No limits to immigration

[Natalie Severn]

.

There have also been some interesting studies here indicating that cultural priorities can affect how the brain works. African Americans are much more likely to learn by hearing than by seeing. Southern whites have a big tendency towards visual learning. People who come from a household where someone is handicapped tend to be tactile learners. I am completely aurally driven, and when I had teacher who were just silently writing things on the board I would fail the class.

Only teaching white subject matter should have been thrown over long ago just for the fact that its dead boring. But teaching style may have to get overhauled as well.

Yes Errata,I think that is far more significant than almost anything else.
In the parallel class to A was a mixed ability class of 11 year olds.
They were from what might be called middle class white/middle class black /white working class/black working class and pupils whose parents were single parents with very low incomes from both groups.
What I did was ask them to form their own small groups and decide who they would like to write to among their pop idols .They chose across a range that included Queen who were making headlines again at the time,Arrested Development Stevie Wonder etc .
The pupils regulated each other.For example if one pupil wrote a scrappy piece the others wouldn't let her or him send it in case they let the side down.
So everything started to 'improve' rapidly---spelling,handwriting,punctuation sentence structuring.And the stars wrote back! Usually it was their signature on a letter that was typed,but always with signed photo they treasured.
The most interesting case for me was a West Indian pupil whose dad was in the nick and who had become a slight problem because he could not concentrate in class and fell behind with his literacy skills.So he and me first composed a letter.He gave me his ideas and I scribed them.Then he copied my handwriting.It worked and he was made up when he got back a letter from the star of his choice.
Its wasn't that difficult to do but soon after the National Curriculum became even more prescriptive so any initiative like that on the part of teacher and pupils was banned.What to do?

[Natalie Severn]

Psychology, Nats.
.

Well yes,Robert that can and does still play a part.

[Natalie Severn]

I have a vast range of nationalities in most of my classes and I am able to meet the needs of them all. I check the learning throughout the lesson and I provide a glossary of words and straightforward definitions that we will be using during that class. I use visual and audio and tactile resources (as described by Errata) and we often have a lot of fun.

Norma has described a common scenario - a child with a high IQ but poor achievement.
.

Absolutely Julie.What you are talking about is finding time to give individual attention when needed and preparation that matches the lesson content to pupil's needs or 'differentiation' as its called.Your pupils deserve no less but they are lucky to have you all the same!

[Bob Hinton]

ununderstandable.

Two points. One I very largely concur with what you have said here, and two that has got to be the best new word ever invented. I'm writing to the OED to get it included!

[Bob Hinton]

Interesting News Item

In 2003 Scotland Yard launched Operation Maxim to fight immigration crime and last month it set up a human trafficking team to fight gangs who bring women to the UK to be sold as sex slaves.

Detective Superintendent Mark Ponting revealed girls as young as 14 were being sold into prostitution for up to Ł8,000.

Many end up in brothels, but police say there is an increasing trend for them to work in respectable suburban neighbourhoods. The Yard’s new unit is known to be working on two major inquiries in London but details are not being released.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, which campaigns against excessive immigration, said the inquiries could confirm fears that had been expressed for many months.

Steve Moxon, a Home Office whistleblower and author of the book The Great Immigration Scandal, said: “The big problem of organised crime from Romania and Bulgaria was a key issue at the beginning of the unravelling of the immigration fiasco some three years ago.

“The then Immigration Minister, Beverley Hughes, had to resign after conveniently ‘forgetting’ she had been repeatedly warned about proven criminals from these two countries and sent reply letters on the issue, yet still allowed the literal ‘rubber stamping’ of all visa applications.

“I know, because I was one of the very officials forced to grant tens of thousands of obviously bogus visa forms without looking at them.

“The Home Office, of course, will not have the vaguest clue where all the Romanian and Bulgarian criminals are.

“We know they don’t keep track of known illegal migrants including failed asylum seekers, let alone dodgy builders, and, now, legal fellow EU citizens.”

It’s interesting that as long ago as 2003 Scotland Yard was so concerned about crimes being committed by immigrants that they set up a special unit to deal with it. They should have spoken to LTT he would have told them there was nothing to worry about.

[glyn]

This is not a trick question.Anyone can answer,but its mostly addressed to the Pro-Immigration camp.
At exactly what point,and there must come a point ,even as far as the Pro-camp is concerned, would you say "we cant allow any more immigrants into our once great country?"
After another Million? 2 million perhaps? 5 million? more even?
Is it purely about numbers? Or does our crumbling infrastructure,health care,affordable housing,employment (unemployment) play a part too?
Is National Identy an issue? Do we have to wait until "being british" is just a quaint term wuith no practical meaning?.Then put the barriers up?.

