I believe I want my country back

shrek101

Indeed, and if I was planning to go abroad I would do the same, and learn at least a few words and research there customs.

TBH if I went abroad, which I am planning to in next few years once kids grow up. I wouldn't prefer the laying on a beach and getting drunk etc British stereotype holiday, I would like to see how people live, there history etc, it does interest me as I like to see this on TV.

For the record my comments about learning to speak English and learn customs is aimed at people who come here to live or stay for along period.

SidB wrote:

Yes I've been lucky enough to have been to a few. I don't speak the languages (except French and some Spanish), but have had great fun interacting with "Johnny foreigner", even though neither of us speak the same language. I've always found a happy smile and relaxed attitude go a long way to breaking the ice. I also find out the words for please and thank you, and use them. I have a respect for their culture and history, which I try to research before I visit.

SidB_2

Frogling wrote:

My cousin works as a builder, and during some work on a new site last year in the middle of summer, all of the workers were ordered to wear full-length trousers and t-shirts no matter how hot the weather. They were told on no account to wear shorts or take their tops off.

Now be honest, we all know that building workers don't all look like an advert for Diet Coke. I'd prefer them all to remain clothed at all times. Besides which if it's hot they'd be better off staying covered up.

margaretclare

chugalug wrote:

OP I believe you want 'your ' country back but it doesnt sound much like the country I know and want to keep. I'm glad we're becoming a bit more progressive but then being female, from a council estate with no education (yes even in 1978 some of us left school with no qualifications and a pregnancy to boot!!) I suspect you wouldnt want people like me in 'your' country. I'm glad my daughter gets to meet all sorts of people from all sorts of cultures, I'm glad my son learns to appreciate that the world view of Britain is not the only view there is and I'm glad society is trying to become more inclusive even if that does mean there are mistakes made. What you read in the papers and see on the news is there because it's newsworthy not necessarily because it's representative. I'd rather live here than anywhere else, time marches on and we'd better keep up!!

I agree with you, chugalug. And FWIW I'll be 70 this summer, so I've seen a lotta changes. Someone commented on the OP's original words that they 'should be on the Daily Mail letters page'. I went for a hospital appointment one morning when the Daily Mail headline (being read by many others in the waiting-area of OPD) trumpeted that 'we were being inundated with immigrants who were taking up NHS resources, housing, jobs etc'. I looked around me, and the only immigrants I could see were on the staff. All grades, from cleaners through to senior consultants. I think the NHS couldn't run without them. Did you happen to see the news item on Monday 6th June in the evening - London buses having to recruit bus-drivers in Poland, because there aren't enough bus-drivers at home! They have to keep the service running however they can.

MRSA - well, here's experience talking rather than media hype. I was a student nurse 1957-60, and we were told by our senior tutor that sooner or later there would come a 'superbug' which would be resistant to all known antibiotics. Remember that antibiotics were developed in the 1940s, used in forces hospitals at first, came into general and widespread use during the 1950s. Even in those days there was a nasty bug called staphylococcus aureus, which did no harm living on the skin and up the noses of normal healthy people with reasonable hygiene, but if skin was broken, if the person was malnourished or debilitated through some other cause, especially the very old and very young, it caused serious illness and could cause death. Lo and behold, what my senior tutor said came to pass. Staph aureus mutated into an antibiotic-resistant form - MRSA. And all the media-hype and politician-speak about 'bring back matron' is just so much hot air. There were hospital infections even when matron was around and no matter how she pattered round the hospital in her little starched cap, she didn't actually do anything! The people I really respected (and feared) because they were hands-on, at the coal-face so to speak, were the Ward Sisters.

'I want my country back' is what the British National Party (BNP) are saying. There's a kind of 'instant nostalgia' about - 'things were better when...' I find it hard to buy this kind of nostalgia. My second husband's grandparents, on both his father's and mother's side, were immigrants. If they hadn't come here they'd have been swept either into the pogroms of the early 20th century or into the Holocaust. All their descendants have made a contribution, worked, paid taxes just like the rest of us.

Quite a few of the older people say 'what happened to the cradle to grave care we were promised in the Welfare State. We now have to pay for dental, optical, long-term residential care, long waiting-lists in the NHS, hospital infections, bring back matron....' Well, I never bought that 'cradle to grave' idea. I think I've always tried to live by my grandparents' values (pre-Welfare State). They were poor, but they had this sense of priorities - pay your way, pay rent, the roof over your head, food, warmth, cleanliness, bring your kids up the best way you can. Core values, not bad ones really!

