Tuesday 31 August 2010

Britain's welcome

I was speaking with a retired man today who had worked all over the world. My obvious statement was that England must be the best place to live if he has chosen to live here. I know there are lots of other influences on where we live and he answered that he prefered Australia and Brazil.

I know that there is racism in this country so I asked if he had met racism in other countries and he said that he hadn't. I mentioned the word limey but this did not stir any memories. I got the impression that nobody had ever questioned this man's ability to live anywhere he wished. I believe that if we have the ability to fund ourselves whether with work or with savings, we should be able to live anywhere we wish. If you accept this for emigration then it isn't too difficult to put forward the case for immigration, unless of course you are not as welcoming (according to the person I met) as people in many countries of the world.

Change the world

2 comments:

  1. I assume you mean 'immigration' in the second reference.
    I'm afraid you gloss over this subject Mike.
    How do you resolve integration of large numbers with completely different languages, lifestyles, ethics and morality; swamping of services, and benefits; employment, health and pension entitlements etc etc?

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  2. Yes I did - thanks. I have corrected it. The nature of a blog is a very brief summary but there is something to be said for getting over one idea. Hundreds more are needed but it's a good idea to start from simple principles. All of the things you mention are encountered by one person apart from the "swamping" term but that's fairly emotive. It seems that we can have as many fee-paying overseas students in our universities because they pay their way. The universities don't talk about swamping at all.

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