Poor America

[Xurbia]

First you say 2 million immigrants a bit earlier on and then you say 10 million?! And as bad as mass immigration into the UK has been in the past decade+, I doubt it's been quite as high as 10 million.

I was using the 10million as a comparision i.e. 2million in the UK would be like 10 million in the USA. When I read that 500K people has no border checks I wonder if 2million is light!

[Debbie568]

Debbie, we are never going to agree. It really does not make a significant difference whether Britain is in or out of Europe or whether Scotland leaves the union, the same snide ammoral people will be ruling all of our lives either way. Eire has had about 3 generations of self goverment, other than the fact it has been ravaged by the credit crunch even more severely than the rest of the British Isles, how different do you think it is to live there compared with the UK? The Isle of Man is self governing, but very much British in its way, whether the most rabid Manx nationalist can see it or not, it is true.

We could all make far more difference to our futures if we concentrated on forcing a new agenda where the rich pay taxes, and can't use non-Dom status and other fiddles to avoid it, Goldman Sachs and their ilk don't get to negotiate their tax bill, civil servants earn acceptable incomes not kings ransoms, VI's stop controlling the cost and supply of housing, white collar criminals like the MPs who fiddled their expenses are treated the same way as other thieves, and the banking system is properly regulated. With those issues to fix, concentrating on our relationship with the EU or whether the Scotts devlve more are really a case of shuffling deck chairs on the titanic in my book.

As for the genetics, it was you who implied that there were racial differences between the welsh and English, and that they were significant in some way - not me. I have ancestors from all over the place, as I suspect do most of us these days, and don't think that is especially relevant to my identity.

As for immigration, yes we should take much better care of our borders... You can't have a welfare state without good immigration controls. That won't fix the Bangladeshi/Pakistani ongoing backdoor immigration via shipping the kids off 'back home' to marry though!

What "good immigration rules" would you like to see? We are part of the EU. That means EU citizens can come and live here - and live off welfare if the spirit moves them to do so - anytime they want. And I doubt if any Brit citizen of whatever colour, religion or previous nationality if not born here would put up with the state either telling them whom to marry or decreeing that, having married, their spouse can't come and live with them. How do you police illegals, even if you fund the police sufficiently, when people are not required to carry any indentification?

I haven't lived in Northern Ireland, so can't comment on if it would feel different to England, but for sure Wales and Scotland, where I have lived, do NOT feel like England. And especially not if you are from England, as I am. It helps to have Welsh and Scottish roots. For a start, both countries are far more socialist than England will ever be. England reminds me of the States. Scotland is more like a Scandanavian country. The attitudes of the people are way different to down south. People in Scotland feel, to me, under far less pressure than they did down south. When we first moved up to Scotland the first thing I noticed was how few beggars there were on the streets.

I noticed a similar thing living in the States, how different it was in L.A. (seriously poor, vast divide between the well off and the not so well off) and New York (there was poverty but the place itself pretty much overwhelmed everyone to the point where you barely noticed it.) New Yorkers seemed posh compared to Californians.

[leigh delamere]

We now have a couple of million Eastern Europeans that have deluged the country without proper controls. Why? We have border controls but the people have no voice to make governments enforce controls. That is a dangerous thing to do. The EU decides for Britain. It's unsustainable and backed by recent crime statistics. That dilution of the British core and the lack of control of illegal immigration is coming back to haunt the country.

So, having debunked your assertion that Britain is no longer a Christian country since Brown/Blair, you switch the argument to one about immigration! Are you a politician?

Fair play to you for sticking your neck out with the predictions in your signature. $3 to the £ would make my life very "interesting" indeed (I import goods from the USA). It never went anywhere near $1.20 last year though (your prediction for last year).

If house prices rose 25% I think I would cash in and downsize.

[Big Orange]

I was using the 10million as a comparision i.e. 2million in the UK would be like 10 million in the USA. When I read that 500K people has no border checks I wonder if 2million is light!

Talking rubbish again, I see. The Americans, instead of contending with 10 million Somalis and E Europeans, are contending instead with perhaps as many as twenty million immigrants from or through Mexico.

[EUBanana]

What's wrong with Eastern Europeans? Lithuanian hotties are awesome.

[Big Orange]

OK, I've just seen Panorama: Poor America and "mole people" living in Las Vegas storm drains has been a fixture for many decades (and was featured in an old episode of CSI). But genuinely hungry children skipping square meals for more than 24 hours, even if a still comparatively small minority, is still very shocking for what is supposedly a First World country (and poorer First World people are generally fatter).

And a lot of the bizarre rhetoric from the (for decades now irreparably insane) Republicans entices violent, popular insurrection.