Lets talk about immigration.

[Ryehill]

          A couple of years ago if you mentioned the word immigration you were instantly labelled racist. Now, leading politicians are falling overthemselves to apologise for their parties past immigration policy. Ed Milliband has , on at least three occasions, stated that when in power the Labour party policy on immigration was wrong. Just this week Nick Clegg has outlined the Lib/Dems new stricter policy.
        Hindsight is a wonderful thing but how is it that the ordinary person in the street could see the problems caused by mass immigration but our leaders could not? Some immigration is necessary but we the host nation should be able to decide how many people per year are allowed to settle here and also be able to pick and choose who we allow to settle in this country. 
        I would welcome other peoples views on this subject but please can we keep the discussion factual and  don't allow it to desend into name calling.
         

[tankerville]

Back in the 1970s we were going to emigrate to South Africa here there was no or little work building sites closed in winter and as a tradesman had to resort to any job no matter how menial to feed my wife and kids.

South Africa seemed the ideal solution more money, a better standard of living for my family etc.

There were conditions I had to learn the German/Dutch Language no problem, also to intergrate and no longer think of myself as English or British.

It would seem that we have not the slighest idea of how to control immigration and as part of the EU everyone is welcome no matter what they have to offer which in a lot of cases is NOTHING AT ALL.

[rabbit]

There are so many facets of this subject.

Tomorrow Mr.Cameron is to announce statutory (stat u tory?) guidance on keeping immigrants off council home waiting lists for two years.

I don`t know whether this will run foul of any legislation (specifically human rights) or not.

A good (if well worn) argument is that a nation should allow immigration in order to bring in skills which the nation is short of. (as did South Africa, Australia, the USA at one time). I cannot argue against that with a developing nation, but one such as ours where some skills (on a large scale) may be lacking points somewhat towards a failure of our own educational and training systems.

As an aside, unless the rules have changed, an EU immigrant to any member nation of the EU is free to enter and stay in that nation for up to three months. After that three months he or she must either be working or have sufficient resources to avoid becoming a burden upon the social security system of the host member state during their period of residence.

It seems it is a matter of the host nation as to how exactly they satisfy these rules, and I don`t have a clue how our country does in this matter.

There must not be a knee jerk reaction to the immigration situation but a well thought out plan which is fair to both the existing population of this country, and also to any future immigrants.

[steveL]

I think this is one of those many instances when successive Governments have fallen behind the wave on the issue lagging behind what the people are thinking. It's not so much a race issue as a consistency issue. For example, when we constantly hear of a housing shortage in the UK, how can it make any sense to have a slack immigration policy? Likewise, with so many unskilled people struggling to obtain work, where is the logic in allowing more unskilled people into the country?

I think a clue for this inconsistency can be found in the quick and adverse reaction of the CBI to Cameron's latest proposals. It makes me suspect that this is all about the downward effect a constant influx of new, unskilled labour has on wage rates; I'd even go as far as saying that a large part of the illegal immigrant issue is down to the avenues it opens for employers, particularly in the large cities, to by-pass minimum wage legislation.

We're only a small island. We're not full, as some people like to claim; but perhaps we're as full as we want to be.

[tankerville]

There are always those who will exploit foreign workers be they immigrant legal or illegal, Border Agency have done a number of raids in the town Seaton Carew. Duke Street. Chatham road. Church Street.

In this country we have the WON'T WORK so it's an open door to those that will no matter how small the wage offered.

Enoch Powell predicted all this back in the 1960s and was called a racist. I call it common sense.

[mk1]

In this country we have the WON'T WORK so it's an open door to those that will no matter how small the wage offered.

If every single unemployed person in Hartlepool was forced to take a job the  that would reduce the numbers by 10%.

90% could not get a job because....................there simply are no jobs!