But more importantly Do you think that the Real British Public should get a say? a referendum or such like to determine whether or not the country as a whole want this situation to continue? With the result binding on all parties? Or arent the public worthy or capable of making a decision on what they see happening in their country?
Or would you wait until some fringe party(BNP FOR EXAMPLE) is elected by frustrated voters, as a last resort,by which time it would be too late anyhow?
The Public in general seems to be fed up to the teeth with the numbers of Immigrants and issues regarding such.Many politicians have spoken out ,Joe Soap the public has spoken out,even some labour politicians who were responsible for the influx have questioned the wisdom of those policies......and when even some Immigrants have said there are too many Immigrants ,then surely we MUST be in the sh*t.
Dominicus Vobiscum

[TomTomKent]

In 2003 Scotland Yard launched Operation Maxim to fight immigration crime and last month it set up a human trafficking team to fight gangs who bring women to the UK to be sold as sex slaves.

Detective Superintendent Mark Ponting revealed girls as young as 14 were being sold into prostitution for up to Ł8,000.

Many end up in brothels, but police say there is an increasing trend for them to work in respectable suburban neighbourhoods. The Yard’s new unit is known to be working on two major inquiries in London but details are not being released.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, which campaigns against excessive immigration, said the inquiries could confirm fears that had been expressed for many months.

Steve Moxon, a Home Office whistleblower and author of the book The Great Immigration Scandal, said: “The big problem of organised crime from Romania and Bulgaria was a key issue at the beginning of the unravelling of the immigration fiasco some three years ago.

“The then Immigration Minister, Beverley Hughes, had to resign after conveniently ‘forgetting’ she had been repeatedly warned about proven criminals from these two countries and sent reply letters on the issue, yet still allowed the literal ‘rubber stamping’ of all visa applications.

“I know, because I was one of the very officials forced to grant tens of thousands of obviously bogus visa forms without looking at them.

“The Home Office, of course, will not have the vaguest clue where all the Romanian and Bulgarian criminals are.

“We know they don’t keep track of known illegal migrants including failed asylum seekers, let alone dodgy builders, and, now, legal fellow EU citizens.”

It’s interesting that as long ago as 2003 Scotland Yard was so concerned about crimes being committed by immigrants that they set up a special unit to deal with it. They should have spoken to LTT he would have told them there was nothing to worry about.

No. I would have told them that a criminal minority are not representitive of a larger group. Obviously that idea is too complicated for you to grasp Little Bobby Boo, as you repeatedly fail to do so.

[glyn]

East european immigrants carry out tenth of crime

By MATTHEW HICKLEY



Cabinet Office paper claims Romanian crime gangs are behind '80-85 per cent' of cash machine crime

A tenth of all crime in some parts of Britain is now committed by eastern European immigrants, shocking new figures reveal.

Police figures for the worst-affected areas show one in ten of all those arrested have come to the UK from the eight former Soviet states which joined the EU in 2004 - sending a massive wave of 600,000 immigrants flocking to this country.

Read more...
Government has no idea of immigrant numbers, says Bank of England chief

The figures emerged as a leaked Whitehall memo warned of an eastern European crime explosion on Britain's streets once Romania and Bulgaria become the latest states to join the EU in two months time.

The secret Cabinet Office paper sent to Tony Blair and senior ministers highlights the risk of a sharp rise in street violence, people-trafficking, prostitution, cash-machine thefts and fraud.

The document claims that Romanian crime gangs are behind an astonishing "80-85 per cent" of cash machine crime in Britain - even before the country joins the EU.

Last night opposition MPs demanded that ministers publish the leaked memo in full, claiming it had vital implications for public safety.

Romania and Bulgaria have a combined population of 30million, and it is estimated that up to 600,000 could head for Britain when they gain free movement within the EU on January 1 - including 45,000 known "undesirables" with links to crime.

Figures published yesterday by Westminster City Council - which is in the frontline of coping with hundreds of thousands of people arriving by coach from eastern Europe each year - showed that in one police division a tenth of arrests in the year to June 2006 - 400 out of 4,000 - involved "A8 Nationals" from the eight most recent EU accession states, with figures doubling year-on-year.

