Vinny van Gogh

I got into a bit of bother with a tongue in cheel comment about asylum seekers a few days ago...hope I dont do it again.

Any sane person would never object to offering another human in fear for his/her and family, safety from fear and persecution.
Where it becomes "an issue" is when that person/family travels through a number of "safe" countries to get to England - Our good Euro partners , the French make no effort to move them away from the ports or stop them breaking into wagons and trains. Oh, and one of the biggest groups of "asylum seekers" is the Chinese. What danger do they face in China, jail for not having a TV licence!
It then becomes very difficult to display any compassion to "asylum seekers"when "our" old folk or mentally disturbed folk are living in boxes on the on the streets because they closed the shelters or hostels and have no where to go. Then because they have no address they cannot claim benefits.
We then see "asylum" seekers taking a local council to court because the house they were given...is not big enough! This is not me ranting this is straight out of UK newspapers.

We have asylum seekers living on GBP£1000+ per month handouts while openly recruiting suicide bombers. This is not me ranting this is straight out of UK newspapers.

Beware you in Aussieland, because if your government dont act better than the UK have so far.... Sydney and the other cities will become host to a dwindling number tourists.

London has lost thousands of yanks spending £££Millions per year who will not come anymore.They do not see London as being a safe place. This is not me ranting this is straight out of UK newspapers.

And try using the underground or moving 20 yards without getting a host of grubby palms being thrust under your nose while another is getting into your coat packet or purse.
This is not me ranting this is straight out of UK newspapers.

Many will have seen my posts these past few weeks where I and my wife are seeking entry to Oz to join our daughter who leaves in June. We have the money to pay visa fees..we still have to wait years. So yes, with due respect to those who have compassion for those that may have faced suffering, compassion where its due, but the real winner is the guy who walks into Sydney arrivals terminal and states in broken english for emphasis, that he seeks asylum. Wonder how the Aboriginals are going to feel now as they travel further down the pecking order!

Beware Australia many in England have wished that our spineless government had made the strong stance like the OZ government...lobby like hell to keep it.

Apologies to those who do not like this kind of post..but its already happened here,

pauli71

Strange that , Think of your statement(I met some lovely sudanese guys)Where were their mothers, sisters ,old, and young children surely if it were that bad no young man would want to flea and desert his flesh and blood to leave them at the mercy of whatever regime.did the French or indeed the English or Russian people desert their family ,their Land,and life? No they overthrew,Revolution,Rise up.I am afraid to say whilst there are some who would really need asylum.Most are financial opertunists who wish to better their lifestyle and who can blame them for trying.Also i thought asylum meant sanctuary and then go home when things improve not stay in the sheltering country indefinetly.Many in the U.K. STAY to stir up trouble,look at Hook he even dared to burn the Flag of the nation giving him shelter.Many try and some suceed to change their adoptive nation to suit their way of life.

HiddenPaw

Daily Mail, let me guess

Do you show the same levels of hysteria to the millions of British citizens who are screwing the benefits system to extreme? The 'white' guy down the road, claiming incapacity benefit, council house benefit, housing benefit, whilst earning a grand a week on the sly? What about the twenty-somethings who haven't done a day's work in their life and don't intend to do so, each taking £200 quid a week benefits? Whenever benefits, handouts and petty crime are mentioned, people seem very willing to blame the non-British citizens whilst failing to acknowledge that there are far more scroungers, fraudsters and criminals of their own nationality.

bondipom

Do you have figures regarding the proportion of assylum seekers who have false claims? There is little Britain can do about the Hook man and Australia has its own home grown recruiters of Islamic terror.

bondipom

HP it is much is to blame outsiders than to look at oneselves critically. It is a sad nature of humanity and the tabloids play it for all it is worth.

NedKelly

This is just another aspect of a liberal socialist society and shouldn't confuse the issue. The Daily Mail and other newspapers DO have many articles criticising the benefit scroungers and sure, many of them are white. The system allows it and B.liar is making it worse.

But you cannot ignore the fact that asylum seekers are a tremendous burden on the UK taxpayer and this is because the bleeding heart liberal Human Rights brigade have armies of lawyers being paid out of legal aid to delay and contort every effort to get the asylum process on track.

bondipom

No it is because of Britains duties under international law which it signed up to long before even the tories were in power. Another example of right wing mis-information. I guess you cannot wait for honest Michael Howard.

BTW the large influxes of refugees and assylum have been from conflict zones around the world. I do not hear many talking about dealing with these areas. Without a fix there assylum seekers will carry on fleeing the worlds horrors.

Vinny van Gogh

Independant actually, but I was addressing the original post with regard the falsness of "asylum seekers" in anything except an hysterical manner. No society is perfect. But as you must acknowledge the UK - the father of democracy and the founder of "The Welfare State" A National Health service created by Nye Bevan so that people woul dnot starve or lack medical treatment. My grandmother had to pay one shilling (5p - 2.5cents) a weeK to the doctor. The retirement age was brought in with a pension so that people did not work till they died.
Guess what..even the labour government acknowledge that the pension and benefit system cannot cope. The retirement age is basically scrapped, the health service is falling apart. Why...tourist operations, tourist use of free medical services, and asylum seekers and others who have never paid into the system.
I dont do hysteria - I do facts.
And if you want my facts. Left school at 15 to work 44 hours a week in a Lancashire mill, joined the British Army at 16 and served 6 years. From 1966 to present I have had less than 12 months out of work altogether. For the past 17 years run my own business and paid an exreme amount of taxes. I have paid my way and reserve the right to comment about what I consider affects me and my family - in a strictly factual and non hysterical manner.

