[mark]

and without the migrant agricultural workers we would be importing much much more than that!

[Jamanda]

Enforced labour in the fields you mean?

[toggle]

non essential= stuff i don't aggree with?

[mark]

fire service ? army and navy? airforce? police? nurses and NHS workers? Youth workers? Careworkers? School dinners? Residential homes for elderly and infirm? refuse colections? street cleaning? highways?

public sector jobs cuts is always an easy political target - but most of us don't like the results when we find the basics of civilised living are cut back and we end up losing the essential infrastructure of a developed economy.

mark

[cab]

So your preferred option would be what?

[cab]

And if we export some of our home grown layabouts, so much the better!

(only kidding)


(mostly)

[Ani]

Lol, am inclined to agree... as part of my job im supposed to advice the layabouts to the benefits they are entitled to...appartenly people are underclaiming by £24 per week, thats one part of my job im going to be rubbish at (depending who im dealing with i guess though prejudices are not really allowed)!? think im already a failure before ive began...

[Cho-ku-ri]

We have discussed this before. IMHO bananas, citrus and other foreign foods should still be imported but not regarded as staples to be eaten every day.

[cab]

I'm struggling to think of any Pole I've ever met who was anything other than extremely polite, courteous, and in most ways a good egg. There are cultural problems for people moving over here of course (driving standards are often dreadful, compliance with things like traffic lights, roundabouts, junctions etc. seems to be way below par from Polish registered vehicles IMHO) but you don't get waves of migration without some culture shock.

[cab]

You haven't answered my question; specifically regarding recent immigration to the UK, what is your preferred option?

[Ani]

Fair play, but dont come moaning to me when you get food poisioning, get injured at work due to lack of health and safety checks, when the dog poo bins in the park are full, when your neighbours are noisy b*****ds, when theres some unknown substance polluting your local river, when your house starts leaning or is damp or the roof is collapsing and you dont know why and/or need advice or funds, or a winter fuel grant, or when theres a flu epidemic and you want to know what precaustions you should take, or how to ensure business continity if you are a manager/owner of a business!?

Because obviously all these services are non essential and you could cope on your own without help...

[mark]

I am not sure about this - it rules out brits and americans going to work in developing countries - and aid workers in famine regions (after all they are one more mouth to feed)

however the point you make does make sense in some places - for example the Gaza strip which is overpopulated with palestinian refugees from Israel and has a totally unsustainable population density - they should be allowed to return to to Israel or at least return to work where they did before instead of being fenced in .

I think britain is different though - as we do have potential to be more self sustaining - and our immigrant populations on the whole contribute more to this achieving this aim than do the natives!

[Cho-ku-ri]

Fair play, but dont come moaning to me when you get food poisioning, get injured at work due to lack of health and safety checks, when the dog poo bins in the park are full, your neighbours are noisy b*****ds when theres some unknown substance polluting your local river, your house starts leaning or is damp or the roof is collapsing and you dont know why and/or need advice or funds, or a winter fuel grant, or when theres a flu epidemic and you want to know what precaustions you should take, or how to ensure business continity if oyu are a manager/owner of a business!?

Because obviously all these services are non essential and you could cope on your own without help...

[Cho-ku-ri]

From what I can see the migrant workers are not so keen to work in the fields anymore, they are fast moving into hospitality and public sector work. I don't think many of them even made it into true agriculture where the real food tonnage is created, most were just employed in the large scale horticultural high margin crops like strawberries and labour intensive hand harvested vegetables. Most agricultural farms are still owned and worked by longer established families.

[Cho-ku-ri]

Or get a productive job?

[cab]

Go for a walk in rural East Anglia in summer. Plenty of immigrants picking produce there.

[Treacodactyl]

Without dragging the topic off track, the councils I've lived under haven't much cared about some of what you list.

[mark]

From what I can see the migrant workers are not so keen to work in the fields anymore, they are fast moving into hospitality and public sector work. I don't think many of them even made it into true agriculture where the real food tonnage is created, most were just employed in the large scale horticultural high margin crops like strawberries and labour intensive hand harvested vegetables. Most agricultural farms are still owned and worked by longer established families.

[Cho-ku-ri]

Why?

[Cho-ku-ri]

They have every right to do what they want, and they are moving out of manual work and into the better paid jobs.

[cab]

They have every right to do what they want, and they are moving out of manual work and into the better paid jobs.

[Ani]

There is a shortage of EHP's in practically all councils, some councils don't deal with housing, that gets dealt with by 'housing'.

If theres not the people in those departments some of the jobs will not get done. Plus you need new blood to enter these areas to shake things up and bring new prospectives.

My general point is that my job may not be the most 'essential' in the country, but is by far not the most useless.

