Reply to: Captains of Industry demand more immigrants

[wendigo100]

Cnetrica need 100,000 new workers just to get their new IT infrastructure going.

[BobTheCrate]

"But Roger Carr, the chairman of Centrica, said ministers could not pick and choose which elements of an open-market system they liked. "It is essential to harvest the upside and manage the downside on the side of market freedom not protectionism,"

So Roger Carr recommends any person from any part of the world should be able to come to Britain if they so choose, as part of Britain embracing an open market.

What a bumbling cretinous idiot. No wonder Centrica is losing 400,000 customers a year. Hardly speaking as a qualified business leader is he. He's probably hoping to refill his customer losses with 400,000 new Romanian & Bulgarian customers.

[Joe Black]

It is a clear media hype against new EU members targeted to get votes. In the mean time nobody talks about holiday maker visas and other "creative" ways of getting into UK.

Well, considering the difference in original estimates for the new EU 10 is meant to be something like 40 times outside the ballpark, I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to raise the issue.

As for other means of entry into the UK, there might be a problem, but then again these numbers don't appear to have jumped from 13K to 600K in the space of two years.

If you want to complain about the EU, then I'd suggest to place the emphasis on other countries, like...Belgium, where, as posted previously, I saw a front page article doing it's own bit of scaremongering about the doubling in numbers of east EU immigrants, all 13,000 of them.


PS: Like the image by the way.

[xoggoth]

Doubt the Mail/Sun actually made up those items, especially as they were in the Times & Telegraph. (But have to admit I meant to put 56k not 560k)

Ah yes! those Daily Mail/Express/Sun scare stories, like the ones about hundreds of thousands of Poles & Hungarians and Lithuanians coming here. Gosh, where do they came up with such exagerrated nonsense eh?

Very early days on Poles etc. Don't forget that official statistics are usually compiled at least a year in arrears and often two or more. Just heard today about 10 Polish children starting at a school near me. Hope they can already speak good English or that's £30k a year on special needs for a start.

Migration breeds migration. At first it's only the young and adventurous, but once any community becomes established it's the destination of choice for the rest. If we allow free access and other countries don't we will be locked in as the destination of choice for all comers in future, including the rather less useful.

I have been to Bulgaria too, Alf, hitch hiked through it in Iron Curtain days. Travelled on worker's buses and they shared their drink with me. So what? Is your experience supposed to prove something?

One good thing I suppose. I was surprised to find that for violent crime, Romania is actually very low.

[Jesus]

Is Captain Birds-eye one?

[DimPrawn]

The point is this.

Make money, buy property, become wealthy, invest abroad, bugger off to sunnier (Bliar free) climes.

It's not rocket science.

HTH

[sappatz]

victoria

For all the talk of moving with the times and the modern global economy, I honestly believe the captains of industry would love Britain to return to Victorian times, with legions of cheap foreign workers replacing the indigenous poor (non-)working class.

this is already the case in UK i am afraid
I read a serious study which indicated that the social inequalities were now at the same level as in the victorian times

[Viktor]

Trouble is we have a precedent from last time. Home Office and the Government predict 12,000 people coming over from Poland, Baltic States etc the reality was it was 600,000 and counting. We know that Romania & Bulgaria have WORSE social & economic problems than Poland & the Baltics. So why should the indigenous population here believe the official statistics.

If the Home Office say only 10,000 people will be coming then fine, only that amount of people should be allowed in to work.

OK but what happens with people from those countries already in UK? From Home Office webtulipe : http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/reports/eeas

seems that the immigrant numbers from Romania and Bulgaria are less than 10.000 / year combined. It is a clear media hype against new EU members targeted to get votes. In the mean time nobody talks about holiday maker visas and other "creative" ways of getting into UK.
I am Romanian and European. I live and contract in UK. I have a limited company and pay tax here. But the great Home Office keeps f*&&5 the "undesirables" and now they want the "second class" EU category. So nice...f(*&6 them (RO and BG) for all the problems and everything will be fine...guaranteed!!!

[wendigo100]

There are few things more likely to wind me up than someone calling for more immigration to the UK.

