“Convenient Pole Thumping!” That’s what it should have been called instead of “Inconvenient Truth”.

My blood boiled and I shouted at the screen while watching the show as my partner shook his head, shocked that Rageh Omaar, an award winning journalist, was sinking that low. . .

It’s the most one-sided piece of programming I have seen on C4, shame, shame. It was filled with very leading, biased presentation of statistics – even when the negative opinion was only 40% and in one instance a mere 20%, it was drilled in - underlined by sinister music – as the dominant public perception, trying to portray a state of ‘crisis’.

Immigrants = Poles! That’s the summary you got from the show. Simplistic, appalling.

If you think there’s an immigration crisis, there’s also an EMIGRATION crisis. Britain has one of the highest outflows of skilled labour in the world. Britain should be thankful that there are immigrants still foolishly willing to emigrate to this country to fill in the gaps. The common misconception is that immigrants are coming from appalling conditions in their home countries; impoverished, uneducated, lack of opportunities. In reality, many immigrants – for many complex reasons – give up a lot they already have, risk starting anew, to contribute to this country. If they stop coming, the situation might be worse.

“Britain has been lucky – although it has lost substantial numbers of people, it has attracted more than a million skilled immigrants to replace them. If they stop coming then that would be a problem.” Danny Sriskandarajah, migration expert, IPPR think-tank.

So, thank your lucky stars, for now.

In the programme, when the British Guy in Brixton said that Polish labourers were coming to take their jobs because they were undercutting the standard rates, a quick retort would be; if the Poles can work that hard, why can’t you? As it is, the cost of labour in this country is over-inflated, perhaps it does need to come down! Like everything else, to be on par with Europe, at least. I consider Poles hardworking, aspirational. . . and often-time over-skilled! A Polish lady I know who has set-up a small laundry business – who’s also entrepreneurial enough to double up her business as an e-bay sales centre – actually has a phd in engineering!

By choice – and aspiration – to improve her and her family’s quality of life, she has come to the UK, to offer a very convenient service. Reliable, affordable, with the right business acumen. To be devils advocate, I’d like to ask the British Guy in Brixton featured in the programme; why is it that you grew up in a 1st world western democracy with every opportunity available to succeed, if you pushed for it, but have harldy any education qualifications to show but are still complaining that your jobs are being taken away?!

In my naughty head, I can’t help thinking. . . in a parallel world, would an overworked, underpaid science academic, British, from an average midlands university contemplate moving to Dubai, for instance, to wash the dirty linen of Arabs if the pay was much better? If it meant slogging it out so that you could afford better opportunities for your children and have a more secure retirement?

After watching the show, my partner and I felt like buying a box of chocolates to give to our ‘Laundry Lady, phd’ to apologise for the Pole bashing in Dispatches.

Ironically, we are also immigrants; my partner and I are both from Commonwealth countries.

As ‘Dr Tim’ says above “Diverse societies thrive because influxes of migrant populations bring culture; knowledge and genes that once shared and embraced reinvigorate stagnant insular societies. The courage, resilience, determination and desperation that impel individuals to leave the security of their homeland are the same traits that forge innovation and invention.”

I could not agree more. Except the part about desperation.

Why do you think skilled white Britons are leaving the UK? because places like Australia and New Zealand are not overrun with 3rd world migrants.

quote:

Originally posted by bern surinder:
Britain should be thankful that there are immigrants still foolishly willing to emigrate to this country to fill in the gaps. The common misconception is that immigrants are coming from appalling conditions in their home countries; impoverished, uneducated, lack of opportunities. In reality, many immigrants – for many complex reasons – give up a lot they already have, risk starting anew, to contribute to this country. If they stop coming, the situation might be worse.

“Britain has been lucky – although it has lost substantial numbers of people, it has attracted more than a million skilled immigrants to replace them. If they stop coming then that would be a problem.” Danny Sriskandarajah, migration expert, IPPR think-tank.

Bern Surinder

What absolute nonsense. I regularly travel to the subcontinent, Asia and other parts of the world the the immigrants are coming from. I also visit Eastern Europe and Russia where standards of education are far higher, and you get far less false certificates.

When I go to the S/c and Asia, I am overwhelmed by people trying to bypass immigration laws and come to the UK. I should imagine most Brits have the same experience.

