BBC's White Season

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Aye all this shite about the foreigners taking the good honest Irish lads job is just that, shite. They take the jobs because they want to work and have a strong work ethic, i live in West Belfast and there are so many people that want the house, the two cars, the foreign holidays but don't want to work, and do you know what invariably they get it. There is no notion of getting up off your fat arse and getting it through fair means. The local politicians and Sinn Fein in particular just exacerbate the problem, you can go to them and they can expertly fill out your DLA form to ensure you tick all the right boxes instead of encouraging the people to get a job.

Bit disappointed in that crap Minder, soft dig, do you think that the SDLP, DUP or UUP councillors in West Belfast or North, South etc wouldn't aid their constituent's the same?

[Gnevin]

Announced today 8,500 more people on the dole/brew in the 26 this month, think it's the biggest ever number in one month!


Just found this:    http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0307/employment.html


This is just going to inflame more racism and social discontent among the "working class Irish".

Bit of leap their is it ?

[pintsofguinness]

This is just going to inflame more racism and social discontent among the "working class Irish".

I don't understand how anyone can blame foreigners - they get off their hole and work! Why are people shocked when they're hired?

I would be concerned that employers are paying foreigners less than they would an Irish person but this is the fault of the employer!

To many lazy shites out there who look for any excuse not to get off their hole.

[Minder]

Aye all this shite about the foreigners taking the good honest Irish lads job is just that, shite. They take the jobs because they want to work and have a strong work ethic, i live in West Belfast and there are so many people that want the house, the two cars, the foreign holidays but don't want to work, and do you know what invariably they get it. There is no notion of getting up off your fat arse and getting it through fair means. The local politicians and Sinn Fein in particular just exacerbate the problem, you can go to them and they can expertly fill out your DLA form to ensure you tick all the right boxes instead of encouraging the people to get a job.

Bit disappointed in that crap Minder, soft dig, do you think that the SDLP, DUP or UUP councillors in West Belfast or North, South etc wouldn't aid their constituent's the same?

They probably do but i dont live in those areas so wont comment.

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Announced today 8,500 more people on the dole/brew in the 26 this month, think it's the biggest ever number in one month!


Just found this:    http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0307/employment.html


This is just going to inflame more racism and social discontent among the "working class Irish".

Bit of leap their is it ?

GNevin and POG, the only reason I posted the link with the statement after was in the flow of the thread, I'm no rasict, but I can see things happening, and the employment figures won't help!

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Aye all this shite about the foreigners taking the good honest Irish lads job is just that, shite. They take the jobs because they want to work and have a strong work ethic, i live in West Belfast and there are so many people that want the house, the two cars, the foreign holidays but don't want to work, and do you know what invariably they get it. There is no notion of getting up off your fat arse and getting it through fair means. The local politicians and Sinn Fein in particular just exacerbate the problem, you can go to them and they can expertly fill out your DLA form to ensure you tick all the right boxes instead of encouraging the people to get a job.

Bit disappointed in that crap Minder, soft dig, do you think that the SDLP, DUP or UUP councillors in West Belfast or North, South etc wouldn't aid their constituent's the same?

They probably do but i dont live in those areas so wont comment.

So the SDLP and DUP have no representation in West Belfast?

[Minder]

Aye all this shite about the foreigners taking the good honest Irish lads job is just that, shite. They take the jobs because they want to work and have a strong work ethic, i live in West Belfast and there are so many people that want the house, the two cars, the foreign holidays but don't want to work, and do you know what invariably they get it. There is no notion of getting up off your fat arse and getting it through fair means. The local politicians and Sinn Fein in particular just exacerbate the problem, you can go to them and they can expertly fill out your DLA form to ensure you tick all the right boxes instead of encouraging the people to get a job.

Bit disappointed in that crap Minder, soft dig, do you think that the SDLP, DUP or UUP councillors in West Belfast or North, South etc wouldn't aid their constituent's the same?

They probably do but i dont live in those areas so wont comment.

So the SDLP and DUP have no representation in West Belfast?

Well where i live no they dont, the SDLP may have but im not sure "representation" is the most appropriate word......

[Gnevin]

Announced today 8,500 more people on the dole/brew in the 26 this month, think it's the biggest ever number in one month!


Just found this:    http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0307/employment.html


This is just going to inflame more racism and social discontent among the "working class Irish".

Bit of leap their is it ?

GNevin and POG, the only reason I posted the link with the statement after was in the flow of the thread, I'm no rasict, but I can see things happening, and the employment figures won't help!

What sort of things?
I don't really think one set of employment figures will fuel a race riot in O Connell street tomorrow

[pintsofguinness]

GNevin and POG, the only reason I posted the link with the statement after was in the flow of the thread, I'm no rasict, but I can see things happening, and the employment figures won't help!

Oh I know and I agree with you.

[Main Street]

I watched the documentary about a workingman's pub club in Whitby? near Bradford.
It could have done with some serious editing but overall was good. It took a long slog to get over some simple points about simple people. The best bit was the piece on the young part time scaffolder, the guy with the UJ and a swastika scrawled on it. Basically the program tried to define what it takes to be an BNP supporter and how the connections have been lost within families and the community.

