This business in Calais

[Jairzinho]

 

By and large capital cities aren't as friendly as the rest of a country. The only capital cities I've ever been where the people have really stood out for their friendliness is probably Istanbul, Berlin or Dublin. Regional cities I find the best and rural places by far the best for hospitality.

 

 

There is definitely something in this. Capital cities are often, obviously, the most closely tied to the establishment. I remember from travelling around Spain a couple of years ago just how much people from everywhere other than Madrid detested Madrid. I don't just mean people from Catalonia or the Basque country either, people in fucking Valladolid, Salamanca, etc. Me and my mate were constantly told how stuck up, boring, and rude they'd be. 

[Guest Super Sub]

I've said it once about these French and their bloody blockades and I'll say it again. Why the fuck couldn't have they done this in 1939? The amount of hassle they would have caused.

[Guest Slim(fast)Shady]

Talentless, vapid, fat, omni present, unfunny, more chins than a Chinese phonebook, shit programmes, shit films, annoying accent, eyes the size of atoms, Brit Awards, twatty, Southern, Cunt & Stacey, A cunt of their own, shit song with Dizzee cunt, W*st H&m supporting fat fucking waste of oxygen cunt.

 

Sufficient?

Best post seen in years!!

[General Dryness]

Am I the only one that finds the Parisians alright? I found them reasonably helpful when I used my limited French to ask them something. They weren't wankers anyway. Any of the pubs (rip off for a pint) that I went into contained pretty sound people. Likewise, I find New Yorkers to be sound as fuck with a boss sense of humour. Maybe, I'm just hard as fuck that they don't want to piss me off :)

 

By and large capital cities aren't as friendly as the rest of a country. The only capital cities I've ever been where the people have really stood out for their friendliness is probably Istanbul, Berlin or Dublin. Regional cities I find the best and rural places by far the best for hospitality.

 

London is way more unfriendly than Paris imo - can you imagine a French bloke asking a few Cockneys for directions to the nearest Travelodge!

Yeah, away from the touristy areas Parisienne are sound. I've had a couple of week long holidays there, and if you go to a bar or restaurant more than once they treat you like regulars.

[Red Phoenix]

Hmmm.....worth a laugh I guess.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sud592ihrZY

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Some good crap-cutting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/robin-lustig/calais-migrants-refugees_b_7909630.html

 

Perhaps you'll think I'm naïve, but I still believe that when you have a debate, it's a good idea to have some facts readily to hand.

So here are some facts that you might find useful next time you're thinking about that "swarm" (David Cameron's word, not mine) of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from north Africa. Why not keep them handy (the facts, not the migrants) on your smartphone, or print them out and shove them in a pocket.

Q.1: Why do they all want to come to the UK?

A: They don't. Far more migrants head for Germany and Sweden, which dealt with nearly half of all asylum applications into the EU last year. The ones at Calais are a tiny fraction of the overall number, probably no more than 3,000 out of a total of well over 175,000 who have entered the EU so far this year.

Q.2: So why are the numbers higher than ever?

A: They're not - according to the EU's own figures, there were 672,000 EU asylum applications in 1992 (when there were only 15 members of the EU), compared to 626,000 last year (when the EU had grown to 28 members with a total population of 500 million). It is true, however, that numbers had dropped substantially in the interim. (Click here for the detailed figures.)

Q.3: How many actually apply for asylum in the UK?

A: According to the latest government statistics: "There were 25,020 asylum applications in the year ending March 2015, an increase of 5% compared with the previous year (23,803). The number of applications remains low relative to the peak number of applications in 2002 (84,132)."

Q.4: Why aren't the migrants just sent back to where they came from if they're not genuine asylum-seekers?

A: Because often we have no way of telling where they came from. Many have no documents, either because they have destroyed them, or because they have been handed over to traffickers who have disappeared.

Q.5: But they can't all be from Syria, can they?

A: No, but about a fifth of the total are. The other main known countries of origin are Afghanistan, Kosovo and Eritrea. The biggest increase in asylum applications last year was from Ukrainians.

Q.6: Why don't Syria's neighbours look after Syrian refugees?

A: They do. According to the UN, there are more than two million registered refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and another 1.7million in Turkey.

Q.7: If some of the migrants who enter the EU are genuine refugees, why don't they apply for asylum in the first country they get to?

