Vinny van Gogh

Having read your version of the Uk and your family struggle to make a good life and pay their taxes and live without fear if war....Oh BTW, my then 17 year daughter was in Manchester one Saturday afternoon and she like many others has never even squashed a fly. Then having served in the forces and in munitions.. from a distance of 11 miles I heard what I knew was a bomb. Manchester is err in England but had declared war on nobody, not even the 500,000 Irish who live around the area and have some brilliant rebel folk songs
Anyway, we'll miss that bit...I am so glad you think the UK is so fortunate and has all these benefits that helped you and your family.....
I just wonder why you left to live in Sydney. Perhaps you should come back to join us and wallow in our fortunate land

chels

In the UK the income-tax rate paid by top earners has been slashed from 83% to 40% since 1979. That's the highest rate, most people are on the basic rate. NI contributions have reached 9%, but overall direct taxation has reduced. Indirect taxation, such as the introduction of VAT, captial gains tax etc are taxes of choice. If you decide to invest, or buy goods that aren't VAT exempt, that is your choice (to make life better for yourself).

NedKelly

2002/3 to £1804 million from the Home Office Website and I bet that doesn't include the money paid out by local councils to house these people and the legal aid bill, let alone compensation for asylum seekers because the house they were provided with wasn't big enough for them.

Read it yourself:- http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/n_story.asp?item_id=388

But hey what's a few Billion Quid?

Vinny van Gogh

While quoting other countries tax situations and the lack of "addressing" the situation in the UK as cause for many of the system failures we now have...
have you done a comparison as to how many "asylum seekers" and illegal immigrants these same countries support.
You chopped out my original comments about the taxes I have paid and still pay..but hey - lets not worry...I pay a lot to make up for those who dont..seems fair I suppose.....It just occurred to me that my wife and I have just come out a really bad dose of Flu.....we could not get a doctor to call out when I had trouble breathing....nope..had to sit up all night with a steaming menthyl inhaler and then drag ourselves to a walk in doctor 7 miles away...great init.

There are problems with an ageing population....but if you have a boat that is leaking..it will not help if you keep taking on passengers. Including the fare dodgers and stowaways.

chels

Read my posts properly "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)"

When I was last there, I can't recall hearing that the English were fighting the English.

Re my family - well, there's the chance that if they hadn't ended up in England, I might not have been around today to take part in the luxury of an online debate about other people's miserable existences.

Re why I live in Sydney - because I followed my heart and left my well-paid job, car, home, friends, lifestyle to live in a rented hovel doing crap temporary jobs so that my partner has the chance to make a success from his career, an opportunity which he wasn't getting back home. I love England but I love him more.

NedKelly

If you want to take that arguement to it's logical conclusion taxes have gone down since 1960 when there was the investment income surcharge of 99%.

And don't go on about Capital Gains Tax, that was only introduced in 1975.

What about the NI the emploeyer pays, that's gone up to 11%?

What about Browns 60 Stealth Taxes?

Amazulu

Britain should have a no immigration policy (skilled or unskilled). We have the European Union to supply all our labour needs.

chels

Okay, quick search on the net brings this:

Asylum seekers, refugees and migrants are a drain on the UK economy
Fact: Migrants more than pay their way in our society. Indeed, foreign-born people are a significant economic asset. Without their contribution, the average UK taxpayer would pay an extra penny in every pound in income tax.

A recent Home Office report estimated that foreign-born people – including refugees and asylum seekers - contribute around 10pc more to Government revenues than they receive in Government spending, equivalent to £2.5bn a year – or 1p on the basic rate of income tax (1). Furthermore, Treasury minister Ruth Kelly has stated that the foreign-born population accounted for 10 per cent of UK GDP in 2001 (2). That is five times as much as North Sea Oil (3).

The cost of the UK asylum system has spiralled out of control and is a burden we cannot afford
Fact: Less than one tenth of a penny in every pound spent on public services this year will go to asylum seekers. According to the then Home Office Minister Beverly Hughes, the budget for supporting asylum seekers during the forthcoming financial year, 2002-2003, has been set at £434 million – just 0.1 per cent of total projected public spending for the same period (4).

To put this figure into perspective, a recent study by the Oxford Research Group estimated that in 2001, government subsidies to the UK arms export industry cost UK taxpayers far more - up to £990 million (5).

Government figures for the last financial year, 2001-2002, show that the total cost of supporting asylum seekers was £1,094 million. This still represented only 0.28 per cent of total public spending (4).

************************************************** **
You'll probably think this is propaganda, and yes, in a way it is. Statistics can be used to back any argument up. But until someone disproves these facts, I'll favour them.

pauli71

Do i have Figures?Sorry mate thats a Dumb question when you consider the government of the country is unaware of the true extent of the problem you only need to go to any building site to find many many blackmarket labourers exploited by their own countrymen because they are illegals they keep quiet.Only last week there was a conviction regarding illegal labour.Most of these guys soon learn how to milk the system .

NedKelly

It is propoganda, I wouldn't expect anythin else from refugee action. www.refugee-action.org.uk

You asked for facts I gave them to you. All you can do is respond with is propoganda.

£2 Billion is a fact. Home Office figures.

bondipom

Are you now talking about illegal immigrants or assylum seekers? They are different issues, even if I am typing from Bondi (whatever that has to do with the price of fish). Illegal immigrants are those who do not claim assylum and charge into the workforce. Are you suprised so many young males are seeking work illegally in Britain. The illegal british migrants in Australia are probably of the same makeup.

They are not assylum seekers. An assylum seeker only becomes illegal if the case has been rejected. When fleeing a country do you think the assylum seekers read the legal niceties of international assylum law. Then go agh those Frenchies don't have enough assylum seekers so to pacify the British public I will stay there.

When questioned assylum seekers say they go to countries where there are already established communities of their own. Britains supposedly generous benefits are not the main attaction. I would dig up the survey but I have to pack.

chels

That so-called 'blah blah blah' refers to the UK taxpayer, Home Office, Treasury, Government etc as the source of its figures. Which Home Office are you going on about?

bondipom

Only 1 conviction!

bondipom

Extending free movement of labour to other wealthy stable democracies is what I would propose.

The treaties on assylum and refugees should be looked at as well. Until the world is at peace there will always be dispossesed and persecuted people. Sadly to help them we have to consider the less genuine cases and no system will be perfect.

Vinny van Gogh

[QUOTE=chels]
When I was last there, I can't recall hearing that the English were fighting the English. You therefore assume the bombers were Irish...bit judgemental of you that!
QUOTE]

Interesting, this land of opportunity to which flocks the freedom loving and hard pressed..but not an opportunity for -presumably - an honest hardworking "brit". I wonder why.

I noticed on another of your posts that you mention the England was quick to drag in migrant workers when they were wanted...errm ever heard of the £10 Pom...two of my uncle's were just that....cheap migrant labour in the 1950s onwards. By your logic Australia should therefore not have any immigration restrictions because they were quick take migrants..white migrants I add until opinion change was forced.

A few weeks ago I was told I had a simplistic vision of Australia being a land without problems, where everytning is rosy and tickerty boo. I am fully ware that there are drug gands and crime as much there as there is in England.
But unless I am mis-informed I beleived the government had a policy that protected its shores, protected those who are rightfully in the country, who searched out illegals and those working without permits...in short upheld the laws it created. I assume when you partner has achieved there what he could not here that your hovel will improve..or will you just move on to gain something else from somewhere else..in which case , in my mind you will share a lot with those who are busy sucking the UK dry without contribution