If you fondly imagine that Europe, especially the enlarged Europe, is incapable of providing all the genuine skills we need you are deluding yourself. Compare this with the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme where it is estimated (Times 9/04/08) that less than 1,400 of the 40,000 direct applicants (ie not including their families and dependants) were actually genuine. That 1,400 could easily have been sourced from Europe without the need for HSMP taxi drivers and market traders.

So far as your other comments are concerned. People in this country have struggled to lift working standards and wages for more than 100 years only to see them eroded and ignored by the immigrant communities. As another part of my job I regularly see immigrant employers grossly abusing the legal rights of their workers. I recently taught a group of 'immigrant entrepreneurs' in university. They were all quite open that they would seriously discriminate and break employment laws for workers, and others if they could get away with it.

Is this what we really want??

Australia might not actually be the ‘anglo-utopia’ you’re imagining. . . .

There has been a strong pattern of intermarriage between these Australians of different backgrounds. Today less than half the population is of pure Anglo-Celtic descent. Over 60% of Australians have at least two, different ethnic origins, and 20% have four or more.

Source: Overseas Born Australians 1998: A Statistical Profile, Australian Bureau of Statistics, (Catalogue No. 4112.0) 1988.

In any case, I wonder what the virtues of a homogenous, white-only, society are. . .

To read more about multicultural oz, go to. . .
www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/multicultural/agenda/agenda89/australi.htm

And Australia actually celebrates multiculturalism. . . and realises it needs immigrants, from everywhere, to thrive. . .

About UK being swamped by migrants from the 3rd world, I find that term, ‘3rd world’ rather quaint these days. Whenever I fly in from a state-of-the-art Asian airport to Heathrow, I ask myself, am I arriving in a 1st world with 3rd world facilities? What constitutes 1st, 3rd (2nd?) anymore? And does it matter?

You can find my terms as quaint as you like, you can point to as many government sponsored reports as you like, it will not change the reality of most Britons today. The point is that many Britons are leaving the UK partly because we have been overrun by non-european immigrants and have had to have their cultures rammed down our throats.

The government has lied about immigration and they have used political correctness to suppress freedom of speech and debate on the matter.

As a result many Britons are seriously considering voting BNP to resolve this matter because the 3 main parties are ignoring the concerns of the silent majority.

Ian, but the fact is that the documentary was directed against Eastern Europeans. I don't think there is a reason to vote for BNP just because the labour shortages were filled by hard-working, multi-skilled people who didn't come here to claim benefits, but to CONTRIBUTE to this economy.

I do understand "influx!" of Eastern Europeans may worry those less ambitious characters, but come on.. Didn't you all have your houses decorated by them? How about gardens? Did you complain at the time??

How many people do you know who had lost their jobs to the Poles? Please, do find me a REAL BRITISH person who will work as a street cleaner or builder for the minimum wage.. You will prove that the jobs were actually stolen from the Brits.

The company I work for has been looking for customer service representatives for some time now, and believe me or not, you should come and sit down with me during interviews to understand what I'm talking about..

Well.. London 2012. Not sure if you only follow inbound immigration from the Eastern Europe, but this year you will see more people returning than coming to the UK. Strong currency, small unemployment rate in Poland and building infrastructure for Euro 2012 are main factors here.

I guess thats good news for the Brixton guy..

bern surinder,
The point is Australia fairly enthusiastically promotes a national idea of itself, and at the same time severely limits the number of immigrants considering the size of its landmass. (Even when you take out infertile land) All people are asking is that the UK does the same.

I'm surprised that nearly half of Australians are still full "Anglo-Celtic" if I can use such a phrase.
Not sure if you're Australian yourself but the fact is whether you like it or not Britain and Australia are very similiar in many ways aside from climate. (Though this is something most Aussies will only admit once they are a republic!) For this reason it will continue to be a popular place for British emmigrants.

Przelelizer. Read my earlier post. I'm quite sympathetic to Eastern European migrants who come to work in the UK, my issue is with the South Asians and Africans who do not culturally fit in and who over rely on the benefit system.

quote:

Originally posted by ella111:
It makes me cringe when I think about the topics and generalisation this programme will bring once again.