NedKelly

You are wrong. Many countires are signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the trouble is that Britain hasn't properly managed the escalating problem of economic migrants who falsly claim political asylum. It's well known that only a few ever get sent back. The problem escalted in 1997 when B.Liar took over. Labour have always had a mental block over immigration and when they took office it was a signal to the world that England has opened the doors again.

Not right wing mis-information but fact.

bondipom

Pensions are an issue throughout the western world where the working population is shrinking in proportion to the aged. You whinge about taxes then you whinge about lack of services.

The problems of the NHS are not down to health tourists. What proportion of patients do you believe are health tourists? Isn't there going to be an entitlement card?

Vinny van Gogh

I have to say that you sound typical of a lot of "knowledgable" guys.
There you are sat on Bondi dipping yer toes in the briny telling "us" we are wrong! Were the boat people fleeing the horrors of this world when their boat was escorted away from the mainland?
Is an "asylum seeker" following the convention when he skips through five safe countries to get to the best benefit system? Why are 73% of all illigal immigrants to enter the UK all young,strong,fit males?

There is a "fix" for genuine asylum seekers and nobody begrudges them access to it.

There always will be those who walk in and ruin what was once a good system, which is probably what the Aboriginals thought of Cap'n Cooky
one sunny 26th of January! And look what happened to him...got himself on a BBQ.

chels

Can you provide some figures to back this claim up - it would be interesting to see what proportion of the UK's GDP is spent on processing asylum seekers and supporting them?

When claims are being made either side of this argument, I have to say that I've only seen figures supporting claims by those who believe that a humane nation (such as England) should continue in its duties to provide shelter for those fleeing persecution.

And I'll declare a personal interest here - some of my family fled France during the French Revolution, landing up in Russia. Unfortunately, a few generations later and they were on the move again, thanks to the Russian pogroms, when their friends and some family members were beaten, tortured, robbed of all their possesions, hounded into ghettos and, sometimes, set fire to and killed. Funnily enough, my great-grandfather didn't want to put his family at risk and decided to leave before a similar fate occured to them. Yeah, they could have been okay, they might have been lucky ones but would you have risked your family's lives?

So he gave up his well-paid job and brought his family to England. Where they built a life, contributed to society, created wealth and paid taxes through various businesses. But being white, they never experienced any overt racism (my great-grandmother found it tough, but then she never learnt the language. Poorly educated, she could hardly read in her own, let only learn a new language especially as there weren't the facilities for new residents like there is now).


Where are your facts to back up that judgement? Maybe they did come with their families, but the poster didn't mention them because she hasn't met them? Or maybe they tragically did have to leave family behind in war-torn Sudan. I have read that in some circumstances families will send the strongest members to safety first, with the hope that firstly, they have the best chance of reaching safety, and secondly that they will have the strength to cope with trying to start a new life and all the stress of trying to get the rest of their family to safety.

Finally, England is in an incredibly fortunate position. It has not experienced civil war for many years (though Northern Ireland could be said to be a long- running civil war, so I'll stick to talking about England rather than the UK). Yes, there's crime on the streets which makes people very fearful, with good reason. But I never saw an armoured truck full of men wielding machine guns trundle down my local high street. I never had to worry about stepping on land mines when I went for a walk. People can criticise Tony Blair without fear of being locked up as a political prisoner for years (unlike a friend from Chile, who spent four years locked up for daring to speak out against a corrupt regime). Most of its citizens have a comfortable income. Those who do not can access benefits which ensure they don't starve, fall ill and are unable to get medical help, and, on the whole, are given the opportunities to make better lives for themselves.

HiddenPaw

Your previous post cited only immigrants and asylum seekers as the cause of the nations's issues. There was no mention of non-contributing home-grown, British nationals who defraud or exploit the system. I suspect the cost to the British tax payer of the former group is far less than that of the latter. The focus always seems to be on non-British yet the problems are equally as much - if not more - home grown.

NedKelly

It didn't use to be an issue in the UK until Brown started taxing pension funds and then changing all the accounting rules. The UK used to have more money in private pensions than the rest of Europe put together. Why not whinge about taxes when taxes have gone up and services have deteriorated.

As for the NHS, there is not one particular problem but many problems. Health tourists are a problem and a growing problem. The Australian system is much better. If you don't pay in you can't take out.

chels

THe welfare system is the UK is failing because succesive governments have not wished to tackle the basic fact that tax payers must contribute more if they want a first class system. The level of taxes paid by other European cities is far higher (I think in the high 40% in Sweden and Denmark, for example) and their services, as a result, are much better. With an ageing population making more demands on the health service and pension fund, and with the huge growth in medical expertise which has resulted in more expensive operations and medicine, it's no wonder that if the public are putting in the same as 30 years ago it's not going to cover everything.

But hey, if people would rather spend less in tax (which of course they do, how many of us are truly altruistic) and more on private health care and pensions...oops, I meant to write the latest must-have consumer goods