[Cho-ku-ri]

It isn't a criticism, I know why they are not employed in the less labour intensive regions of agriculture. I'm not concerned with who or where anybody works, I'm just concerned that we have far more poeple living here than our lands can feed. I do not want my, your or future incomer's grandchildren starving to death.

[Cho-ku-ri]

Or get a productive job?[/quote]

So whats a productive job??? I used to be an egg collector that do for you??? Think I'd earn more on benefits though...[/quote]

There will not be any benifits when the economy crashes and we go hungry. An egg collector would be a fantastic job.

[Cho-ku-ri]

That is true Lorrainelovesplants, I forgot that immigrants are now entering the dairy industry.

[Blue Peter]

I've asked (elsewhere), but never had an answer, though your post suggests one. We are told that we need to increase the number of workers to pay for the pensions of the baby-boomers. Is this a one-off shot? or does it mean that, if the policy is successful, we'll have a new bulge in population, which will require a yet greater increase in workers in the future? I.e. is this just one of those growth strategies that is not sustainable, and so is immoral (since it tranfers the costs of our benefits to future generations)?


Peter.

[Silas]

And contributing to the above as well.

This thread is dangerously close to being racist, I don't like it - I don't like it one little bit.

[mark]

how can you say it is ok for you to do it - but not ok for others?

as for population movement being "unsustainable" - what is unstustainable are politcal restrictions on movement.
Allow peole to move to whee the jobs, food etc are and you have a sustainable global economy.
Put up false barriers based on race, ethnicity, where you were born etc and you end up with an unflexible global economy which can't face the challenges of tommorow.
It's those peopel living in the past who seek to restrict migration who bring the threat of starvation and economic collapse to the world not those who open up borders!

mark

[cab]

With just a few limitations, I think you've got it in one. I don't think that completely unrestrained movement of people is always a good thing, but a world without borders putting artificial constraints on goods and services is certainly something to aspire to. The idea that we'll starve because there are too many Poles here... Well, maybe, but we'll sure as hell starve if we don't staff our farms sufficiently well to keep them productive.

[Chez]

I think that a lot of the migrant workers from Poland DO only intend to do a short stint then go home. We rented three rooms to a variety of different Poles/Hungarians for a couple of years in Wallasey. They had a work ethic that put me to shame - at one point one of them had three different cleaning jobs and was working a sixteen hour day. He told us that in the three months he was with us, even after the whacking great amount he'd be taxed on his return, he was taking home more than his (professional) parents would earn, combined, in twelve months.

At the same time, I was working for a charity that aimed to help the unemployed back to work. The people who were my client group were pretty much unemployable, for reasons including alcohol, drugs, learning difficulties and often, general motivation.

The Eastern Europeans on the other hand were a self-selecting elite who had the motivation to get out and help themselves. That's the kind of person who will contribute effectively and usefully to a society and the kind who will continue to do so when circumstances get difficult.

It's tough to say so - but if we do end up with a food and energy crisis, I would far rather have 800,000 well motivated 'immigrants' as part of my community/society than 800,000 people who expect things to be handed to them on a plate.

And as for pensions - there aren't going to be any for the post-baby-boomer generation, are there? We're on our own anyway.

[Cho-ku-ri]

'cause he has gone to a country self sufficient in food?

[Ani]

Its a good point! they are amazing in general, i have only known one person who didn't want to work, but i do find that immigrants are put upon by us because of their willingness to work. I spoke to my old boss and she said 'well they want to do the hours' but still there are standards and regulations that i think are being breached and immigrants are being abused and arnt given services they need such as english lessons and community integration as much as maybe should be provided, particulaly if some are going to stay long term. Although I'm never sure that integration does work, because like ethnic groups end up grouped, due to choice or failure of the 'native' Uk population to try hard enough/accept different cultures, im not really sure

And i appolagise for the 'them/us' thing, there is a famous poem about that...but couldnt think of any better way to put it, no offence meant

[mark]

'cause he has gone to a country self sufficient in food?

[Cho-ku-ri]

Reading this through again I can see what Silas meant. I shouldn't have said "your pension, food and oil", I should have said "pensions, foods, and oil" which of course as legal U.K. dwellers they have as much right to as anybody. Sorry, I'm not a racist.

[Chez]

But that's the crux of it, isn't it? 'Them' and 'Us'. People naturally group in to groups that they feel safe and comfortable with - and culture, nationality and race are often big factors in that. People fear the unknown - and DailyMail-esqe headlines about 'immigrants' play on that.

People perceive 'immigrants' as being an uncontrolled wave of ravening non-English Speakers looking to 'take our jobs and food'. But Bartek the Polish plumber who pops in to the local for a pint now and again is a decent enough chap.

I do think that there should be some kind of attempt to help immigrants integrate - learn the language etc. - but beyond that, if people are contributing to society in some way - and it doesn't have to be purely economic - then a community made up of diverse cultures and viewpoints is surely a strength?

