Soldier put behind the unemployed, criminals and asylum seekers on housing register

[-:Undertaker:-]

1. Please show me in that article where it says all the people who are both above the solider and unemployed are there because they simply do not want to work. You can't because you don't know that. Chances are it is untrue so please, stop the generalisation.

We know the registers do not place people above others based on crimes/what your status is, which they should do. I find it very unfair that somebody who is an asylum seeker/does not and never has contributed to this country and never will should be put ahead on the list infront of a solider who has served his country. Do you find that fair?

2. Did I really just see you advocate keeping people locked up in prison, indefinitely, for multiple offences of theft? That is not only stupid, it's unworkable. Also, the point you made about someone who has committed an offence in the past now having done well for themselves, I aren't sure where you are getting this. Any offence on your record is going to be looked down upon and is likely to at least hinder your chances of getting a well paid job. Especially in the current climate. I'm unsure what you meant by this:

Indeed you just did see me suggesting that people who are involved in multiple thefts be locked up indefinitely until it is deemed they are no longer going to commit the crime again, at the very least I suggest longer sentences for those who commit multiple offences because while people such as yourself continue to spout about how prison doesnt work, prison does work if used properly. The whole point of prison is to keep those who commit crimes off our streets, so why is it that with this government these people are out on our streets?

I understand you will never stop crime completely, however I and the vast majority just cannot work out how people with something like 50 odd offences to their name are still out on our streets. Perhaps maybe one day if you or the politicians are ever unfortunate enough to live in an area where criminals are rampant and the crime is never ending, you will understand why people want criminals to be locked up, especially criminals who commit offence after offence and just get a slapped wrist each time they do it.

But if you meant what I think, then shame on you. Not everybody who lives in a council house has a member of their family who has committed an offence and put them there. I do hope i'm thinking the worst of you here, hopefully you will prove me right and tell me thats not what you meant.

I did not say everyone living on a council estate is a criminal, however it is common sense and knowledge that a lot of people on those estates are unemployed and commit crime hence why those areas are called sink-estates. Those who are unfortunate enough to be poor or unemployed sadly do end up living next to the worst of the worst and it would be stupid if you attempted to ignore that. A lot of criminals come from these areas and rely on the state to provide them with housing and benefits, I want that to be cut.

The message is simple; if you commit crimes and have no intention of looking for work then you will not be entitled to benefits or housing from the state, which if you remember is funded by the taxpayer.

3. Right wing papers are the best selling papers? Oh well then the majority of the country must be both narrowminded and judgemental. Lovely. But actually no, my mum buys the Daily Mail (despite protests from myself about its content) and she does not share your political ideologies. Some people just buy it for different reasons than it's excellent writing. Back to the main issue, yes people travel far to be here and through adverse conditions. Less cynical people will tell you that's something to be proud of. You think the worst of everyone and everything. Yes there are asylum seekers that come here to exploit the kindness that we show, others see nothing of this kindness and work for a pittance simply because it's better than the poverty, oppression and danger they face back home. You really didn't need to provide me with a map, i'm fully aware of where the majority of asylum seekers come from. It's also no coincidence they come from wartorn, corrupt and drought-ridden places.

Yes you heard me, right-wing papers are the best selling papers with the exception of the Daily Mirror. I very much think your mum would share my political idealogies; does she support broadly; lower taxes, more prisons, smaller state and the principle of minimum state interference with the lives of the people? - if so, then we do share the same principles. She may vote for a totally different party, but that is tribal voting and the fact is that the United Kingdom is right wing with its base being in England. This country is right wing whether you like it or not.

You say asylum seekers come here to flee political opression/bad conditions at home, well if that is the case then why do they feel the need to travel across various oceans/sea and channels to get to this island (which coincidently has a very generous and exploitable benefits system) when they could very easily settle perfectly in another developed country such as the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium and numerous others. I have no doubt there are those who really could contribute to this country, however they are dwarfed by a large majority which does not speak English, does not want to work and have the intention of committing crime when they get here.