As you guessed I was born somewhere in 'EE' and noticed the way people in UK tend to downgrade the EE people although: suffered because of the 3 powers decision to separate the world and still produced masses of decent, highly educated and hard working people, never imposed our religion on the rest of the world, easily integrated in UK etc. Even in the US people are more respectful than in UK and in a normal day I would get some 10 compliments in US, where in UK would come across 3 rude people.

One last thing: what is all the fuss with Zimbabwe, Tibet or Darfur? Of course there are huge problems there but the major issue that affects our daily life is Palestine. We have to deal with the Palestinian problem as this affect all the economy, security etc. Everything starts with Palestine!

I did not know to what extent Rageh Omaar will deepen his poor experiment, but hey I could only guess and so far he proved me right. Aparently there are 2 more episodes to follow. What basicaly upsets me is:
- generalisation when using the EE term, I do not know many Europeans to use 'Western European' term. It will be just great if TV programme editors would teach the non-educated masses to distinguish between all these nations
- after living so many years in the UK and experiencing so many negative things (I am afraid to say, more than 90% of the abuse coming from Pakistani/Iraki/Afghani) I am wondering whether I should move to the US, where people so far have been much nicer, plus they like my English accent (???????)
- I am wondering whether the media likes using to downgrade the foreigners for economical/political/social advantages

Conclusions:
- limited imigration is good and I found the easier to integrate were the 'EE' people
- imigration based on points as in Australia, would not affect the 'EE' people but the rest of the nations coming to the UK - so probably will never be introduced
- even so, will still be having lots of people coming from all over the world claiming they run persecutions/famine (but these are anyway the richest ones who made their money from the UK charities as shown by other documentaries -as the poorer who really suffer stay in their battered countries - and they will ask for benefits/houses etc (some 10 years later selling it and moving closer to home). As the season starts we will be seeing more Middle Easterns coming to central London staying all day long in the sun in Hyde Park, going back in Sept-Oct back to their countries (this proves my point), shouting every Sun at the Speaker's corner why Kufars are all bad and shouting their abuse to white girls on the way home. And can you believe I lived many years in the Middle East and people I met were never like that, just normal people like us minding their own business!!!
- teach people to be proud of being British and not consider themselves as I recently heard in a documentary 'first muslim then British'. I wonder whether that girl will die for the country that gave her asylum/benefits/decent human rights non-existent in her country of origin. Ask children to start their day at school with a song dedicated to this country or the queen
- have separate 1 year (or longer schools until they integrate) for the newly arrived children and do not hold the other children from their routine

One thing I noticed in the US: they tend to run down the south-americans just the way here they run down the 'EE' people. But the Californian economy will collapse if the South-American were not there!!!!!!!!!!!

And one interesting thing in the UK: there are lots of newly arrived 'EE' working in estate agents/big companies/shops/schools. How many Middle Easterns/Israeli (with their 10 years automatic visa for UK and US)/Indians do you know to work like this? Most of these people work for their small run business/stay home to make children/come here to claim benefits. Even French/Swedish/Italian etc do not work as hard as 'EE' people even for the very low paid jobs and trying to integrate in this country.

So yes, UK only benefits from the arrival of all Bulgarian/Romanians/Hungarians/Poles/Czech etc as these people were told to work and study hard during communism and that is the only way to achieve something in life! Oh, yeah and the girls are so more feminine!

ella 111 you are a hypocrite!! you going on saying that people need to stop saying EE etc when your doing the same thing about asains, i know alot of INDIAN people who are doctors stock brokers and have alot more higher jobs, however i know about all the pakistanis who do claim benefit fraud and sit at home having children and driving taxis, i know alot of nurses and bankers who are caribbean and i know alot of white girls who have married africans after two months so they can get a passport!!

i agree that muslims dont really contribute towards the economy as they have to pray every few hours, i also think they intimidate women(probably the reson why their women are covered) however you think that muslims are a race, it is a religeon!!!

i think that the uk needs a point system definatly!! and the gov needs to sort the country and rules out.

and ella i think that people are upset about the poles etc i think its because it happened all of a sudden and in huge masses! people dont like change even though it may be a good one!

im not good at writing. but i'll try.

