General Chat

Although I am not against immigration, I do agree that steps need to be taken to stop individuals just coming here to take advantage of our benefit and health systems.

If the survey below was a reasonable reflection of the trend throughout the UK, could the current calls to curb immigration, result in problems for our economy at some point in the future - due to a shortage of people available to fill the vacancies in the various industries & services that make up our economy.

According to the report in The Guardian, a survey of more than 2,500 parents shows - that couples are limiting their families to just one child because of the financial cost.

More than a third of families with one child said they would love to have more, but “life is too expensive” despite more than 88% having a partner who works full-time, or who works part-time and shares childcare.

Even those earning considerably more than the average gross income for two adults and one child, £35,600, and those earning more than the average for two adults and two children, £44,200, have decided that the cost of having more than one child is unsustainable.

If the birthrate is falling do you think by cutting immigration - we could be storing up problems for the future?

with an aging population, that could be an issue.

but many of us raised two or more children when we got nothing for the first, and 50 per week for the second.........

does the modern day requirement for technical gizmos come into this new thinking?

I know that the "need" for designer clothing can be a problem amongst the young......

I forgot about mentioning that an ageing population would add to the problem - must have had a senior moment :-D

All of my junior rellies in some kind of a relationship have had two or more kids with several having three or four. My 2nd cousin was married three times and had six children that I know about...

None of them are financially challenged though. They all work so hard it brings me out in a sweat.

I have six nieces and one nephew, all of them have more than one child. I posted the thread because I wondered, if all the scaremongering by the gutter press and some elements of the media, about the damage immigration is doing to the UK, might result in knee jerk legislation by government, to show they are in control of immigration, and do so without fully considering the long term consequences of it.

Just because we're old, does that make us senile, febrile or dumb?

Far from it! Life is a sponge & as we progress, we learn; learn what to retain, learn what to discard, to our advantage. But in today's world, our accumulated and collective knowledge & experiences are not valued or wanted. So it seems sometimes.

I am not ready yet to feel old nor to be troublesome & a burden to the younger generation. They too will grow old at the same rate of 60 minutes an hour.

The area of Hong Hong is about the same as the Isle of Wight. The population of Hong Kong is 7 million, the Isle of Wight about 150 000. Clearly the UK has some way to go before being literally "full up". Just because when driving around most of the time you see houses, shops and factories does not mean England ( let alone Wales and Scotland) is all "built up". Flying over it in a glider even Surrey is mostly green! Have a look with Google earth.

Any body coming to the UK with the idea of getting rich on JSA would be mad. Live on £ 60 week ? Be serious.At least 95% immigrants come to England to work either because there is no work at home ( Spain, Greece ) or England pays better. Many businesses would not get far without immigrant labour from farms and restaurants all the way up to high tech industries and of course the NHS.

When pensions were introduced for everybody ( 1919 ) very few people lived much more than 10 years past pension age especially men. People have come to expect to live on retirement pension for 20 years and more. It is simply not possible to fund pensions for 20 years plus without all manner of bad things happening. The normal retirement age should be raised to 70 sooner rather than later.

There is plenty of reason to put people through some kind of educational refresher at say 60 where they can be taught to use the internet, how to drive safely and how to keep fit.

Just to clarify the first paragraph in my OP I fully agree that the vast majority of immigrants come to the UK to work.

JSA means very little to the poor blighters who will surely drown somewhere in the Mediterranean while a blind-eye is turned away from their cries for survival.

I don't think people should have more children than they can afford - and there are ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy now. Family allowance is ridiculously high and many families don't actually need it so it should be cut.

If our younger generation are unwilling to learn the skills required by society I welcome incomers with those skills. We need them.

Dermot, allegedly in 1801, during the Battle of Copenhagen, Lord Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said - I really do not see the signal. At another point in history, during the trial of Jesus, Pontius Pilate is alleged to have washed his hands in water and said - I am innocent of the blood of this just person.

Are we storing up trouble for the future? Unless things change in 3rd world countries, there will always be people willing to work at minimum wage.

The current crops of legally employed recent immigrants may be paying in to the system via tax and NI, but because of their low net income end up in receipt of more in benefits than they’ve paid in.

Their 1st generation children will take on the ‘can’t afford’ attitude that the adult current population has.

So who will be having large families? The feckless that are quite happy to survive on benefits, newly arrived immigrants from deprived countries, and parents who are working in well paid jobs.

Only the poor can afford large families.

OneFootInTheGrave - Pontius Pilate was ahead of his time. He appreciated the benefit of ‘clean hands’ - an idea being reiterated this very generation in an attempt to bar the transmission of some very sickening viruses.