The report warns that "social unrest and anti-social behaviour has massively increased in the Victoria area and crimes, particularly shop-lifting, have increased."

A8 immigrants are "over-represented" in arrests for shoplifting, drunkenness, prostitution and burglary.

The true figures could be far higher, the report claims, as some larger stores "no longer call the police to A8 shoplifters", preferring to use their own security guards to keep known offenders out.

Council chiefs say half of all rough sleepers in central London are also A8 nationals - mostly Polish men - whose dreams of a better life in the UK have turned sour, and who are at risk of drifting into crime, prostitution and drug abuse.

With homeless charities "at breaking point", the council is urging ministers to continue special funding used to help destitute immigrants return home.

Yesterday's leaked Cabinet Office memo will bring little comfort for the Government.

[Robert]

Errata, as for my family tree, I have only researched it back to the nineteenth century. There is one Irish ancestor but I don't know if he was from what is now Northern Ireland or from southern Ireland.

As for IQ tests, I don't believe in any of them - and that isn't sour grapes since I normally scored around 150 when I did take a few tests. Since it's felt that blacks are at a disadvantage in IQ tests - assuming they're used - then the logical thing is to give everyone their own test - in fact, their own school.
Then the blacks can be taught their culture and the Asians their culture and the whites their culture.....

[TomTomKent]

This is not a trick question.Anyone can answer,but its mostly addressed to the Pro-Immigration camp.
At exactly what point,and there must come a point ,even as far as the Pro-camp is concerned, would you say "we cant allow any more immigrants into our once great country?"
After another Million? 2 million perhaps? 5 million? more even?
Is it purely about numbers? Or does our crumbling infrastructure,health care,affordable housing,employment (unemployment) play a part too?
Is National Identy an issue? Do we have to wait until "being british" is just a quaint term wuith no practical meaning?.Then put the barriers up?.

But more importantly Do you think that the Real British Public should get a say? a referendum or such like to determine whether or not the country as a whole want this situation to continue? With the result binding on all parties? Or arent the public worthy or capable of making a decision on what they see happening in their country?
Or would you wait until some fringe party(BNP FOR EXAMPLE) is elected by frustrated voters, as a last resort,by which time it would be too late anyhow?
The Public in general seems to be fed up to the teeth with the numbers of Immigrants and issues regarding such.Many politicians have spoken out ,Joe Soap the public has spoken out,even some labour politicians who were responsible for the influx have questioned the wisdom of those policies......and when even some Immigrants have said there are too many Immigrants ,then surely we MUST be in the sh*t.
Dominicus Vobiscum

Is it about numbers? If you mean numbers of people then no. You make a point of mentioning healthcare, which is a good illustration of why the issue is not just about numbers. Everybody likes there being healthcare available. Critics claim that the levels of immigration are putting a strain on the system. But the percentaage of the population that can be bundled together as "immigrants" are putting a far smaller stress on the healthcare system than (for example) cuts in funding. Infact healthcare has been underfunded for some time and there have been periods when the UK has not had the infrastructure in place to supply enough people with certain skills, over decades. So now you have to ask a different question about numbers: How many foreign skills can we afford to import to keep healthcare afloat. You advertise abroad, and find a skilled force available. It could be healthcare, plumbing, High Voltage Distribution or any qualification specific industry. To get the people you NEED to come across to the UK you offer them a contract long enough to make it worth crossing entire continents.

However, not wanting to be caught short again in the future you pump funding into your own skill base. Doesn't sound like a problem? Your newly qualified, government subsidised skill base suddenly needs employment, but those who you imported are still working. Now here is the moral dillema: The imported skill base have done nothing wrong. You offered them the contract for several years, you asked them to come here, you needed them. But now they are looking like a villain of the piece, stealing jobs and actually wanting homes and houses when they moved.

Now bare in mind this is not a one way street. While we have a void in healthcare, other countries are doing the same. I am just about young enough to remember genuine fears of a continued "brain drain" from the UK when academic posts across the board were hard to fill because better offers were being made in other countries who wanted to establish their own universities.

We also, while considering academia, have to consider where the skill bases are created. You will notice that across the board the mainstream political parties are talking about tightening control on, but not stopping student visas. They need tighter control because the criminal minority know it is the easiest to manipulate, but to completely hlt it is a bad idea. Colleges and universities are one of the best resources we have in this country, and if we consider education as an industry like any other, it is lucritive. Not just as you may assume from individual students wanting to take a degree (though this is a sizable area) but from corporate training schemes. A decade ago when I was sitting my industry-specific training I was in Sussex, at the same college where the United Arab Emmirates sent prospective officers from the armed services to learn the engineering of helicopters.