A: Huge numbers do exactly that: the number of applications more than doubled last year in both Italy (the main entry point for migrants who have made it across the Mediterranean) and Hungary (entry point for mainly Asian migrants who originally entered the EU from Turkey).

Q.8: So who are the ones in Calais?

A: A huge mix of nationalities, most of whom have a particular reason for wanting to get to the UK: they may have relatives or friends who are already here, they may be English-speakers who believe they're more likely to find work here, or they may have heard that there's already a substantial number of others from their home country who have already settled here.

Q.9: Isn' t the real reason that they know they'll get benefits as soon as they make it across the Channel?

A: No. According to the independent fact-checking organisation Full Fact, most citizens of non-EU countries who come to live in the UK have no recourse to public funds in the initial years after they arrive, nor are asylum-seekers eligible for welfare benefits while their claims are pending.

Q.10: So why are the media making such a huge fuss about the migrants in Calais?

A: Good question. Partly because they're easy to find and easy to get to - and those long lines of stranded lorries make great TV pictures. So do the desperate images of desperate people risking their lives as they try to leap onto trucks or trains as they head for the Channel Tunnel. And also, of course, because the story feeds into the current debate about the UK's membership of the EU and overall immigration policy. (Plus parliament is on holiday and we're all bored to tears with the Labour leadership contest.)

Do I have the answer to the global migration crisis? No, but here are some suggestions that might help: set up proper, EU-run processing centres at the main entry points: southern Italy, Greece, Hungary. Genuine refugees should be offered asylum according to an agreed quota calculated according to population and GDP. Those deemed non-eligible for asylum would be offered a choice: wait in a camp until your number comes up, and then go where you're sent -- or go home.

The tragedy is that so many people are so desperate that they're prepared to die in an attempt to find a safe place to live. And our response is so blinkered that all we can think of is building higher fences.

[KopOut]

'Migrants' they aren't. Migrants travel in an orderly manner, use proper channels to access new places of work etc.

 

We're talking refugees who are desperate to flee from whatever shithole is being systematically destroyed by idiot factions - sanctioned by big business and government.

 

Tragic yes - but an open border policy is suicide, as Obama is finding out. Trump might be a balloon about to pop, but he tells it like it is.

 

The world's going to hell in a handcart.

[Nunavut Patrick]

Am I the only one that finds the Parisians alright? I found them reasonably helpful when I used my limited French to ask them something. They weren't wankers anyway. Any of the pubs (rip off for a pint) that I went into contained pretty sound people. Likewise, I find New Yorkers to be sound as fuck with a boss sense of humour. Maybe, I'm just hard as fuck that they don't want to piss me off :)

 

By and large capital cities aren't as friendly as the rest of a country. The only capital cities I've ever been where the people have really stood out for their friendliness is probably Istanbul, Berlin or Dublin. Regional cities I find the best and rural places by far the best for hospitality.

 

London is way more unfriendly than Paris imo - can you imagine a French bloke asking a few Cockneys for directions to the nearest Travelodge!

I have been to Paris quite a few times, never had a problem with the local Parisiens, always been friendly and the rude french waiter I have yet to encounter. The Metro is far easier to negoitate than the overpric and over crowded Tube.

 

I also find the Japanese and Chinese tourists a laugh with their selfie sticks and constant picture taking.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I have been to Paris quite a few times, never had a problem with the local Parisiens, always been friendly and the rude french waiter I have yet to encounter. The Metro is far easier to negoitate than the overpric and over crowded Tube.

 

I also find the Japanese and Chinese tourists a laugh with their selfie sticks and constant picture taking.

Last time I went, there was one waiter (obviously having had experience of British customers) went to great lengths to ensure that I knew that my steak tartare was uncooked before he'd serve it too me.  Good bloke.  (Fucking nice food, too.)

[Mook]

I thought the people in Paris were unfriendly cunts, on par with the London natives. The Romans weren't particularly nice either. The people in Barcelona and New York couldn't have been more helpful on the other hand.