You may wonder why people vote for the BNP; there is your reason.

[Catzsy]

That's because at the start of the 1980s the country was in enormous debt to the IMF, the money has to be repaid some how. I wouldn't expect you to understand that though, supporting a party which borrows during 10 years of economic goodness when Brown was chancellor. Right To Buy inspired people to own their own homes and make them proud of their community again instead of being dragged along by the government. I'm afraid in 13 years, you have more than enough time to plan and build social housing, it does not take decades. I don't even see any planning or policies from the Labour Party promising to build or plan more, and even if they had done, it's 13 years too late. The Conservatives however are going to encourage more houses to be built by incentives for local councils which will result in less people depending on social housing. Fewer houses are being built at any time during the past 80 years, Labour has continued to fail in building houses.

As Jordy said, at the time we had to pay off the enormous debts that the Labour Party had built up and that in 1979 we had to get an emergency loan from the IMF just to keep running as a country. To add to this, a lot of money was cut from the state budget to lower taxes dramatically which helped millions of families and indivuals across Britain to buy shares, to set up business and to be able to help stimulate an economy which was until this point, on the brink of total collapse. Of course as usual, many of you Labour supporters on here know nothing on history/or totally ignore it and just run off with the idea that 'Thatcher was bad, Thatcher was evil' well how about for once actually thinking about the whole situation and using thought with it rather than petty party political politics?

I can expect a government to build more housing and we do expect a government which raises tax after tax to actually fix a situation, especially when you bash the Conservatives so much over it. I know you, like the rest of the left despises the thought of people bettering themselves and you always have, you dont know it but thats what you and your idealogy stands for because the thought that people can unhinge themselves off the hook of the state is, in your line of thought, an awful idea. Your party has had 13 years (longer than most other governments have had in power) to build more social housing, couple that with the fact you had a global boom which brought an immense amount of money to the country which generated the biggest housing boom we had ever seen. To add to that, you have also had taxes raised year on year so quite frankly there is no excuse.

Thanks to the right-to-buy scheme, millions were given the chance to buy their own house, something they would never of been able to do. They were able to have some pride in their house and gave them something to asspire to. The awful sink-estates became privatised and suddenly people started taking a lot more respect for property, people started slowly but surely improving their homes which benefitted the area and raised house prices thus allowing people to climb up the property ladder and better themselves along with being able to leave a legacy behind to their children when they died which would help their kids when they were starting off in the world.

There is no denying the 'old labour' government left debts so were the houses sold off to pay off the IMF or to inspire people to be owner occupiers? Also this vision saw one of worst ever house booms that crashed leaving 1000's re-possessed and more in negative equity. When the tories left office they
left all the houses that were still tenented in disrepair. They had a long time from the early 1980s to do something about this. So with all these houses gone and no rent coming in where do you think the labour government could suddenly find the money from? Also where would they be built? It was a problem finding enough brown field sites so they introduced housing benefit to help them rent private houses. That's quite an initiative but one both of you disagree with. Also the last recession had nothing to do with the government it was a global recession bought on by greedy capitalists who thought it was okay to lend money to people who couldn't afford it and it too lead to a huge housing boom which has crashed again leaving more houses re-possessed and negative equity but this time NOT the fault of the government. Also Britain’s GDP per per capita rose 21 per cent since 1997, with GDP overall rising 28 per cent, behind only Canada (35 per cent) and the US (31 per cent) creating millions of jobs, providing a better standard of living for a decade, and mending the broken public services infrastructure. Now I really do feel sorry for this soldier, if what he says, is true but I am sure there are many more on the list too. There is housing benefit is he is entitled to it and I am sure he would have the money to provide the bond for renting a private property.