The argument of course is that there are limited seats in any campus, and the more seats thaat are given to foreign students, the fewer there are available for our own students. Our own skill base. We also know that it is expesnsive to send people to university. If you signed up to a degree tomorrow you could pay upto the cap of Ł9000 per year. But the actaul cost per student at a top end university could be upto Ł18000. Some, like the obridge facilities, can generally subsidise their costs through other avenues, such as a university press, but others have to try and attract a certain number of foreign students, whose fees are not capped and are often priced on a different scale.

The issue goes beyond a simple count in and count out. There is not one issue of immigration, but several distinct and exclusive issues that if put to a referendum would require a number of motions to be voted on instead of just one. It could be shown to be the fairest way, but would have several hurdles before it became plausible. Even when people do have a chance to elect local representitives with mandates closest matching your feelings, like a general election, there has been an increase in apathy. That is not to be mistaken for the idea that people do not understand, or have no views, but there is an increasing group of non-voters. Even if there was a blanket decision made one way or the other there will be the question of lag before effect can be taken. If you want tighter border control then you will want to find enough people wanting to be trained to enforce the change, find the money to pay them, build the infrastructure to support them, and look at all the areas that have needed imported workers and invest in them too. If you find hospitals are importing nurses you have to ensure there are nurses ready to take over and so forth.

The point being that there is no one size fitting all solution.

[TomTomKent]

East european immigrants carry out tenth of crime

By MATTHEW HICKLEY



Cabinet Office paper claims Romanian crime gangs are behind '80-85 per cent' of cash machine crime

A tenth of all crime in some parts of Britain is now committed by eastern European immigrants, shocking new figures reveal.

Police figures for the worst-affected areas show one in ten of all those arrested have come to the UK from the eight former Soviet states which joined the EU in 2004 - sending a massive wave of 600,000 immigrants flocking to this country.

Read more...
Government has no idea of immigrant numbers, says Bank of England chief

The figures emerged as a leaked Whitehall memo warned of an eastern European crime explosion on Britain's streets once Romania and Bulgaria become the latest states to join the EU in two months time.

The secret Cabinet Office paper sent to Tony Blair and senior ministers highlights the risk of a sharp rise in street violence, people-trafficking, prostitution, cash-machine thefts and fraud.

The document claims that Romanian crime gangs are behind an astonishing "80-85 per cent" of cash machine crime in Britain - even before the country joins the EU.

Last night opposition MPs demanded that ministers publish the leaked memo in full, claiming it had vital implications for public safety.

Romania and Bulgaria have a combined population of 30million, and it is estimated that up to 600,000 could head for Britain when they gain free movement within the EU on January 1 - including 45,000 known "undesirables" with links to crime.

Figures published yesterday by Westminster City Council - which is in the frontline of coping with hundreds of thousands of people arriving by coach from eastern Europe each year - showed that in one police division a tenth of arrests in the year to June 2006 - 400 out of 4,000 - involved "A8 Nationals" from the eight most recent EU accession states, with figures doubling year-on-year.

The report warns that "social unrest and anti-social behaviour has massively increased in the Victoria area and crimes, particularly shop-lifting, have increased."

A8 immigrants are "over-represented" in arrests for shoplifting, drunkenness, prostitution and burglary.

The true figures could be far higher, the report claims, as some larger stores "no longer call the police to A8 shoplifters", preferring to use their own security guards to keep known offenders out.

Council chiefs say half of all rough sleepers in central London are also A8 nationals - mostly Polish men - whose dreams of a better life in the UK have turned sour, and who are at risk of drifting into crime, prostitution and drug abuse.

With homeless charities "at breaking point", the council is urging ministers to continue special funding used to help destitute immigrants return home.

Yesterday's leaked Cabinet Office memo will bring little comfort for the Government.

Ah, an old story, and one that was rebutted largely at the time:

"The study, by the Association of Chief Police Officers, does not appear to challenge either of these assertions.

What it found was that the crime rate among immigrant workers from eastern Europe was no different from that among the indigenous population, which is a different point."

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/philipjohnston/3674251/Immigration_and_crime_the_real_results/

And STILL a seperate issue from the one being discussed. A minority of criminals are not representitive, or anything to do with, the issue of those who want to work, pay taxes, etc.