 

People say the locals in Edinburgh are miserable and there's a bit of truth in it, so I go out of my way to help tourists to the extent that I'll even have sex with them if they happen to be hot females. 'Going the extra mile' as my boss would say.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

While Philip Hammond is still blowing his dog-whistle for his racist "base" here are some useful facts.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refugee-crisis

 

When you’re facing the world’s biggest refugee crisis since the second world war, it helps to have a sober debate about how to respond. But to do that, you need facts and data – two things that the British migration debate has lacked this summer. Theresa May got the ball rolling in May, when she claimed on Radio 4 that the vast majority of migrants to Europe are Africans travelling for economic reasons. The media has followed suit, one example being the Daily Mail’s unsubstantiated recent assertion that seven in 10 migrants at Calais will reach the UK.

Foreign secretary Philip Hammond this week not only repeated May’s claims about African economic migrants, but portrayed them as marauders who would soon hasten the collapse of European civilisation. Hammond, like many people, could do with some actual statistics about the migration crisis. Here are 10 of the key ones:

62%

Far from being propelled by economic migrants, this crisis is mostly about refugees. The assumption by the likes of Hammond, May and others is that the majority of those trying to reach Europe are fleeing poverty, which is not considered by the international community as a good enough reason to move to another country. Whereas in fact, by the end of July, 62% of those who had reached Europe by boat this year were from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan, according to figures compiled by the UN. These are countries torn apart by war, dictatorial oppression, and religious extremism – and, in Syria’s case, all three. Their citizens almost always have the legal right to refuge in Europe. And if you add to the mix those coming from Darfur, Iraq, Somalia, and some parts of Nigeria – then the total proportion of migrants likely to qualify for asylum rises to well over 70%.

1%

If you read the British press, you’d think that Calais was the major battleground of the European migrant crisis, and that Britain was the holy grail of its protagonists. In reality, the migrants at Calais account for as little as 1% of those who have arrived in Europe so far this year. Estimates suggest that between 2,000-5,000 migrants have reached Calais, which is between 1% and 2.5% of the more than 200,000 who have landed in Italy and Greece. Just as importantly, there is no evidence to suggest that as many as seven in 10 have reached Britain after arriving in Calais. The Daily Mail admitted this several paragraphs into its article.

0.027%

Hammond said that the migrants would speed the collapse of the European social order. In reality, the number of migrants to have arrived so far this year (200,000) is so minuscule that it constitutes just 0.027% of Europe’s total population of 740 million. The world’s wealthiest continent can easily handle such a comparatively small influx.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

 A young Syrian refugee in the Greek island of Kos. Photograph: YANNIS BEHRAKIS/REUTERS 1.2 million

There are countries with social infrastructure at breaking point because of the refugee crisis – but they aren’t in Europe. The most obvious example is Lebanon, whichhouses 1.2 million Syrian refugees within a total population of roughly 4.5 million. To put that in context, a country that is more than 100 times smaller than the EU has already taken in more than 50 times as many refugees as the EU will even consider resettling in the future. Lebanon has a refugee crisis. Europe – and, in particular, Britain – does not.

£36.95

Many claim that Britain is a coveted destination for migrants because of its generous benefits system. Aside from the reality that most migrants have little prior knowledge of the exact nature of each European country’s asylum system, it is not true that the UK is particularly beneficent. Each asylum seeker in Britain gets a meagre £36.95 to live on (and they are not usually allowed to work to supplement this sum). In France, whose policies are supposedly driving up the numbers at Calais, migrants actually receive substantially more. According to the Asylum Information Database, asylum seekers in France receive up to £56.62 a week. Germany and Sweden – the two most popular migrant destinations – pay out £35.21 and £36.84 a week respectively, only fractionally less than Britain.

50%

In the dog-whistle rhetoric of Hammond and Theresa May, the archetypal contemporary migrant in Europe is from Africa. But again, that’s not true. This year, according to UN figures, 50% alone are from two non-African countries: Syria (38%) and Afghanistan (12%). When migrants from Pakistan, Iraq and Iran are added into the equation, it becomes clear that the number of African migrants is significantly less than half. Even so, as discussed above, many of them – especially those from Eritrea, Darfur, and Somalia – have legitimate claims to refugee status.

