“…what would happen if the Poles and other Eastern European workers suddenly stopped coming over to do the menial work that we won't do? “
We could then point out to those who “will not do” the menial work that jobs are available and they can either get out of bed in the morning to do them or face having their benefits stopped. The students to which sp refers who, apparently, used to crop the cabbages now have so much money they can get "hammerede" at the weekend instead of working. Perhaps the amount of cash they are being left with also needs a lool. As Mr Farage correctly pointed out on QT, the cabbages in the East Anglian fields that the newcomers are picking did not remain to rot in the fields prior to their arrival. Somebody must have gathered them. As I have said many, many times before, to pay millions of people to lay in bed and then have to import labour to do essential work is absolute madness.
As far as multi-lingual schools go, I have done some work in schools where large numbers of pupils do not have a good grasp of basic English and I can tell you that it is an absolute nightmare for the teachers. I have been in classes where they have had five (yes, five) classroom assistants whose sole job it is to help the children understand what is being said. If anybody believes this is not having an effect on the education of all the pupils they are being extremely naïve.
Ms Beard is a professor of “Classical Studies” at Newnham College Cambridge. She , probably lives in an agreeable East Anglian village where everybody knows everybody and where people are still called “the newcomers” unless they’ve lived there for at least thirty years. Apart from brief forays into Cambridge between lectures, I doubt she sees much of some of the larger towns in the East of England. I expect she has about as much idea of life in Boston as I have of some of her obscure classical literature. She is described in the Times Literary Supplement as “…is a wickedly subversive commentator on both the modern and the ancient world.” I did not notice any of her subversion on Thursday evening. Although I know she was referring to a report I’m not sure she is best placed to comment on Boston’s problems. Mrs Bull by contrast lives and works in Boston, has family connections there and has a Polish background. She also put her points across perfectly reasonably with the benefit of personal experience, so I know whose opinion I would prefer to rely on.
I have read Boston’s “Task and Finish” report which was referred to in QT and some of its conclusions and recommendations are eye-opening. Too much to go into here, but just a brief snippet:
“The population of that small town has risen There is no doubt that the scale of in-migration we have experienced means that Boston is now a very different place today than it was a few years ago. Community tensions have increased and are reflected by how parts of our community feel towards other parts. There is a strain on local services and we are often the subject of high media interest because of the impacts that migration has had locally.”
The fact that such a report has to be commissioned at all speaks volumes.