It is amazing the number of people who still have an aversion to water but have no qualms about spraying themselves with some potion or other to placate smelly underarms.

People do seem to need a lot more things now.

Most people have a dishwasher I think and a mobile phone that does everything. Advertizers tell us what we need to spend money on.

Maybe people should stand back and appreciate what they have rather than constantly striving to own more things which they sometimes have to rent a lock- up to store and training their children to do the same.

My mother always says that grown up children expect to start off as adults with the same material expectations as their parents. I think there is quite a lot of truth in that.

Most of us struggled with very little as newlyweds, my h and I thought nothing of living in a mobile home with a new baby, we were in love! The twin tub was in an outbuilding, we couldn't afford a carrycot on wheels so carried the baby around town in a moses basket.

I definitely notice that the younger generation have a huge list of 'needs' that they consider to be essential to life.

My daughter, age 40, was in the first generation of kids here in Canada to be told in high school NOT to expect to have more than their parents, and to expect to have to re-train for 3 different jobs during their working life ........................ instead of being in one job for 40+ years.

The generation behind her was told they would not achieve more material wealth, or more pay than their parents.

The generation currently in or entering high school is told they definitely will not do better than their parents, and they will have to be prepared to re-train constantly


Those 3 generations are also being told that they will NOT get the same government pensions that we are getting .................... because the working population is becoming less than the retired population, and it is the working population that funds our government pension plans.

So they are being told that they MUST make arrangements for private pensions if they are to have liveable income after retirement.

We were just told by all the economists that we would need a private pension if we wished to maintain our life style after retirement.



yet the last 2 generations, ie under 25-30, still want all the "toys" .......... otherwise why are Apple, Microsoft and Blackberry making obscene profits every time they bring out a new gadget.


And how many of those over 50 MUST have the latest toy ........ tablet, smartphone, etc etc


We don't even have a plain simple old-fashioned cell phone ..............


never needed one .................

don't believe in having to be connected 24/7



Look at yourselves first ...................... do you have to have the latest, most up-to-date version of whatever .................... a new car every 2 years, a new TV regularly, the newest smartphone, etc etc etc


Then think of the example you are setting for younger generations.



BTW .................... I often wish that my daughter's husband had been told the same thing as she was when he was in high school ........

........ he still seems to want to do better than his parents, must have the house in the right area even if it will cost money for repairs and maintenance, top line appliances, etc etc etc

Many don't know the difference between owning things and being owned by their own possessions.

I cannot believe that the illegal immigrants lining up in Calais "willing to risk death to get to England" where many will claim asylum or disappear into the black economy are anything other than economic migrants.
If they were true refugees there would be a mix of ages and gender but they seem to be exclusively fit 20-somethings.
To blazes with human rights, all illegal immigrants in the UK should be held in detention indefinitely. Now THAT would be a deterrent and the flow would slow to a trickle.
In principle I am against identitity cards but that seems to be the only practicable way to ensure that only those legally here are entitled to State benefits and services.
The issue of National Insurance Numbers also needs to be drastically tightened up. They are handed out like confetti with minimal checks to determine whether the applicant has a right to work here, or even be here.

What exactly is wrong with being an economic migrant ?
My rellie, a nurse, for instance has emigrated to Australia. The main reason for doing so was a big increase in pay.

It is somewhat of a tautology to complain both that immigrants want to work and that they want to live on benefits. Fit young men are not usually interested in the pittance which is JSA+HB. If they wanted that they could stay in France which has a much more generous deal. What France hasn't got is jobs.

Failed asylum seekers - who have committed no crime - are indeed held in detention centres which are horrible places and a stain on UK justice an already endangered species. No wonder the Scots want out.

Nothing will stop people moving from somewhere where life is nasty brutal and short to somewhere where it is a little better. Even the old Iron Curtain or the North Korean regime have found that out.

Presumably the UK would draw the line at razor wire and a micro UZI. However given the shift in UK policy re boat people crossing the Med I wouldn't be too sure.

There are various estimates of the number of illegals in the UK but 500 000 is probably in the ball park. Leaving aside ethical and legal constraints

(a) how would you find them all without turning the UK into even more of a Gestapo state than it already is ?
(b) pending removal where would you put them and their families?
(SEE British government in South Africa / Boer War )
(c) how would you shift them out eg airliner, old ferry, surf board
(d) where would you send them - no country will accept undocumented people and many of the countries from which illegals come will not accept returnees even with documentation
(e) what would be done about the UK seat at the UN which would be suspended at best and most likely lost
(f) as such policies would be a massive breach of European law and treaties the UK would find itself bounced out of the EU in short order. What would the > 2 M Brits living and working in the EU think about that ?

Best stick to something you know about, the dogs.
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