[Jordy]

There is no denying the 'old labour' government left debts so were the houses sold off to pay off the IMF or to inspire people to be owner occupiers? Also this vision saw one of worst ever house booms that crashed leaving 1000's re-possessed and more in negative equity. When the tories left office they
left all the houses that were still tenented in disrepair. They had a long time from the early 1980s to do something about this. So with all these houses gone and no rent coming in where do you think the labour government could suddenly find the money from? Also where would they be built? It was a problem finding enough brown field sites so they introduced housing benefit to help them rent private houses. That's quite an initiative but one both of you disagree with. Also the last recession had nothing to do with the government it was a global recession bought on by greedy capitalists who thought it was okay to lend money to people who couldn't afford it and it too lead to a huge housing boom which has crashed again leaving more houses re-possessed and negative equity but this time NOT the fault of the government. Also Britain’s GDP per per capita rose 21 per cent since 1997, with GDP overall rising 28 per cent, behind only Canada (35 per cent) and the US (31 per cent) creating millions of jobs, providing a better standard of living for a decade, and mending the broken public services infrastructure. Now I really do feel sorry for this soldier, if what he says, is true but I am sure there are many more on the list too. There is housing benefit is he is entitled to it and I am sure he would have the money to provide the bond for renting a private property.

Dan and me both agree that the economic downturn wasn't our governments fault, we also haven't mentioned this in the thread. Like I previously said, the economy was doing well under Brown (Thanks to Thatcher's policies IMO) but either way, it was doing well under Brown whoever is to thank, yet he felt the need to continue borrowing from the IMF and throwing money at every problem he encountered. His government has failed to plan or build anymore council houses, it does not take decades to do so, Canary Wharf Tower was built in three years lol.

Perhaps they haven't done anything remarkable such as putting their lives at risk in practice, but they were willing to. It is not their fault they were declined, sometimes down to the silliest of things such as an inch of height or the inability to swallow a pill. What i'm saying is, why should a person who is willing to do the exact same as that soldier did, but was denied the chance to show it, be penalised and be moved down the list a place because someone else has decided to leave the army, thus making themselves and their family homeless.

We shouldn't reward people who haven't done anything. It's called a "reward" for a reason, these people have done nothing. Denying someone a reward or opportunity is not penalising, it is a fact of life and also a reason why our army happens to be one of the best in the world (consistently throughout it's history) due to it's high standards. The reason it is a reward is because they have done something and they are being thanked accordingly, hopefully with near-priority council housing. The whole reason behind social housing was for troops after WWI and later for returning troops from WWII, while the wars today maybe completely different, the idea should stay the same. It's attitudes like yours which put the education system in such a mess, reward the badly behaved kids for doing one good thing and forget about the students who consistently do what's expected of them.

[Sharon]

So are they on the waiting list for a house? Strangely I know how it all works LOL. Well really thats a bit **** because he should be recognised (SP) for his time at the army.

[-:Undertaker:-]

There is no denying the 'old labour' government left debts so were the houses sold off to pay off the IMF or to inspire people to be owner occupiers? Also this vision saw one of worst ever house booms that crashed leaving 1000's re-possessed and more in negative equity. When the tories left office they left all the houses that were still tenented in disrepair. They had a long time from the early 1980s to do something about this. So with all these houses gone and no rent coming in where do you think the labour government could suddenly find the money from? Also where would they be built? It was a problem finding enough brown field sites so they introduced housing benefit to help them rent private houses. That's quite an initiative but one both of you disagree with. Also the last recession had nothing to do with the government it was a global recession bought on by greedy capitalists who thought it was okay to lend money to people who couldn't afford it and it too lead to a huge housing boom which has crashed again leaving more houses re-possessed and negative equity but this time NOT the fault of the government. Also Britain’s GDP per per capita rose 21 per cent since 1997, with GDP overall rising 28 per cent, behind only Canada (35 per cent) and the US (31 per cent) creating millions of jobs, providing a better standard of living for a decade, and mending the broken public services infrastructure. Now I really do feel sorry for this soldier, if what he says, is true but I am sure there are many more on the list too. There is housing benefit is he is entitled to it and I am sure he would have the money to provide the bond for renting a private property.

