paid off of 0% CC 3/4
• £5 paid into P2P account
• £1 P2P interest reinvested (need to stop eaing my young!)
• £0.10 P2P interest withdrawn
• £0.79 OPed

Finished glossing 1/4 of the living room last night, we should now be good to get the radiator fitted now. On with that tonight, hey ho.... I have now given up reading about the Referendum, I'm just getting frustrated with all the arguing now :eek:

LadyGnome

I lasted about 10 mins of the debate last night before I realised it was going to cost me money if I stayed in the room as the urge to throw something at the TV was becoming overwhelming.

elantan

edinburgher wrote: »

• £80 paid into Mrs E's SIPP to buy bonds. We weren't planning on adding to the SIPPs, but there was some orphaned tax relief hanging about!
• £24.44 paid off of 0% CC 3/4
• £5 paid into P2P account
• £1 P2P interest reinvested (need to stop eaing my young!)
• £0.10 P2P interest withdrawn
• £0.79 OPed

Finished glossing 1/4 of the living room last night, we should now be good to get the radiator fitted now. On with that tonight, hey ho.... I have now given up reading about the Referendum, I'm just getting frustrated with all the arguing now :eek:

Hi Ed,

your still very much in control with the finances which is great to see, I found the Tilly tidies really helped make the difference for us

Isnt this referendum so full of hatred compared to ours? Did you land up watching last nights effort ?

edinburgher

I'm not sure El, I found our referendum to be exceptionally divisive.

I didn't watch more than a few minutes of last night because I was busy getting on with real life, which would seem to be a fitting motif for both referendums. A bunch of swivel eyed loonies on both sides froth at the mouth while the rest of us make up our minds rationally and then move on with our lives

elantan

well Yes it was divisive and still is imho, I don't think we have recovered from it, but the arguments were internal not external, I worked with someone yesterday that was still going on and on about it bitterly, but when I hear the whole immigration stuff going on with the EU I just cringe and the violence just makes me shake my head and am so glad I aint voting. I do worry about what the fall out will be from this one, it is worrying

Real life is much more interesting

edinburgher

I think our one definitely went external based on conversations with English relatives, quite angry in some cases.

I am completely torn on the immigration thing. Close proximity to Govanhill has made me realise just how uncomfortable I am being the odd man out. I don't walk past a group of 20-30 youths and heavily pregnant women who would appear to be migrants as not a one of them is speaking English and think 'yay! diversity!'.

Some of these people will have come to this country to avoid conflict and terrible deprivation, I can understand that and don't begrudge anybody peace of mind. But plenty of them are economic migrants and it's probably not an unreasonable assumption that quite a few work in 'black market' jobs. How else would there be such limited evidence of integration in certain parts of the country?

It's not a new thing. A close friend is British-born Chinese (2nd generation) and his parents own a house and have retired after raising a family of 5? kids, all who have been successful, uni educated, good jobs etc. Neither of the parents can speak a sentence of English despite 40+ years in the UK.

So I'm torn. On the one hand = people definitely have a right to peace of mind and stability. On the other hand = we fear what's different and some people appear to have no interest in becoming any less 'different', which doesn't help the fear.

Unless I'm a total xenophobe, I strongly suspect that this is how a lot of people feel.

elantan

sorry you had that experience with relatives, that is such a shame really, my family ( Welsh / Scottish/ English) were split on our independence but we tend not to fall out over these things so it wasnt a problem for us.

I think a lot of people have reservations about migrants coming here, and I do believe these need to be addressed, however, I think that there is an undercurrent ( which occasionally reaches the main stream) of racism with some of the campaigning. This issue needs tackled with as well but in a calm way, what is currently happening is anything but calm.

Karmacat

edinburgher wrote: »

I am completely torn on the immigration thing. Close proximity to Govanhill has made me realise just how uncomfortable I am being the odd man out. I don't walk past a group of 20-30 youths and heavily pregnant women who would appear to be migrants as not a one of them is speaking English and think 'yay! diversity!'.

Some of these people will have come to this country to avoid conflict and terrible deprivation, I can understand that and don't begrudge anybody peace of mind. But plenty of them are economic migrants and it's probably not an unreasonable assumption that quite a few work in 'black market' jobs. How else would there be such limited evidence of integration in certain parts of the country?

It's not a new thing. A close friend is British-born Chinese (2nd generation) and his parents own a house and have retired after raising a family of 5? kids, all who have been successful, uni educated, good jobs etc. Neither of the parents can speak a sentence of English despite 40+ years in the UK.

So I'm torn. On the one hand = people definitely have a right to peace of mind and stability. On the other hand = we fear what's different and some people appear to have no interest in becoming any less 'different', which doesn't help the fear.

Unless I'm a total xenophobe, I strongly suspect that this is how a lot of people feel.

I certainly do

**waves at El**

I do think there's a case to be made that if you immigrate to the UK, you should learn to speak our language, too. I understand there'd always be exceptions (I can just imagine a Bangladeshi family, say, coming here, and the 70 year old mother is brought along too, I can quite understand someone of that age and of such a different culture wouldn't want to integrate, and I wouldn't blame her one bit).

Learning to speak our language is interesting. One of my nephews taught EFL in China and then Saudi, for a year at each place. Somewhere in a small Chinese town, and a Saudi town too, for that matter, there are groups of teenagers with marked Scouse accents Just in the interests of balance an' all that

elantan

Waves back .. Hey KC

Pushkin

I do think there's a case to be made that if you immigrate to the UK, you should learn to speak our language, too. I understand there'd always be exceptions (I can just imagine a Bangladeshi family, say, coming here, and the 70 year old mother is brought along too, I can quite understand someone of that age and of such a different culture wouldn't want to integrate, and I wouldn't blame her one bit).

Learning to speak our language is interesting. One of my nephews taught EFL in China and then Saudi, for a year at each place. Somewhere in a small Chinese town, and a Saudi town too, for that matter, there are groups of teenagers with marked Scouse accents Just in the interests of balance an' all that [/QUOTE]



It's an interesting debate - and I think we (as a nation) are often a little hypocritical. We have thousands of British expats living in Spain - how many of those speak Spanish? My parents have a holiday home in Spain and the Brits that actually live there pretty much live a British life albeit with better weather - there is little or no integration with the locals.

I don't see immigration as an issue - the issue is controlling and balancing it to ensure there is sufficient school places, houses, hospital facilities etc.

Sorry to hijack the thread !