4%

Last autumn, the EU opted to suspend full-scale maritime rescue operations in the Mediterranean in the belief that their presence was encouraging more migrants to risk the sea journey from Libya to Europe. In reality, people kept on coming. In fact, there was a 4% year-on-year increase during the months that the rescue missions were on hiatus. Over 27,800 tried the journey in 2015, or died in the attempt, until operations were reinstated in May, according to figures from the International Organisation for Migration. Only 26,740 tried it in 2014. The disparity suggests that migrants were either unaware of the rescue operations in the first place, or simply unbothered by their suspension – a thesis borne out by my own interviews. “I don’t think that even if they decided to bomb migrant boats it would change peoples’ decision to go,” said Abu Jana, a Syrian I met as he was planning to make the sea voyage earlier this year.

25,870

Contrary to the perception of the UK as the high altar of immigration, it is not a particularly major magnet for refugees. In 2014, just 25,870 people sought asylum in the UK, and only 10,050 were accepted. Germany (97275), France (68500), Sweden (39,905) and Italy (35,180) were all far more affected. When the ratings are calculated as a proportion to population size, the UK slips even further down the table – behind Belgium, Holland and Austria. If the ratings were calculated on 2015 rates, then even impoverished Greece would rise above the UK in the table. Just as tellingly, the UK has welcomed just 187 Syrians through legal mechanisms at the last count. Turkey has around 1.6 million.

€11bn

Hammond and David Cameron argue that the solution to migration is to increase deportations. They believe this will save Britain money, as less cash will be spent on paying each asylum seeker £36.95 per week. However, this strategy ignores the cost of deportations – whose alleged financial cost could rival that of the asylum seekers’ benefits bill. According to a series of investigations by the website The Migrant Files, as many as €11bn have been spent on repatriating migrants to their countries of origin since 2000. A further billion has been blown on Europe-wide coordination efforts to secure European borders – money that could have been spent on integrating migrants into European society.

-76,439

Despite the hysteria, the number of refugees in the UK has actually fallen by 76,439 since 2011. That’s according to Britain’s Refugee Council, which crunched the numbers gleaned from UN data and found that the number of refugees in the UK fell from 193,600 to 117,161 in the past four years. By comparison, the proportion of refugees housed by developing countries in the past 10 years has risen, according to the UN, from 70% to 86%. Britain could be doing far more.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

This is what happens, see - you let all these asylum-seekers in and within a few generations they start bad-mouthing the Government!

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/your-response-to-migrant-crisis-is-appalling-british-jews-tell-cameron-a2487361.html

 

Leading British Jews today branded David Cameron’s handling of the Calais migrant crisis “appalling”.

In a strongly worded letter they compared the plight of the migrants to that of Jewish refugees who fled Hitler.

Two hundred people, including 20 rabbis, signed the letter calling on the Prime Minister to be more sympathetic. The signatories criticised Mr Cameron for using the term “swarms” to describe those trying to cross the Channel.

“Many of us in the Jewish community are appalled by the UK’s response to the ongoing situation in Calais,” said the letter, sent from the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE). “Our experience as refugees is not so distant that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be demonised for seeking safety.”

This week Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond described migrants attempting to cross over to Britain as “marauding”. Last week about 200 tried to storm the Channel Tunnel, while hauliers say drivers have been threatened by stowaways. Britain has paid for a £7 million security fence.

The letter said: “People fleeing conflict and persecution are not to blame for the crisis in Calais; neither is our welfare system, nor the French government. Above all, we in the UK are not the victims here; we are not being invaded by a ‘swarm’.” The Jewish  leaders said refugees were usually seeking a safer society and were not attracted by benefits.

Britain accepted almost 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938 and 1939. Among those saved were artist Frank Auerbach, now 84, and Labour peer Lord Dubs, 83.

Dr Edie Friedman, executive director of JCORE, said: “The Jewish refugee experience is still a vivid memory for many in our community. 

“The Government’s failure to even consider helping those fleeing conflict and persecution today shames us as a nation. Rather than shut ourselves off from the world, it is vitally important that we work with the rest of Europe to create safe and legal routes for refugees to claim asylum.”

Since June, nine people have died in the Channel Tunnel while attempting to gain access to the UK. However, 2,000 have died in the Mediterranean trying to enter Europe by sea.

Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner said: “No country has a perfect record on immigration. No country could do, such is the complexity of the issue and the lives of those it affects. 

“We can, however, take lessons from the very country so many Jews fled from in the last century — Germany. One German MP has taken in two  Eritrean refugees, and is helping them find jobs.”

[rubble-rouser]

This is simple.