Hang on a second, a housing boom (which creates wealth and gives people extra income) is a bad thing? - I really do not know where you get this stuff from, but perhaps the Labour government could get this extra money from its foreign aid fund, the money it gives to the European Union (£45 million per day in direct membership bills, set to rise by a margin of £10 million this year) or it could even use the money we pay on various taxes of which Labour has put up and up over the past 13 years to fund these houses - how about that for a thought?

As for the brownfield sites, come to Liverpool where thousands of houses lay empty, come to Liverpool where sites in various areas lay empty, go to any city and you will find brownfield sites. I am unsure on whether you do geography, but you should know that this country has many brownfield sites and many of the after-war towns in need of more housing and building. Now lets be honest here, now you are just making up excuses to defend your points against Thatcher, all of which have so far been disproven. You have had 13 years and tax hike after tax hike to fund the building of more houses yet you sit by and do nothing.

To add to this, it is estimated (from the video below) that out of the 600,000 new houses being built in the South West, 86% of them will go to first-generation migrants. It is entirely the fault of your party that we have no social housing, and its entirely the fault of your party that we have such a demand for social housing due the United Kingdom having no control over its borders. The problem is also set to get worse with the demographic time bomb that is clocking up right as we speak as the population ages - we are heading for a complete disaster regarding social housing & even including private housing, and thats if you dont class what we have now as a disaster because its certainly a crisis.

..(see 6:17 to 7:25 for some figures concerning housing & migration)

[Catzsy]

Hang on a second, a housing boom (which creates wealth and gives people extra income) is a bad thing? - I really do not know where you get this stuff from, but perhaps the Labour government could get this extra money from its foreign aid fund, the money it gives to the European Union (£45 million per day in direct membership bills, set to rise by a margin of £10 million this year) or it could even use the money we pay on various taxes of which Labour has put up and up over the past 13 years to fund these houses - how about that for a thought?

A housing boom that isn't artificially inflated is fine but not when it is because ot just leads to a big crash. I would have thought you would have agreed with that. Well we are in the EU which a conservative government took is into
- not even the next government whoever it is can get away with not paying. What taxes exactly have they put up apart from the 10p to 20p for the lowest earners which was substituted by a higher tax allowance?

[Tash.]

We know the registers do not place people above others based on crimes/what your status is, which they should do. I find it very unfair that somebody who is an asylum seeker/does not and never has contributed to this country and never will should be put ahead on the list infront of a solider who has served his country. Do you find that fair?

I find it fair that people are placed on a waiting list for a house in the order they request it. There are certain factors that put you above other people no matter when you join the list, namely whether you have children, so the fact that he has those will mean he won't be at the bottom of the list at all. He will simply be behind the people with children who asked for the housing first. That I find fair.

Indeed you just did see me suggesting that people who are involved in multiple thefts be locked up indefinitely until it is deemed they are no longer going to commit the crime again, at the very least I suggest longer sentences for those who commit multiple offences because while people such as yourself continue to spout about how prison doesnt work, prison does work if used properly. The whole point of prison is to keep those who commit crimes off our streets, so why is it that with this government these people are out on our streets?

I understand you will never stop crime completely, however I and the vast majority just cannot work out how people with something like 50 odd offences to their name are still out on our streets. Perhaps maybe one day if you or the politicians are ever unfortunate enough to live in an area where criminals are rampant and the crime is never ending, you will understand why people want criminals to be locked up, especially criminals who commit offence after offence and just get a slapped wrist each time they do it.

The logistics of what you are saying are mind blowing. You say you want the government to build more prisons, well even if you were to see this become reality we still would not have the space to house people indefinitely for crimes which are considered fairly minor such as theft. It is my personal opinion that simply sticking someone in prison, amongst other offenders, then letting them out does not work. Even if you do keep them in prison until you deem them safe, if you let them out on the streets, with possibly nowhere to live and no job, they will reoffend. It's simple. You don't want these people given houses, so where are they supposed to live? You don't want them given benefits, well then you find them somewhere to work, because i'm sure I wouldn't particularly be happy employing someone with multiple offences of theft.