[Chez]

I think it depends how one defines sustainability, doesn't it? As Lottie says, people have always moved about - and societies have always morphed to reflect that, either absorbing or rejecting aspects of the immigrants culture - my view is that that is a good thing. But I suppose looking at it from a negative standpoint, one could say that if a lot of people with a similar culture immigrate, then the existing dominant culture is unsustainable. I don't know if that could be said to be bad, though? Historically it's happened again and again in the British Isles over the centuries.

In terms of economic growth, I don't think I really know enough to make any kind of informed statement - but my uninformed view is that surely it can't be a bad thing to encourage hard working, economically active people to immigrate?

[Cho-ku-ri]

Even if they have to bring their food with them every meal, every single day? Britain is currently only 60-70% self sufficient in food. Surely food miles and CO2 emissions should not be just swept under the carpet so that we can get cheap labour and our pensions paid? In a modern environmentally friendly world humans will have to learn to live sustainably. Populations with appetites bigger than their country allows is not sustainable, I am merely talking about something that will affect us all and our children in the future. Crikey it is happening at the moment, food prices are rising and set-a-side was swept away overnight last year. Waken up Britain.

[Chez]

Even if they have to bring their food with them every meal, every single day? Britain is currently only 60-70% self sufficient in food.

[Cho-ku-ri]

Erm, we (E.U.) already have.

[boisdevie1]

I disagree. If some energy suppliers increase their prices by over 10 percent in a year that's way beyond my definition of a steady increase. And I think such increases in prices will accelerate.

[Cho-ku-ri]

I'm sorry Contadino, this is a downsizer forum and population growth is a mature subject to be discussing here. Bringing in cheap, mass immigrants to keep our standard of living at an unsustainable high level for short term gain without debating the long term consequences on a forum like this would be wrong IMHO. I resent your accusations of ‘trolling’. I feel strongly about this subject.

[Behemoth]

Erm, we (E.U.) already have.

[Mrs Fiddlesticks]

I'm sure that's better than a lot of countries and I'd prefer to see that figure in some context ie how self sufficient are other countries - I doubt there is anyone who is completely self sufficient and I'm not sure its possible (or healthy) or indeed good for international relations.

The issue of food and CO2 etc etc is surely better viewed in a global way as its about balance across the globe. Our western high resourcing lifestyle is as much to blame as anyone else arriving on our shores in the hope of having what we already enjoy

[jema]

I disagree. If some energy suppliers increase their prices by over 10 percent in a year that's way beyond my definition of a steady increase. And I think such increases in prices will accelerate.

[Chez]

I'm sure that's better than a lot of countries and I'd prefer to see that figure in some context ie how self sufficient are other countries - I doubt there is anyone who is completely self sufficient and I'm not sure its possible (or healthy) or indeed good for international relations.

The issue of food and CO2 etc etc is surely better viewed in a global way as its about balance across the globe. Our western high resourcing lifestyle is as much to blame as anyone else arriving on our shores in the hope of having what we already enjoy

[Mrs Fiddlesticks]

agreed but how much is our diet changes (and therefore expectations as to what we find in the shops) to blame?

Cho-Ku-Ri not doubting the interest in the figures but it doesn't really quantify things for me.

What I'm trying to say is that one can be self sufficient on a personal level (as well as countrywide) only so far as it's possible to grow the things one likes to eat and be happy with that - seasonality and in some ways a more restricted diet.

If folk aren't happy to exist on kale, mutton and spuds ( I do the British farming industry a diservice there but its for brevity) and expect plenty of bananas and advocados all year round then clearly we're not going to be self sufficient. Demand and actually what folk eat are as much a guideline as to our self sufficiency as just a figure showing a downward trend. The figure isn't in context again by not showing how our diet and expectation of what we'd like to eat affects such figures.

Is it showing the possibility of self sufficiency if we ate all that we grew and no more or is it showing that we are less self-sufficient because there is a greater import of other food stuffs that are demanded by the consumer and that we can't grow ourselves?

[Contadino]

I'm sorry Contadino, this is a downsizer forum and population growth is a mature subject to be discussing here. Bringing in cheap, mass immigrants to keep our standard of living at an unsustainable high level for short term gain without debating the long term consequences on a forum like this would be wrong IMHO. I resent your accusations of ‘trolling’. I feel strongly about this subject.

[jema]

Who knows? maybe chucking out immigrants will also lead to a clearer complexion?

[cab]

I can't find fault in what he's saying to you.

[Chez]

It's our expectations, I think, yes. And I don't see any reason to concentrate on growing kale and potatoes and eating 'traditional' foods at the moment. If things start to get hard, then those expectations of a very diverse (and what would previously have been thought an 'exotic') diet will just have to change.

[cab]

Irony, its a modern art thing.

Poor kittiwakes.