Was on BBC national radio this morning.

[colchar]

/Rant on/

I read Phil's rants, and never know whether to laugh or cry.
I am so angered at the scroungers and skivers he comments on, and so in sympathy with his rants, it all just makes me scream. Two comments to illustrate why, like Phil, the situations described make my blood boil.

When I worked in the middle east, I used to come home between stints over there, waiting for contracts to be passed and stuff. I just got the bike out and did despatch riding until the next gig - never knew I was "entitled to sign on". Never even occurred to me. Some furloughs I might take a week or two off, some I would work through (if you call being paid to ride a motorcycle "work"), but I never signed on - I was available for work, I was fit to work, I had a simple tool to enable me to do simple work, and I had found out how to use it, so I did it!.

Then there was me at seventeen. Left home, living with the girlfriend's mum and dad. Wanted to get out and start our own household..... Went to the council (this was back in '69/'70) in Hackney and said could we go on the waiting list for a council flat. I was finishing 'A'-levels, Adele was still doing hers. Council said oh - what a shame, no disabilities, not gay/lesbian, not an ethnic minority or immigrant, currently got accomodation, so no chance on the waiting list. Then the woman's face lit up and she looked at my girlfriend and said "Ooooh - are you PREGNANT dearie?". We explained that we had visited the Mary Stopes Clinic and were being very careful, so no, not pregnant, and she said "oh what a pity - I could have got you on the list and probably housed in a couple of years if you'd been pregnant".

To say we were "angry" when we left would be to understate significantly. At seventeen (and sixteen for Adele) we were trying to "do it right", and got nothing. We borrowed some dosh for a deposit and started renting - eventually (by both doing two full time jobs each and illegaly borrowing a deposit) we got a place of our own in one of Hackneys poorer and rougher areas. I guess we got mortgage tax relief in those days (as did everyone) but that's it.

And that's why Phil's rants get to me. Do it right, be honest, be hard working and responsible, and get nowt - learn how to "use the system" and the world is your oyster.

/Rant off/

From what I have seen in a couple of newspapers and have heard on a London radio station, one of the courses taught in high schools now is some sort of life skills deal and one of the things they teach is how to sign onto the dole.

 

[Phil47uk]

Ill listen to anyone with a English voice! You folks just sound like you know what the hell you are talking about!

Phil I think you where great and hit the nail on the head. The person you where debating not so much!

When we were in the States, people kept asking us to say it again, because they thought our English accents were quaint.

 

[Phil47uk]

My sentiments,completely Phil
I have paid Tax & National insurance since leaving school
Only claimed unemployment benefit once in 32 years
Our country is littered with indolence,both Indigenous and even more infuriating foreign piss takers~with their non contributing snouts in our tax payers trough
Lets repatriate or disperse these parasites to remote parts of our nation to work as farmers or other useful activities that contribute to the higher social cause

Good post Rankelson and the immigrant thing is a whole new thread in itself worthy of debate..

However. not wishing to stray too far off topic there is something interesting about that.
Not far from me in a small town there is a huge food factory and nearly everyone who works there is Portuguese.
Now this has caused flare ups in the past with locals , even resulting in a little cafe the Portuguese opened up having its windows smashed on several occasions.
I was speaking to one local guy some time ago and he was going on about 'The f*cking Portuguese' and how they had taken nearly all the work in the town and that the company was buying up all the local property to house them in, leading to a shortage of housing for their own kids who wanted couldn't get a foot on the housing ladder'.

I asked him if he knew who owned the company?" To which he said he didn't and I replied , "A massive International company,' with some very rich shareholder Brits on board".

So? He said, looking puzzled.

"Well think about it" I said .. Who do you think is hiring these people at cheap rates. Packing them into housing which they are paying high rents for, without the benefits a British person would receive.. The Portuguese? "


"They are simply families just like you and I who are trying to make living and most want to return home when and if they can save enough......You my friend are being ripped of by your own fellow countrymen".
Who do you think is making vast profits on all this property and rent, so your kids can no longer work in this town?"

" F*ck me he said..I never thought about it like that"


I was once in a very expensive public school and was going up the main staircase of the stately home when I heard two women who where scrubbing the stairs on their hands and knees talking in a foreign language.
I stopped and asked them where they were from.
"Warsaw in Poland " one said in broken English.

I asked if they where staying or going back to Poland and they told me that when they had saved enough money they were going back home as they were homesick.
Now I know they were hired by the company who owned the school as cleaners on the minimum wage and was intrigued as how they could make enough money. One of the women said that what she was earning cleaning paid far more than her job in Poland.
"So what do you do in Warsaw?" I asked...

I'm a qualified pharmacist" she replied ....

Of course there are many parasites amongst the immigrants here, but whether they outweigh our own is debatable.

 

[Blackie]

... Once kids are in trouble enough to be sent to some sort of scared straight program ... it is too late for 9 out 10 probably .. the most bang for the buck is early childhood education that would instill a sense of community and basic values and that sort of thing .. yes that should be a parents role .. but we see the failure of that everyday.

.. I say do it anyway .. the scared programs etc. .. Heck send parents to some equivalent like... visiting day .. for your locked up kid .. that you failed to teach ...
.. so he became a hoodlum .. momma .. momma .. I was raped ... ouch ouch ..

 

[Thermionik]

Phil nailed it in #83.....

One of our local old bill (always pays to keep in with the old bill when you live in the middle of nowhere) has a Polish surname. I asked him about it. His old dad came over to fly Hurricans with 303 Squadron - even though 303 was a couple of months late getting involved, they claimed the greatest number of aircraft destroyed of all the fighter squadrons engaged in the Battle of Britain up to it's lay-off in October 1940. It continued through the war with great success - but the squadron was disbanded in '46 and the guys were gutted at the shabby treatment of Poland by the Allies.

But Kirton-in-Lindsey stuck in his dad's heart - and when the dust settled, he settled with it up here, and started a fine family. Now his son is doing pretty well and is quite senior in the police..... so can employ a plumber when he wants to. And when the plumber turned up it was an old Pole, who he recognised from a visit home. The Chief of Police from his family's village in Poland. Working in Blighty as a plumber and sending what he could back home.....

Sure - they "take all our jobs....." - but, as Phil says, ask "why". Scratch the surface and there will usually be a UK owned, UK run business behind it.