I actually live in an area which is quite bad for theft and quite violent crimes, infact a number of such people live a 5 minute walk from my house. So yes, i'm aware of what these people are like, I went to school with their offspring and they are no different. Prison does not work, their parents have been in there and they come out no different. Things need to be done on a deeper level, to ensure that the next generation don't continue the work of their parents in this manner. Placing people in prison indefinitely will simply make them more corrupt.

I did not say everyone living on a council estate is a criminal, however it is common sense and knowledge that a lot of people on those estates are unemployed and commit crime hence why those areas are called sink-estates. Those who are unfortunate enough to be poor or unemployed sadly do end up living next to the worst of the worst and it would be stupid if you attempted to ignore that. A lot of criminals come from these areas and rely on the state to provide them with housing and benefits, I want that to be cut.

The message is simple; if you commit crimes and have no intention of looking for work then you will not be entitled to benefits or housing from the state, which if you remember is funded by the taxpayer.

I aren't attempting to ignore that, I live not far from these people on a housing estate, believe me when I say that I am aware what these people are like. However, I do take offence to the fact that you are implying that the majority of people living on housing estates do not work. If you don't live on one, you don't know what goes on. I'll happily admit I do not live on the worst of estates, there are much worse, but really implying that the majority of people who live on housing estates are either unemployed, criminals or both is below the belt.

Please see above for what I said about criminals and benefits/social housing, I won't repeat myself.

Yes you heard me, right-wing papers are the best selling papers with the exception of the Daily Mirror. I very much think your mum would share my political idealogies; does she support broadly; lower taxes, more prisons, smaller state and the principle of minimum state interference with the lives of the people? - if so, then we do share the same principles. She may vote for a totally different party, but that is tribal voting and the fact is that the United Kingdom is right wing with its base being in England. This country is right wing whether you like it or not.

You say asylum seekers come here to flee political opression/bad conditions at home, well if that is the case then why do they feel the need to travel across various oceans/sea and channels to get to this island (which coincidently has a very generous and exploitable benefits system) when they could very easily settle perfectly in another developed country such as the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium and numerous others. I have no doubt there are those who really could contribute to this country, however they are dwarfed by a large majority which does not speak English, does not want to work and have the intention of committing crime when they get here.

You may wonder why people vote for the BNP; there is your reason.

The fact is that no, my mum does not echo those principles. Everybody would love lower taxes, reality is it just isn't going to happen. Even discounting immigration, our population is growing and aging. This means that we need both more housing and more care facilities, both which cost huge amounts of money, which unfortunately we all have to chip in with. I'm unsure what you mean by 'smaller state' but i'm going to presume you mean removing all unneccessaries from the country, thus reducing the population. Well i'm afraid if you are advocating that, might as well try and chuck out all those unmentionable corners of society such as couples who reproduce despite having no means to actually care for those children. The majority of such people are white, 'english' people. I doubt you'd say throw them out. I won't accept this country is right wing, but I see it becoming increasingly xenophobic, particularly amongst the naive and it's frightening.

I've already addressed the majority of the points about the asylum seekers which choose to travel here, so again, I won't repeat myself because you don't agree and haven't listened. However, I will take umbrage with the point you made about these people not speaking english. Really, thats an appalling attitude considering our own citizens choose to move abroad to places in the EU such as Spain, France and even further afield and yet will not learn the language or customs of those countries. Somehow thats ok, because as long as we don't get the impact of it, it doesn't happen. I'm afraid it does, and particularly in Spain, there are certain areas where English people have taken over the and the spanish people won't live there. So really, before we start harping on about foreigners being in our country who don't speak our language etc, we need to think about where our citizens are and what impact they are having also. It's quite hypocritical.

We shouldn't reward people who haven't done anything. It's called a "reward" for a reason, these people have done nothing. Denying someone a reward or opportunity is not penalising, it is a fact of life and also a reason why our army happens to be one of the best in the world (consistently throughout it's history) due to it's high standards. The reason it is a reward is because they have done something and they are being thanked accordingly, hopefully with near-priority council housing. The whole reason behind social housing was for troops after WWI and later for returning troops from WWII, while the wars today maybe completely different, the idea should stay the same. It's attitudes like yours which put the education system in such a mess, reward the badly behaved kids for doing one good thing and forget about the students who consistently do what's expected of them.