[babybird67]

Glyn

have you heard that emigration also occurs alongside immigration? The way you portray the situation is like the UK is a jug just being continually filled and never emptied so it will just end up over flowing. It doesn't work like that. Just as people come here to live and work and retire, so we, the British, go elsewhere to live and work and retire.

It is only relatively recently that immigration to the UK has been greater than emigration from it. I am sure, historically, that the numbers will vary as they always do, and some years there will be more immigrants, and some years more emigrants.

[TomTomKent]

have you heard that emigration also occurs alongside immigration? The way you portray the situation is like the UK is a jug just being continually filled and never emptied so it will just end up over flowing. It doesn't work like that. Just as people come here to live and work and retire, so we, the British, go elsewhere to live and work and retire.

It is only relatively recently that immigration to the UK has been greater than emigration from it. I am sure, historically, that the numbers will vary as they always do, and some years there will be more immigrants, and some years more emigrants.

Untill 1997, less than 100,000 (in 1992 and 1993 there were negative net values meaning more people emigrated than immigrated).
1998-2003 around 150,000.
Since 2003 around 200,000 to 250,000.

Meaning that at the highest rate the net immigration/emigration was around an extra 0.3% of the population entering the country. Using rough calculations based on figures from National Statsics Online.

[Errata]

Errata, as for my family tree, I have only researched it back to the nineteenth century. There is one Irish ancestor but I don't know if he was from what is now Northern Ireland or from southern Ireland.

As for IQ tests, I don't believe in any of them - and that isn't sour grapes since I normally scored around 150 when I did take a few tests. Since it's felt that blacks are at a disadvantage in IQ tests - assuming they're used - then the logical thing is to give everyone their own test - in fact, their own school.
Then the blacks can be taught their culture and the Asians their culture and the whites their culture.....

Well, we tried that here. It was called "Segregation" and while theoretically based on the whole "Separate but equal" concept, it didn't work and of course it is not unconstitutional.

Of course the problem with everyone getting their own test is the need for outrageous specialization. I am a southerner, a Jew, a woman, coming from an upper middle class background, with parents who were still together, one of whom was a northerner, and the other a military brat, and one sibling near my own age. All of these things shape my worldview, my priorities, and my associations.

However, if I ever want to deal with people who are not wealthy southern Jewish girls, I have to have some passing familiarity with foreign cultures. To say, not stand really close to Japanese people, or not shake with my left hand with Middle Eastern people. Now I could take the screw foreigners route and NOT practice these things, and maybe that would be less intellectually taxing, but then I don't get what I want from these people. I'm sorry, but I actually think we are smart enough to learn to live in a world culture. Now my school just made the assumption that we were going to have to learn each others cultures anyway, and just started us early rotating through various cultures, histories and literature. My brain didn't blow up. I may have taken up some space that could have been reserved for, I don't know, calculus or something, but I've never needed calculus, so I think I'm okay.

Quite frankly I like foreigners better anyway. If I have to choose between sitting next to an African Muslim and a white Christian, I'm never ever going to pick the white Christian. I don't understand them. My sister does, so clearly it's just a skill I lack, but I am rapidly coming to the point where I would rather light myself on fire than listen to some Southern Baptist get rapturous about the importance of a whole bunch of crap that is absolutely meaningless, and not entertaining. Again. I have spent the last 33 years listening to it, and it wasn't even interesting when I was young.

I don't understand xenophobia. If I want to hear all of my own opinions, I'll say them in my head. I don't need an entire CITY full of people who think like I do. I need like, one person who doesn't even have to agree with me, they just have to think I'm awesome anyway. And I'm marrying him, so everyone else can be blue and come from the Tibetan Mole People Network I don't care. I mean, there are so many uninteresting people in the world, why on earth are you so anxious to surround yourself only with all the uninteresting people you already know? Who look like you and talk like you so your whole country starts to resemble a greek chorus in some morality play about international goodwill? I don't want that. I don't think I am so freaking special that everyone should be like me. I like Plurality. Even if a foreign person is uninteresting, at least they are NEW and uninteresting.

[Limehouse]

I love your posts Errata. They are so refreshing and wise.

I love plurality too.

I love living in a city where I can hear different accents and different languages. I love going to the different festivals and seeing customs and costumes and experiencing different art amd music and food.

I love the mixed prayer groups at our college where Christians and Muslims and anyone else who wants to join in can meditate and pray for peace and pray for our city and our college and our world - each in their own way.