Immigration will do whatever they can, to remove these ppl who can speaks english, willing to work and pay taxes, willing to fit in and try to become a part of britan.

i been living in england for 14 years
to re-new my student visa i have to pay 225 pounds by mail, and took them 4 years (from 2003) to reject my application with almost no reason (4 years delay, i cant enroll without my passport and student visa)

Immigration treated me unfairly
and on top of all that, Immigration on the letter, i do not have any right to appeal in UK
I am sorry, but have i done anything wrong?

i even had a job in HM Royal Naval Base for years. and yah, Immigration wants me to leave, and they ok to accept all these illegal *******s, give them free houses and cash.
why should i work so hard for britan? why should i paid my taxes? and paid for re-new my visa when i can get all these house and money for FREE? burn my passport and act like i cant speak a word of english


when i was young, i have learned how to be a gentleman from the posh college school, learned how to respect and be kind to others.
but trust me, ppl will still call me a chin
Immigration will still treat me like "i no can speak english" or "i from china and no free tibet" (and im not from china btw...)


I dont hate English ppl, i love them all. i just hate Immigration (Home Office) and their racial discrimination.

sorry everyone, i dont have time to check my spelling and grammar.

have a nice evening.

- G

oh my god ghost that is what happened to my good friend she wanted to work after paying the overseas fees for uni and when she applied they rejected her and sent her back. she was korean. that is what really annoys me, that she was willing to work, privatly rented and didnt claim anything and they wouldnt let her stay!!!

im sorry to hear that this is happening to you too, it is an unfair system.

quote:

Originally posted by AJAY36:
I think the programme showed that the population as a whole in this country are fed up with people coming into this country on mass. This is the main problem, limits need to be set and very simply if you have nothing to benefit england you don't get in. The other crucial point is if you do get in learn the Bloody language.

I agree. For once somebody is putting the opinion that the vast majority of English people are feeling and exploring how to rectify it.

Sexyoaks, hi. I'll wager ella111 isn't a hypocrite - it must be just
down to feeling of frustration and being weary of this witch-hunting
campaign against Poles/Czech/Bulgarian/Romanians/Hungarians ...

Personally, I don't get why UK lot distinguishes amongst
continental/non-continental Europe/EE/EU. Also, am confused why UK
resists newcomers from EU more than from other nations while being a
member of EU. God grief, you know, feel free to leave EU and enjoy all
sorts of people from former commonwealth coming along here. Why having
any Europeans here at all? As to EE expression, how would you feel if we
called you sort of lets say islanders? Condescending enough? Why
distinguishing amongst Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland? Are you
getting what I mean?

Gho$T, I used to have a gf from Kenya but her visa expired and all came
to an end. The bottom line is to know what are the rules & restrictions
offered whilst arriving in UK - then either one accepts it or not,
enters the country or not, respectively. We knew this was going to end
up likewise, accepted it, enjoyed and swallowed a sour pill although
reluctantly ...

BTW, was second part of Omaar's coverage any good? Have missed it.

So here it goes- it was the most inobjective programme on Eastern Europeans in this country ever. I come from Latvia and I am very proud of it and my heritage. There is nothing for me to be shamed about.

But I would like to tell you one thing, Mr Rageh Omaar, go back to the place where you where born, develop your own country of origin to up to half decent standard and then come back and start lecturing about Eastern Europeans and their threat to British society!!

Cinci, hi. I don't think any immigrants should feel ashamed as long as they contribute and integrate. Sometimes I believe this all going-on debate about the newcomers is a sort of gimmick to intimidate us, to make ashamed, and to force into even harder labour - cos what do people do when constantly criticised? They try even harder, they work even harder!

Yeah, there is still something from this British colonialism approach going on here - funny bit is to observe how some children of first generation immigrants to UK became a part of this hypocritical approach.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikey J:
The Inconvenient Truth, was a phrase used in the title of this programme. I think the programme was actually very convienient, it fits in with a trend of programmes on other channels that far from discussing immigration push an assertion with precious little evidence.

The assertion being that the levels of immigration into this country are now widely accepted to be too high and most people want it stopped.

Selectively quoting from a poll seemed to be the evidence base for this assertion. This was followed with interviews, with no counter point of view given.