I've just resigned from being a part-time volunteer adviser with CAB because I just couldn't face it any more, the unanswerable questions, the people who were in a mess from their own doings and wanted someone to give them a quick easy solution, 'what are my rights', 'where do I stand in law' and often there is no automatic 'entitlement' if the problem is of a person's own making!

I've worked all my life, but I've also made a couple of good decisions (as well as a lot of not-so-good!) and I've also been lucky. I'm happy, have everything I need, a happy second marriage, a comfortable home, enough to eat, freedom to do most of the things I want to do. I'm not rich but I'm a heck of a long way from being poor.

Re aid to Africa - did anyone happen to see the front page of 'The Independent' on Saturday (4th June)? It summed it all up, how we can buy a T-shirt for a cheap price and how that T-shirt arrives in the shops here. Well worth a look, if you haven't seen it! Cotton-growers in Texas are subsidised, are millionaires. Cotton-growers in Benin, Africa, can't make a living, can't afford to eat. USA cotton exported to China, made into T-shirts by workers paid a pittance, arrive in UK at a price way below what it costs to produce. Think about it! 'Aid' is not the answer, all that does is salve the conscience of the rich part of the world. 'Fair trade' could be a better solution.

Aunty Margaret

SidB_2

My father used to have an expression for people with certain views. Hopefully the words won't offend but they give an idea of how things were in the 70's, with politicians like Enoch Powell.

"There's 2 things they hate. Racists and niggers."

Smudger99

Orchid wrote:

I find the title of this thread and general sub-text of the responses so far rather interesting....

Historically, the UK developed its vast resources by plundering and raping other nations. I wonder if those countries can ask for the return of their resources plus interest and compensation? Can these people ask for their country to return to the days pre-contact with Europeans?

To link yobbish and disrespectful behaviour with immigration is somewhat shameful !!

I wondered how long it would be before someone advocated this bed wetting lefty school of thought.

Frogling

SidB wrote:

Now be honest, we all know that building workers don't all look like an advert for Diet Coke. I'd prefer them all to remain clothed at all times.

Lol! You wouldn't say that if you saw my cousin - 25 years old, very good looking and muscular (I think he's the reason I've got so many friends!!!)

SidB_2

Smudger99 wrote:

I wondered how long it would be before someone advocated this bed wetting lefty school of thought.

I wondered how long it would be before someone resorted to brain dead right wing claptrap.....

SidB_2

Frogling wrote:

Lol! You wouldn't say that if you saw my cousin - 25 years old, very good looking and muscular (I think he's the reason I've got so many friends!!!)

Doesn't sound my type at all.

Fran

shrek101 wrote:

It's this political correctness that is going mad. I am not a particularly religious person myself, so I don't mind other faiths, what I object to is the political correctness that is trying to appease other faiths but whilst doing so offend the main faith in our country.

I can't see how the Gideon bible can offend anyone, people who are of other faiths and or non faith at all, don't have to read the bible. If the worse comes to it, I am sure the hospital would remove it.

I am not sure whether other faiths have objected at all, it maybe just the political correctness.

Why does "political correctness always get mentioned when people can't be bothered to listen/understand/research other peoples' opinions?

Perhaps we should use the majority vote as to what book appears in the hospital drawer? It wouldn't be the Gideon bible that's for sure!

shrek101 wrote:

I just think that people who come over here legally should integrate and learn our language and customs as we should respect there's.

I do hope you apply this when you visit Wales and learn Welsh which is an older language than English.

margaretclare wrote:

I've just resigned from being a part-time volunteer adviser with CAB because I just couldn't face it any more, the unanswerable questions, the people who were in a mess from their own doings and wanted someone to give them a quick easy solution, 'what are my rights', 'where do I stand in law' and often there is no automatic 'entitlement' if the problem is of a person's own making!

My experience as a full time paid worker at CAB was not like yours. There aren't unanswerable questions, just lack of resources and staff; most people I have seen in CAB were not in a mess from their own doings, for instance there's been enough written on the Benefits board re the distress people are in because of Tax Credits (and this isn't even a benefits website!).

Re the phonetic way of teaching reading. We are way behind other countries in ability to speak other languages, you can see this when teenagers come over here with a good command of English.

Wig

Frogling wrote:

My cousin works as a builder, <snip> but not at the risk of losing all of our own traditions and beliefs. I've even heard rumours about shops not closing on Christmas Day because other religions in our country don't celebrate that day. The world is slowly but surely going mad!

You want to preserve the builders bum tradition? That's something we can do without.

xmas day shops open....it's just business sense, if there is a demand, supply the demand. Plenty of people have to work xmas day in all sorts of places. If someone wants to open a shop that's their business.