Whether it is businessmen who see it as a way of reducing costs, politicians who are after short-term solutions to the economic muddles they get themselves in, or touchy-feely types who "know some very nice, hard-working Poles", they all ignore the fundamental issue - overcrowding.

Nobody can alter the views of most wealthy politicians and business leaders who, as someone else has said, can live in or retire to somewhere else where there is plenty of space and tight immigration controls, but I really wish the rest would think things through and put a stop to it.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Xoggoth,

Don't let the bulltulip form Daily Express and Sun invade your brain. There are problems with Romania and Bulgaria but not on this scale. UK needs a better immigration policy not those bull-sh*&t articles. The side-effect with this EU enlargement will be that if you slam the door then those low-skilled will come anyway. Only by means of a better degree of control inside the country you can control immigration effectively.
And btw not because of Eastern Europeans the public services are becoming a pain now in UK. Have you seen the crime statistics among the people coming from EU countries in Eastern Europe? Is Romania and Bulgaria so different compared with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary? Think...

I visited Bulgaria back in 1995 and was one of the best travel trips I have ever undertaken.

Sofia is a wonderful city and the mountains around Polvdiv are impressive.

Great food and very pretty women too !

[Hart-floot]

Xoggoth,

Don't let the bulltulip form Daily Express and Sun invade your brain. There are problems with Romania and Bulgaria but not on this scale.

Trouble is we have a precedent from last time. Home Office and the Government predict 12,000 people coming over from Poland, Baltic States etc the reality was it was 600,000 and counting. We know that Romania & Bulgaria have WORSE social & economic problems than Poland & the Baltics. So why should the indigenous population here believe the official statistics.

If the Home Office say only 10,000 people will be coming then fine, only that amount of people should be allowed in to work.

[Asterix]

Not allowed

Bulgaria & Romania shouldn't be allowed to join the EU at least for another 5 years (and I hope France, Austria and Germany will object when it's up for discussion in October). Not a foregone conclusion by any means. Just shows how much idea on foreign affairs have all the morons that discuss the 'benefits' of those rag-and-bone poor sods to our economy, like solving our pensions crisis !!

[Asterix]

Joke

'Captains' of the British Industry, eh ? More like Captain Mainwearing in Dad's Army (at least he was willing to fight for his country).
Truth is there are NO more true British companies and the ones that are calling themselves such, like BT, BG, BP, BAA should be made to drop the B from their name.
Let's see now what BG, BP, Sainsbury's and others have got in common (among other things) : outsourced IT systems, I hear you saying ?

[Viktor]

Unfortunately the fears about hordes of mainly Roma criminals from Bulgaria and Romania are not "right wing scare stories" at all.

It is a Home Office report that has identified some 560,000 Romanians with a history of fraud and other offences who are likely to come. The major recent warning on criminals from Bulgaria has come from their own leader and he should know. I will look out the links when I get back.

Xoggoth,

Don't let the bulltulip form Daily Express and Sun invade your brain. There are problems with Romania and Bulgaria but not on this scale. UK needs a better immigration policy not those bull-sh*&t articles. The side-effect with this EU enlargement will be that if you slam the door then those low-skilled will come anyway. Only by means of a better degree of control inside the country you can control immigration effectively.
And btw not because of Eastern Europeans the public services are becoming a pain now in UK. Have you seen the crime statistics among the people coming from EU countries in Eastern Europe? Is Romania and Bulgaria so different compared with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary? Think...

[AlfredJPruffock]

I did a quick Google and was dismayed to see how many Polish there are in Piano tuning.

Only to realise later they were talking about polish.

In fact the art of French Polishing is very difficult.

I once worked for a piano restoration company in London.

When a piano had been restrung, re felted,tuned etc a specialist French Polisher was brought in from about two hours outside London.

This chap was in his early eighties but he worked with a phenomenal speed and the piano case looked fantastic after his work.

I could have spent a month doing what he did in half an hour and still I could never get anywhere near the finish he could master.

A true craftsman.

Perhaps thats where we have go it wrong, perhaps a craft is far more satisfying than any form of office work.