This isn't discussion and I don't think it's anything other than very poor journalism either.

Channel four news stands out as the one major news programme on the major channels, where I feel we have any chance of an issue being discussed and considered in anything other than tabloid headline fashion. This programme was a million miles away from that tradition and added nothing to the debate it claimed was so important.

It's also not a new idea to give the impression that Enoch Powel was just a poor misunderstood man either, I've seen that done a million times before and it's still as wrong now as it always was.

Perhaps the one plus point is that surely the series can't get any worse can it?

This was very, very poor for channel 4

I completely second this, it was an absolute shambles and when discussing such a delicate issue was quite shocked at the amount of mis matched and irrelevant information. More channel 5 than c4!

quote:

Originally posted by russian1:
Ricky Scott (black guy in the programme), you made me laugh.
“I am not even going to be understood in my own country”, he says. Its your home, darling, not your country! And it is our home too. Don’t blame polish to have their own shops, when you do your own shopping in Brixton or Peckham. Those parts of London are so poor, dirty and dangerous. Why? You know the answer.
I found this programme so against Eastern Europeans. I met so many Polishes, Russians, Lithuanians here and you know what? They are all hardworking, clever, strong people, who are willing to earn money. Every employer would be happier to offer them a job rather that to Africans or Indians est. I am not a racist! I just don’t understand why people are so angry, when its our planet and we should have all the rights to live wherever we want.
PEACE!

The only way you can live where you want to, is if you've got the right status, which was set down by Governments. If someone can't or doesn't want to change the way things are run, then why get upset about it. Immigration isn't new, it's been happening since humans first walked the planet, a long time ago, and humans are still walking it, and will walk it, no matter what anyone says.

as i said on another thread i think the programme should have spent time looking at certain immigrant groups that have settled into british society ie. the irish, jewish and chinese communities.

Each of which all had problems when 1st coming over enmasse but have all managed to intergrate and retain there identities at the same time.

There also seems to be no sense of victimisation amongst these communities, while there does amongst the ones highlighted in the programme.

Maybe looking into how these have settled into britain may give some indications of how recent influxes could do the same

Carlcun1979, hi. In case of Poles, it's enough the author would look a bit around let's say Edinburgh where larger Polish communities settled down after WWII. All of them are well integrated, a lot holding responsible higher-ups' positions, contributing a lot, being well integrated.

LOL, if this guy checked up on his own ch4 crew, he would find there some Poles and other immigrants helping broadcasting this stuff. Why won't he speak to them about how they are a drain to the system and how they don't speak English?

Besides, in case of newcomers it's been like three years since major influx has been taking place - don't expect every immigrant will speak fluent English and entertain you with British wits while it's been just three hard working years for them - older immigrant communities had decades to catch up on - whether they all did? Erm, that's another case.

piotr, to be perfectly honest i feel as though the poles and other eastern europeans have settled in extremely well in such a short period of time and I do not have a single negative thing to say about any pole i have ever met. I just hope that a few years from now the word "pole" will not be deemed as offensive to people from poland.

The problems with the immigration thing has absoloutly nothing to do with colour or nationality (like it used to be) all it is now or to me it seems is a clash of cultures and idealogies and i think people are scared to express there feelings in fear of offending others.

The irish all came over to this country as immigrants in much larger proportions than any of the hindus, muslims, chinese, africans and afro carribeans (both the latter were just referred to as the blacks at one time). THhey were referred to as micks paddys and terrorist as recently as the 1970's.

The problem fundamentally is written in the paragraph above as they are all sepearated along very different lines ie. religion, nationality and colour.

All have something to offer each other and equally nautrally fear each other.

Christian are still divided amongst protestant and catholic, islam - shia and sh'ite, somali -christian or muslim, afro carribean evangelist or methodist.

At the front of it all we have all our identities, ultimately problems of immigrtion and repatriation will never be solved as human will always seek new adventures.

We have to accept we are ALL different as indviduals but also have to accept that whatever your good intentions or beliefs are that not everyone will agree with you and rathe rthan take offense to these kind of situation accept that you are different from the other person and rather than get angry or upset try to understand.

Nationalities, Cultures and Religions are ultimately man made things and all need to be realised as this we all need to work together to find a man made common ground that is acceptable