Attitudes like mine? I'm sorry but my opinions on this subject and on the subject of the awards systems in schools are hugely different. You haven't heard my thoughts on that matter, and you are unlikely to in this thread because it's not about that, but please stop casting assumptions on my beliefs. I've noticed that people tend to do that around here, and I am slightly irritated at being painted as something I aren't.

Back to the point at hand, you cannot compare things which happened after WWI and WWII to now, the society is vastly different and families are not comparable to what we see now. The point is, from the sounds of it this soldier has left the army through choice and has thus left himself and his family homeless. Anybody who decides to leave a property and ask to be placed on a social housing register is given the same treatment. If you have another option for housing, no matter how bad that option may be, unfortunately you are expected to remain there until adequate housing can be found. To me, that's the correct method to use. For example, if a couple break up, and one half of the partnership is then left with the need to find somewhere else to live, you are given no preferrential treatment because where you are, no matter how bearable it is to live there on a personal level, you are adequately housed. Similarly in this case, he was adequately housed by the army and he chose to leave. Why others on that list, perhaps who have been waiting several months/years themselves should be penalised and dropped a few places due to his choice is beyond me.

[Hitman]

Ah, I see Spain has cropped up yet again. I agree that a lot of British in Spain do not speak Spanish, however there are a lot that do. Many Brits who have lived in Spain for a long time speak good Spanish and many try. Everybody I knew, friends of friends and friends of friend's friends all attempted to speak Spanish. You would not be given a free translator, for example if you were trying to get residence and you couldn't speak Spanish then you'd have to either hire a translator or try your best with what you know. I believe here in the UK they have translators on hand for free.

As for customs of those countries, have you ever been to Spain, or better yet lived in Spain? There aren't a huge amount of differences. Lots of Brits integrate with the Spanish lifestyle, when I went to a Spanish school a third of the kids were foreign, about three quarters of that third were English, which amounted to a lot of students. There are private English schools in Spain which a lot of the wealthy Brits send their children to, but guess what? A lot of Spanish kids attend these schools too, to improve their English. A third of the kids in English schools weren't English, they were Spanish or some other nationality.

I laughed at the English take over part. Benidorm, you can quite safely say, is probably one of the most British places in Spain, right? I lived there for a while and there are loads of Spanish people there - most of the Brits go on holiday there and not a huge amount live there. Everywhere I've been in Spain there have been British people and Spanish people, along with other nationalities living together. There aren't huge ghettos of British people. Please name a place that's totally taken over by Brits and no Spaniards will live there. Even Gran Alacant has loads of Brits, but there are also lots of Spanish there too. It's a lot less segregated unlike the UK, where you have estates of whites and estates of Muslims. My friend (who's Muslim) was pointing this out to me, saying that if one of my white friends ever visited his house he'd get beat up and vice versa. The urbanisation I lived on near Malaga had a lot of British but again there were a lot of Spanish people too.

When people pull out the 'Brits in Spain card' it's not the same when you think about it. Yes, there are some Brits who go to Spain and cause havoc - these are the holiday makers though. I'd say 98 out of 100 Brits who go to Spain try to integrate with their lifestyle. I'd probably but it higher than that. And you know what, the Spanish people don't particularly mind. In the long run it created more jobs and a load of money for the Spanish economy, before the "British invasion" as you may like to call it Spain was a rather poor country but now it's not.

[Tash.]

Ah, I see Spain has cropped up yet again. I agree that a lot of British in Spain do not speak Spanish, however there are a lot that do. Many Brits who have lived in Spain for a long time speak good Spanish and many try. Everybody I knew, friends of friends and friends of friend's friends all attempted to speak Spanish. You would not be given a free translator, for example if you were trying to get residence and you couldn't speak Spanish then you'd have to either hire a translator or try your best with what you know. I believe here in the UK they have translators on hand for free.

