yes let's hope Rob can now move on (and as a side note he has actually secured a 1000€ donation of aid for the refugees at Calais yesterday too )
One last attempt to make my position concerning the movement of migrants clear as it seems that my opinion that there should be similar checks on migrants as there are on other travellers has been turned into some kind of selection process as to who lives or dies. Brian wrote "the naivety of suggesting a selection process before entering the EU defies all logic"."Selection process" is a very big step from "checks" & the alteration tends to imply that I am some kind of right wing extreme racist. This could not be further from the truth. This wish to incorrectly label me is carried on when it is assumed that any opinion I have comes from reading the "Daily Mail" whose popularity is simultaniously scoffed at. The joke is that I have not read an english language newspaper (apart from the "Connexion") for 15 years! What offends is not the accusation that I read a particular paper but that my opinions are not my own! I assimilate information from many sources which I assume most people do.
However, back to the subject. My point concerning checks does not single out migrants, nor would it be a selection process any more than the systems already in place at all points of entry into the EU or UK (& in practically all countries in the world). Reading some of the posts on this thread I have the impression that migrants should be exempt from these. Surely this would mean that anyone from anywhere could travel to any country at any time! Am I the only person who can see a major flaw in this idea? I do not need to be patronizingly told how hard it is for those waiting to get to a country but apart from the ease in which terrorists could infiltrate (ooh, Daily Mail scaremongering...) who has enough suitable empty housing to put the thousands suddenly arriving? Where would they all go? If the migrants get spoken to there is a better chance that they will have their needs better addressed, tailored to their circumstances.
If you happen to think that my views are racist, so be it. You are entitled to your opinion. Fortunately I know my own mind & will continue to express it when I feel the need - even if it means having to carry a shovel!
While we are on the subject of racism, this cartoon is from the latest Charlie Hebdo edition - you know, the magazine that everyone feels can print what it likes -
Excellent news after such a tragic story - what a bloke - very special.
Good news in my book too - thanks for posting Valerie xx
It IS good news.
This is good news (well I think it is) Rob Lawrie received a suspended fine, no prison term, for trying to help the young Afghan girl.
Absolutely Johnathan - I know I feel less agitated after I stopped reading the drivel and dangerous sentiments spouted by the Daily Mail a number of years ago. I think they adhere to the old press adage “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” – unfortunately it’s very risky hype which they know will always get a reaction from a certain sector of the public, they don’t care that this is irresponsible because it sells papers!
You could have been born elsewhere: " The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to save civilians in Britain, particularly children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk. Operation Pied Piper, which began on 1 September 1939, officially relocated more than 3.5 million people. Further waves of official evacuation and re-evacuation occurred on the south and east coasts in June 1940, when a seaborne invasion was expected, and from affected cities after the Blitz began in September 1940. There were also official evacuations from the UK to other parts of the British Empire, and many non-official evacuations within and from the UK. Other mass movements of civilians included British citizens arriving from the Channel Islands, and displaced people arriving from continental Europe." This was government policy rather than headlong flight organised by criminals, though.
I'm assuming you were born during WWII like my parents, all born in 1942 but in Edinburgh, Königsberg and Hanoi respectively.
Mark - put the shovel down for goodness sake!
The vast majority of migrants / refugees never wanted to leave their homes, families, friends, culture and countries - they have been forced to through no fault of their own. I think you can take it as read that this majority will most certainly end up where they don't want to be.....duh.
By that theory :
I should have been borne elsewhere as my Home City was blitzed , no water , no heating, most young able bodied men abroad fighting or dead , food clothing furnriture and fuel rationed ,and facing an imminent invasion. ?
Well said. The trouble with the truth is that many people prefer not to see it because it might prick their consciences and rock their safely cotton wool lined world. Those newspapers thrive on that.
I don't think anyone here condones acts of violence to kids on a bus but just think for a minute why it happened. It's not because the migrants are a roving band of thugs who have attacked civilians all the way from Somalia to Calais. It's because they are being treated like animals. It must be pretty frustrating to watch schoolkids travelling freely to a ski holiday when you aren't allowed to cross the channel. The disparity must get under their skin.
What frustrates me in this dialogue is how some people assume that migrants are necessarily a drain on the resources of the taxpayer. That they are obviously only wanting to get housing benefit, free healthcare and as many handouts as possible. If the British media has portrayed the UK as the land of ease by its stream of TV programs and newspaper articles (usually in right-wing papers like the Express and the Mail) featuring lazy Brits living on handouts and never doing a stroke of work, who's fault is that?
However, I doubt a life on benefits is the goal for the vast majority of migrants. It's the ability to make money, be safe from attack, settle down, maybe have a family who can go to school. Similar things to us.
Whenever I go to the UK, I see a lot of recent immigrants doing all sorts of jobs that the native population don't want to do. Cleaning, acting as security guards, doing temporary jobs at events, etc. Britain and France have created a problem where the cost of living is too high for many employers to pay people a living wage. Hence thousands of workers are on Tax Credits and Housing Benefits and thousands more choose not to work at all because doing so would mean losing their benefits.
Some people mix up the migrant situation with the benefit situation. The right-wing press love doing it. It stirs up cultural tension and xenophobia, causing people to be even more hungry for stories that align with their fears.
Thank you, David, I had thought that it was a detention centre housing migrants while their applications were being processed - but it was 15 years ago!
Brian, who is punishing who?
I do not pretend to have a solution but I do find being accused of a lack of humanity just a bit tiring.
Is it too much to ask that before opening one's door to strangers it is only fair to ask what they want?
Nobody here has suggested that it might just possibly be a good idea to take each individual, sit them down & actually listen to what they want. It would take time, true, but it would be fair. It would also mean that the minority who are here on false pretences - shock/horror, there are some no matter how much you don't want to believe it - can be dealt with appropriately too.
Simon, If this was your solution ".distribute the migrants rationally amongst the comparatively rich States around the world whose internal problems pale into insignificance compared to the death, destruction and utter misery prevalent in the countries these poor folks are fleeing from" then it also lacks compassion - people will end up where they do not want to be.
It was Yarls Wood Removal centre when run by G4S. Not a site for welcoming asylum seekers but for deporting "failed" asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.The centre enjoyed a horrendous reputation for poor treatment of detainees.
near enough. but I am happy.
I like. Yes I'm Peter the Prophet.we are all Doomed.
...and so it came to pass that with the sunset of humanity, the migrants faded away, lost in the mists of time. The last to vanish was a group of ex-patriots who had always been too vague to know where they were and the point of what they could not understand. Not understanding the basic principles of disappearing, they debated among themselves until they crumbled into dust without the dignity of an elegant fading effect.
The beasts left to reoccupy the world took a look around themselves and, in their own languages, acknowledged that it had been inevitable. However the ex-patriots had left a residue that polluted the places where what was left of them remained.
Etc... :-D
I don't suppose the kiddies could have been making faces and taunting the refugees.
Oh dear me Peter......so are you saying.......?