[lynchbhoy]

I was always against the dole - or more to the point, getting dole for doing nothing, I would like to see people 'have' to perform some kind of local council work (road works, cleaning, meals on wheels, soup kitchen work etc) for their dole money.
Now I know that there are immigrants claiming dole and other benefits.
(and before you all go mad, there are people who are sick, disabled, minding kids etc who I agree should be exempt from this)

but immigrants and existing unemplyed now all getting dole - well that drives me batty completely.

we need a 'green card' system, we need to stop handing out benefits. I dont really care about the 'refugees'.
If they are allowed come into the country, they should be able to work.

Similar to people that go to the U.S.
I dont agree with funding able bodied people. They should fund themselves, and out tax money used for helping the real people that need it - hospitals, sick, elderly, kids etc etc


I think this TV series will only inflame problems over in England.

[armaghniac]

Powell was a hypocrite, like most politicians. He raised some genuine points about immigration and the separation between communities in Britain. Then he came over here and supported the immigrant community in stirring trouble and increasing separation. Hypocrite.

[muppet]

There has to be some level of benefit or else some people who lose their jobs might never recover. That said I agree that there could be some return for those benefits particularly from the long term unemployed. If they had to do some work 5 days a week to get their benefits it would also reduce fraud as anyone with a job would be unable to work for their benefits.

As for the racism this country seems to be pretty immigrant friendly to which is great but it would be naive to think it will always be that way just because it is now.   

[Minder]

The £7-per-hour jobs locals don't want 

By Tim Samuels 


High wages have drawn scores of Eastern Europeans to at least one corner of England. But not everyone welcomes this new workforce even if unemployed locals themselves refuse to do the same jobs.
A slice of today's British countryside. Giant butternut squash nestle in the ground waiting to be plucked and dispatched to satisfy gastropub tastes. Half a dozen workers trudge behind a tractor bending down to pick and load the squash. And the only person in the field who's British is the bloke driving the tractor. The rest are all from Eastern Europe.

The crew of Latvians, Lithuanians and a Pole includes a former nurse who's earning four times what she was making in the hospital back home. It's monotonous, physical work with 60-hour weeks, but no-one's complaining - or taking a tea break.


"It's wonderful here," says Mariusz, fresh in from Poland.

A dream workforce for the farmer surveying the workers toiling on his land outside Peterborough. "We have a job to get anyone else to do the work."

He has all but given up on using locals to work in the fields. "They don't work as hard."

In fact, they barely work in the fields at all. The agency supplying this farm with labour has had hundreds of Eastern Europeans pass through its doors in the last two years - and all of three English people.

"We've a job to get anybody else to do the work," says farmer Cam Allan. "The rates of pay are above minimum wage. It's just finding the people to do this type of work we've got."

The agricultural sector would be in dire straits without the immigrants willing to do the hard graft on the land. Labour which can net workers up to £25,000-a-year with overtime.


But that's not enough to entice some of the local lads picking up their dole money in Peterborough. A constant trickle of young men are in and out of the office collecting their state benefits. But there's little appetite for taking one of those vegetable-picking jobs of up to £7-an-hour. One group of lads:


Job for £7 an hour - "I prefer to sign on than do that"
"No mate I'd prefer to sign-on than do that."

"I don't want to work in like no cornfield."

"I don't want to work with a load of foreigners."

Another lad is picking up his last benefits cheque. He's just got a job after 12 months of searching. "I think because of all the foreigners" he says. "I know people don't like it, but I've never had trouble getting a job before. I've been going for jobs and they've got over 200 people applying for them."

The massive influx of Eastern Europeans may be keeping parts of the economy afloat, but is there a social cost?

Britain has experienced its biggest wave of migration in centuries in recent years. No-one really knows how many Eastern Europeans have come to Britain. The official figure is 800,000.

One in 10

A fair few have ended up in Peterborough - enticed by the demand for farming and factory work. Immigrants now make up around one in 10 of the city's population. Some locals say Peterborough is creaking under the pressure.

 
Charles Swift has been a local councillor for 55 years. As leader of the city council in the early 1970s, he agreed to house Asian families who had been forcibly expelled from Uganda - prompting National Front pickets against him.

But the councillor feels this latest influx has gone too far - with not enough government money to recognise the real scale and impact of the recent immigration.

He points out the local GP surgery which has received a thousand immigrant patients in the last six months and a primary school coping with 24 languages.

"The ordinary chappie in the street, if you stop and talk to them, they're right pig-sick, fed up to the teeth. They can see standards deteriorating all the way round and they repeatedly say to you 'enough is enough Charles. We've had enough of it'."

Resident Hema Patel agrees. "They should put a stop to immigration totally," she says "...whether they be Europeans, from the Far East, whatever. And they should sort out the problems now."

The local farmers and factory owners would say Peterborough hasn't had enough of it. They're still short of labour. But with immigration it's hard to see beyond the particular impact it's having on your immediate life - and that impact will be very different between a boss trying to keep his business afloat and someone whose street has become a magnet for immigrants.

What's striking in Peterborough is how many of the recent migrants are actually here for the long haul - and not just a year of two to make some money and head home

In a church hall, a Polish politician addresses a room full of his countrymen - seeing whether any might be tempted back home to a country now short of workers.

Out of the whole room, only one Pole says she is considering going back home. The rest are here to stay.

One young mother says, "I've a flat here now and my children are with me. They're at school and have made friends here. So I couldn't go back to Poland now - even if the situation there improved very quickly."