As for customs of those countries, have you ever been to Spain, or better yet lived in Spain? There aren't a huge amount of differences. Lots of Brits integrate with the Spanish lifestyle, when I went to a Spanish school a third of the kids were foreign, about three quarters of that third were English, which amounted to a lot of students. There are private English schools in Spain which a lot of the wealthy Brits send their children to, but guess what? A lot of Spanish kids attend these schools too, to improve their English. A third of the kids in English schools weren't English, they were Spanish or some other nationality.

I laughed at the English take over part. Benidorm, you can quite safely say, is probably one of the most British places in Spain, right? I lived there for a while and there are loads of Spanish people there - most of the Brits go on holiday there and not a huge amount live there. Everywhere I've been in Spain there have been British people and Spanish people, along with other nationalities living together. There aren't huge ghettos of British people. Please name a place that's totally taken over by Brits and no Spaniards will live there. Even Gran Alacant has loads of Brits, but there are also lots of Spanish there too. It's a lot less segregated unlike the UK, where you have estates of whites and estates of Muslims. My friend (who's Muslim) was pointing this out to me, saying that if one of my white friends ever visited his house he'd get beat up and vice versa. The urbanisation I lived on near Malaga had a lot of British but again there were a lot of Spanish people too.

When people pull out the 'Brits in Spain card' it's not the same when you think about it. Yes, there are some Brits who go to Spain and cause havoc - these are the holiday makers though. I'd say 98 out of 100 Brits who go to Spain try to integrate with their lifestyle. I'd probably but it higher than that. And you know what, the Spanish people don't particularly mind. In the long run it created more jobs and a load of money for the Spanish economy, before the "British invasion" as you may like to call it Spain was a rather poor country but now it's not.

Thank you for the informative post on Spain and it's customs. You have a good stand point on this, having lived in both countries. However, as you can see in my post, Spain was one of many examples I could have used. You seem to have managed to put a positive spin on a lot of things which I would consider to be bad. I didn't actually say there were parts of Spain where english people lived and now absolutely no spanish people live there. Similarly in this country, there isn't anywhere that is solely composed of immigrants, people would have you believe this was true though. My post wasn't meant to demonise the British people who choose to live abroad, it was meant to simply point out that before you start criticising those who come and live here, you have to realise that the British aren't always welcome wherever we move either.

[Hitman]

Thank you for the informative post on Spain and it's customs. You have a good stand point on this, having lived in both countries. However, as you can see in my post, Spain was one of many examples I could have used. You seem to have managed to put a positive spin on a lot of things which I would consider to be bad. I didn't actually say there were parts of Spain where english people lived and now absolutely no spanish people live there. Similarly in this country, there isn't anywhere that is solely composed of immigrants, people would have you believe this was true though. My post wasn't meant to demonise the British people who choose to live abroad, it was meant to simply point out that before you start criticising those who come and live here, you have to realise that the British aren't always welcome wherever we move either.

I thought this, "there are certain areas where English people have taken over the and the spanish people won't live there" meant no Spanish lived in certain areas where the British were. Anyway, regarding other countries I don't know, maybe it is like that. It's just people tend to use the argument that the Brits going to Spain are like the immigrants coming to the UK, it's not a good comparison because most of the immigrants coming to the UK are looking for jobs or a better quality life. Nearly all British immigrants going to Spain are going for the weather. I suppose what I'm trying to say is Britain is a rich country, whereas Poland, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan are not rich countries, so the British leaving Britain for Spain have money (Spain is becoming quite expensive in fact) but the immigrants leaving their country don't have money due to their country being poor, so when they get to the UK they have nothing. When times are getting tough in Spain lots of the British come back to Britain, they don't use the Spanish benefits system whereas immigrants (where eligible) will use the very generous benefits system because going back to their home country is worse.

I'm useless at explaining things so I hope I explained my point in an understandable way.