The problem caused by illegal immigrants is not the same as the problems caused by immigrants who have the right to come here.
Working illegal immigrants are taken advantage off and made to work for a few quid an hour and the  poor sods are robbed blind by everyone. Registered illegal immigrants are not allowed to work by law
The influx of unskilled workers from Europe was a deliberate ploy by the creature Blair and the Dark Lord to drive down wages. They decided to help the CBI out by providing a pool of cheap labour willing to work for the minimum wage. This was not an unseen consequence but something designed to  make the  nations manual workers 'more flexible'.  In my experience become more 'flexible'  is a help because you usualy end up  on your knees.
At the end of the day  managers get a large pool of easily replaceable  minimum wage labour they can hire and fire at will.
Middle england gets lots of cheap domestics and ways to get a swimming pool without the complication of VAT on the bill.
Whinging toss-pot little englanders get a bogey man to frighten everyone with. Those employed and on the average wage get someone to blame and never stop telling us how hard they work in order to keep layabouts in fags and beer.
Everyone gets something. The only people who suffer are those who had nothing to sell but their labour. They were worse off (because of declining wages)before the Merchant Wankers  brought the system down.
Now they are being punished a second time because the comfortably off need to shift the blame from the insane way they remortgaged every 5 years .
And anyway the poor have no influence so who care what they think..............

[SRMoore]

In this country we have the WON'T WORK so it's an open door to those that will no matter how small the wage offered.

If every single unemployed person in Hartlepool was forced to take a job the  that would reduce the numbers by 10%.

90% could not get a job because....................there simply are no jobs!

I'm sorry but that excuse is an absolute kop out and to be blunt, BS.
https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/JobSearch/PowerSearch.aspx?where=hartlepool&sort=rv.dt.di&pp=25&re=134&rad_units=miles&vw=b&setype=2&rad=10A quick search on the Jobcentre website comes back with 2113 results for Hartlepool and a 10 mile radius.

There is also nothing stopping people with ambition and determination creating their own jobs. There is plenty of support out there. The problem is that the NE especially have been conditioned to believe that somebody else has to provide jobs for them, usually the government.

[mk1]

I'm sorry but that excuse is an absolute kop out and to be blunt, BS.
https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/JobSearch/PowerSearch.aspx?where=hartlepool&sort=rv.dt.di&pp=25&re=134&rad_units=miles&vw=b&setype=2&rad=10A quick search on the Jobcentre website comes back with 2113 results for Hartlepool and a 10 mile radius.

Err should you not then include all the jobless who live in the same 10 mile area and then divide the number of vacancies by the new (larger) jobless total?

Shane you are not stupid so I wonder what drives you to parrot central  office distortion?

[SRMoore]

I don't parrot central office distortion, nor am I hardly a stickler for toeing the party line.

You stated there are "no jobs" but the evidence shows that there are.

[mk1]

You stated there are "no jobs" but the evidence shows that there are.

Now you nit pick. Whilst is is true I said there were no jobs' it was linked to a  explanation that if every job vacancy was filled it would still leave 90% of those unemployed without a job. There are not enough jobs so that every unemployed person can get a job.

Your link to the job site shows that if you want a cleaning job for 7 hours a week then you can 'get a job' but are your serously claiming a  this is the solution?
No my friend the plain fact is there are no jobs for 90% of the unemployed.

Thatchers dream of everyone selling Burgers to each other was never going to work!

You act as if unemployment is a career choice and you are blatantly using 'dog whistle' falshood to defend your goverments  policy of punishing the people at the bottom. Running around europe begging  that bankers be allowed to keep their bonuses and making it easier for them to  purchase their second homes belies the claim 'we are all in this together'.

[tankerville]

It's a fact we have a system in place that some are better off not working at all. This is wrong. As a skilled tradesman I took any job to keep my family as did my wife also, many a time I came home from work and my wife was going out to work.

I have worked in the Steelworks. Taxi Driver. Delivery Driver. Worked as a Joiner in Holland. Labourer. Delivered Cars. Bus Driver. Postman. Milkman. Dumper/Tractor Driver. Iron Foundry. Pitch Fibre Pipes. The list goes on and on.

From leaving school at 15 it was instilled in me that I must have a job in all the years I was only on the dole a short while because I went and did any job.

One day I walked to Seal Sand's for a job and got one, they were taken with my determination to work.

They gave me a form to fill in on it was. When are you available to start work?.. I wrote NOW IN BIG LETTERS.

I find it annoying seeing able bodied young people walking the streets with a can of lager and a fag in their hand maybe it's me I expect too much after all there are no jobs, I read that somewhere.

