Leave the UK?

Dizzy...I am not anti Britain/UK/England. It is though not a place I think I would ever by choice live again. I am not anti Brits either. If you understand me? My view is that after having moved away I am more likely to go to another country rather than return to Blighty.

[dizzyblonde]

I get your meaning me dear, I'm not sure my mate is anti, brit, uk in such a seriously negative way, i think its just that she has found that there is more to the world than just us on this island, and a whole load of different folk too. moving away opened her eyes to a whole differnet look on life....but we do appear...from the other side of the fence a rather rude, obnoxious set of folk

Well I lived out in Belgium for 2 1/2 years, good fun, but found a lot of the belgians were very dogmatic in their out look, took a fair bit of time to find like minded individuals, and when I found a nice girl it was time to come home again

Originally Posted by Tim in Belgium

Well I lived out in Belgium for 2 1/2 years, good fun, but found a lot of the belgians were very dogmatic in their out look, took a fair bit of time to find like minded individuals, and when I found a nice girl it was time to come home again

Out of interest, why did you come back Tim?
I met a Belgian girl too, sigh, from Ghent. Ho hum. Long time ago now. Never went there, although dEUS and Evil Superstars are both from there, so it cant be too bad a place wha'?

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

I get your meaning me dear, I'm not sure my mate is anti, brit, uk in such a seriously negative way, i think its just that she has found that there is more to the world than just us on this island, and a whole load of different folk too. moving away opened her eyes to a whole differnet look on life....but we do appear...from the other side of the fence a rather rude, obnoxious set of folk

Sometimes its funny.
Its like the most devout Christians are guys that found God later in life, the more ardent anti smokers are former smokers.
I am pretty embarrassed by how racist a lot of the first / second gen "Irish" are out here, and very uncomfortable when they start to drag me into their brain damaged diatribes. I actually stay away from the Irish stuff out here.
If I want Ireland, I will go to Ireland, and have a pint of Murphys in Clonakilty.

Something about you being very close to this thing, that you see in others and dont like, and it scares you, and you exaggerate slightly your response to your discomfort. Maybe?

I went there with work (chemical engineer, they paid for my house and car ) and came back to the UK to build what I designed out there, come June/July I could be going to Holland/Belgium/China/who knows, all sounds fun and exciting but moving about all the time can be a bit of an ar$€ when it comes to friends, relationships and having a proper home. Also buying/selling/importing vehicles can add up.

Had a great time away, but never felt that I was going to be there long term, so never made the effort to a certain extent. I was back there just over a week ago and I realised I do miss the life style a lot, especially the West Vleteran No 12, the relaxed going out and the warmer weather.

As an immigrant of sorts I wanted to say I love living in England. I love the lifestyle, cultural diversity, the history, and the proximity to the rest of Europe. It took a long time to settle in though and I can say it certainly wasnt an easy country to move too. Mainly due to cost. Coming from Sydney and Melbourne after growing up in New Zealand it was really hard to find an area we were happy in. Our dollars didnt go far and having kids here was tough financially. If we hadnt found our feet I think we probably would have gone back to Sydney, just for the lifestyle - one day I am sure we probably will.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Spanner Man

However as Baldood points out, there's no overall gain having them here if they're sending the money they earn back home.

I have to disagree with you regarding your allegation that immigration pays for itself, for if as has been suggested, Lazy Brits were made to go out & work, or face having benefits stopped, there would be far fewer jobs for the 'economic migrants' that you claim to be a benefit to our society. Henceforth they would become a burden, instead of the lazy Brits. Get my drift?

For the first, do you think they live on fresh air and water out of the river while they're here? They become end users like everyone else, they pay rent, they buy food, petrol, household goods, and they pay tax. In short, they grow the economy like every other worker does. Do you have a polish deli in your town? Polish restaurant? Polish bar? We've got loads of 'em, and they're all making us money.

Like I said, even Immigration Watch- a blatantly anti-immigrant organisation- admits that immigration more than pays for itself. It was them that came out with the "mars bar per month" story a while back- that the economic gain from immigration amounts to only 4p per UK citizen per month, or the price of a mars bar for each taxpayer as they were pleased to tell everyone. What they didn't mention was that this was after all immigration costs- in other words, it's pure profit. So they ran their story cleverly talking about small benefits and implying that the costs were seperate, rather than this being the net result.

If you were to use Home Office figures (lies, obviously), or independant economic reviews, then you get a better picture still- I'm using IWUK's numbers not because they're neccesarily accurate but because they're the worst out there and they're still positive.

What you have to remember with regards "lazy brits" is that a lot of these guys are skilled workers- we're not talking about navvies here. You can't turn an unemployed guy into a time-served plumber, doctor, bricklayer or financial accountant overnight. When I was getting my hip fixed, one of the surgeons, one of the surgical assistants, and half of the nurses were recent immigrants- and it's not because they're stealing people's jobs, we've got a skills shortage.

Obviously, not everyone's like this- and yep, we should be getting more unemployed but employable people into meaningful training or into jobs. But it's not an either-or situation, we can take the benefits of the migrant workers and still work on that. Personally I'm not sure how, lots of people have plans to get the employable back into work but they never seem to work out.

Right, so the anti immigration thing doesn't hold up on cost.
So, I am an immigrant and the US gets a very good deal with me, I am basically entitled to nothing, I have cost the country nothing to school, nothing to keep healthy, nothing at all.

Now I am working in one of their research institutions, on pretty low wages compared to my counterpart in industry, I pay all the taxes of an American person, I spend almost all of my money in the country, and when I am out of work I have thirty days to leave.

I am not representative of the majority of immigrants though.
Compared to the majority of immigrants I am a sponge. Because they do the jobs that no one wants, for money that no one would work for. They are the people that make NYC function, and the US function. They can be rounded up and deported at any time, have no rights, no voting power, yet they are the ones that do basically all real the grunt work.

So, if you dont like immigrants, and you know that there is no financial reason to not like them, what reason do you have left? Hmm.


Here, Gmonsta, give me 3 reasons why I shouldn't move to NZ.

edit... right, being miles away from Europe is one. Three more

[northwind]

Mmm, I don't think it's quite that simple though. There's a risk here, because if we get too used to immigrant labour and we keep making money off it, then why bother trying to get unemployed folks into work, and why bother training people up to fill the skill shortages when we can just order 100 polish doctors off ebay? We could easily end up patching the cracks and never actually fixing the problem,migrant labour could be too easy a fix, too tempting. And the thing is, it could just go away- we're already losing out to Ireland in that they're becoming a more desirable location. Some industries are bricking it in case the golden goose stops laying, and it probably will sooner or later.

I did add a joke here, but it was rubbish. It's not that I don't want to lighten the tone, it's just that I can't, I'll need to import a ukrainian comic to do me some material.