[steveL]

I'm sorry but that excuse is an absolute kop out and to be blunt, BS.
https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/JobSearch/PowerSearch.aspx?where=hartlepool&sort=rv.dt.di&pp=25&re=134&rad_units=miles&vw=b&setype=2&rad=10A quick search on the Jobcentre website comes back with 2113 results for Hartlepool and a 10 mile radius.

There is also nothing stopping people with ambition and determination creating their own jobs. There is plenty of support out there. The problem is that the NE especially have been conditioned to believe that somebody else has to provide jobs for them, usually the government.

Silly, Shane. If you're going to start quoting the number of jobs within a 10 mile radius then you also have to include the number of other people unemployed within the same 10 mile radius. The jobless figure for that area would include all of Blackhall, Horden and Peterlee as well as a fair chunk of northern Teesside - unless you think that the unemployed of Hartlepool should be given first option over those who who may well nearer the work on offer.

Secondly, could I just point out that even using your fuzzy logic, the number of people claiming Job Seekers in Hartlepool last month was 4,841 so even if all 2,113 vacancies within that 10 mile radius were given solely to Hartlepool people, whether they were qualified to do them or not and whether they had the means to physically get to them or not, that would still leave 2,728 people in the town claiming Job Seekers and - incidentally - with not a single vacancy left within 10 miles and anyone unemployed in Blackhall, Horden, Peterlee or Northern Teesside equally f**c***.

If that is something you and your sleep-over Government feel they can be proud of then I suggest you move South and buy a house in Chipping Campden.

[mk1]

Just read an article in the paper that says Med-iTec from Newton Aycliffe advertised 2 jobs and got 500 applications in 2 days . So great was the demand the company had to remove the advert because it could not handle the applications.
What was that Shane said about plenty of jobs................

From leaving school at 15 it was instilled in me that I must have a job in all the years I was only on the dole a short while because I went and did any job.

One day I walked to Seal Sand's for a job and got one, they were taken with my determination to work.

They gave me a form to fill in on it was. When are you available to start work?.. I wrote NOW IN BIG LETTERS

That sounds like my father. He always worked. Knew everyone in the building trade and was never short of work. Then Thatcher came and he  lost his job(s) He simply could not get a start anywhere and his age was no help. He spent his final years going to get seacoal and giving it away to neighbours just so he could do something. All the time this was going on lucky people in well paid jobs didn't give a f**k. They talked about their  houses and how much it had increased in value last week. People like my dad were said  to be 'a price worth paying' so not much has changed.
Forgive me boys then if I do not pull the ladder up after me and leave the millions of young kids who have not had a proper job to rot whilst I brag to my mates about how well paid I am.

[SRMoore]

I'm sorry but the excuse that 'there are no jobs' is simply untrue. Faced with the facts it seems MK1 and Steve now say 'Ok but there aren't enough jobs'. That's a fair and true statement and I won't argue with it but lets stop selling the lie that 'there are no jobs'.

MK1, lets tackle the whole helping the bankers crap once and for all.
like it or not, the financial services industry equates to 30% of the UK GBP. Now you can go along selling another lie that the tories are simply looking after their rich banker mates but the reality is that it is in all of our interests for the government to protect our financial services because if they move abroad, which lets not kid ourselves, they will, we truly will be up the proverbial creek.

To get back to the immigration topic; there just has to be common sense applied.
We all know there is currently a shortage of professionals like doctors, engineers etc (no shortage of people with degrees in media studies though) so it makes no sense to put in place draconian rules to restrict entry to those we need.
What we don't have a shortage of is unskilled workers in the UK so to continue to have an open door policy for unskilled workers when we have 1m young people out of work is complete madness!

We need to have a common sense policy on migration and immigration and NOT a knee jerk reaction to please the Daily Mail.

[tankerville]

I too went for seacoal because the pits were on strike 'Thatcher' drive them into the ground policy my cousin used to be down there with me at the Headland  'Marine Drive / North Sands for hours gathering bag after bag.

He then pushed his bike loaded with five bags home then go back for the rest of his haul of coal left at the top of Thorpe Street.

What he had spare he would sell £1.00 a bag for his smokes and a pint, someone shopped him so he had his dole stopped, because he was not looking for gainful employment.

Employment is vital but it should be offered to locals first and foremost.