 

Of course immigration 'threatens our living standards'. Just as our western way of life threatens living standards the world over, hereby propping up unstable regimes that come crashing down, creating conflict and poverty and sending people running for refuge. 

 

The fact of a stupid fucking line in a map should never be an excuse for allowing suffering to be perpetuated.

 

For a capitalist politician - whose party espouses globalisation -  to seek to allow people to die because he refuses to face the consequences of cheap foreign labour, Empire and western-sponsored wars is either idiotic, craven  or both.

 

The western world cannot survive in its current form - and nor should it. we have it great here, but we have no right to it.

 

These are people - if we have to give up our luxuries to let people live, so fucking be it.  

[Jairzinho]

We could always trying helping them to make their own countries a bit less shit. As opposed to doing the complete opposite.

[rubble-rouser]

I am just genuinely at the point of total and utter despair when I thin of world and national politics. It's all fucking shit. Little gobshites propping up big evil gobshites just to keep hold of the little bit more plastic or chocolate or luxury fucking goods than they have over the guy next to them. Like a 7 year old kid who just wants to have a bigger slice of cake than his 8 year old sister and screaming if they can't have it. That's what the Western view of the world is.

 

Anyone who watches Geordie Shore should be put in a camp and replaced by someone with the wherewithal to cross continents with no money - the kind of individual who might contribute to society.  

[rubble-rouser]

(I might be a bit depressed)

[ZonkoVille77]

We could always trying helping them to make their own countries a bit less shit. As opposed to doing the complete opposite.

Yup. This is the exact argument I use everytime I have any sort of discussion about refugees. If my country was being robbed, bombed, poisoned and the quality of life was non existent then of course I'm going to flee it.

[Strontium]

I don't trust any politician who supports free movement of trade, free movement of capital but baulks at the free movement of people.

[Jairzinho]

Yup. This is the exact argument I use everytime I have any sort of discussion about refugees. If my country was being robbed, bombed, poisoned and the quality of life was non existent then of course I'm going to flee it.

 

And I wouldn't feel an enormous amount of guilt about fleeing to somewhere that had colonised my country, or recently bombed my country, or allowed their corporations to recolonise my country.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

And I wouldn't feel an enormous amount of guilt about fleeing to somewhere that had colonised my country, or recently bombed my country, or allowed their corporations to recolonise my country.

 

Exactly. 

 

Your average jack shit doesn't realise this though, they read the Daily mail etc and think those horrible nasty refugees are going to invade the UK and bum them. They are too wrapped up in their own shitty media driven lives to give a fuck about people suffering. 

 

We have quite a few thousand refugees/Migrants who have been placed in Bielefeld where I live whilst they are waiting for their paperwork to be sorted out. Whilst I was shopping the other day some superior looking fat white bloke handed me a petition to sign about getting them removed. I asked him if he had another copy of all the signatures he had gathered and he told me he hadn't. Should have seen his face when I ripped it up! 

[Jairzinho]

Haha.

[Dr Nowt]

We have quite a few thousand refugees/Migrants who have been placed in Bielefeld where I live whilst they are waiting for their paperwork to be sorted out. Whilst I was shopping the other day some superior looking fat white bloke handed me a petition to sign about getting them removed. I asked him if he had another copy of all the signatures he had gathered and he told me he hadn't. Should have seen his face when I ripped it up! 

 

Supoib!

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Haha.

 

 

Supoib!

 

If he had looked at the two beggars outside the local Lidl supermarket where this took place he'd have noticed they were German Punks. He was shouting about calling the police and that he had noted my number plate as I was packing my shopping in the boot. No surprise that I haven't had a visit. These cunts do my noggin in lads, there is no crime reported anywhere in Bielefeld due to Refugees/Immigrants and the money which is used to put them up in the local refugee centre/Schools etc is from the Government and Charities. On this petition written at the top in capitals was the sentence "Foreigners out." 

 

Fucking racist imbecile. 

[Harry Squatter]

Am I the only one that finds the Parisians alright? I found them reasonably helpful when I used my limited French to ask them something. They weren't wankers anyway. Any of the pubs (rip off for a pint) that I went into contained pretty sound people. Likewise, I find New Yorkers to be sound as fuck with a boss sense of humour. Maybe, I'm just hard as fuck that they don't want to piss me off :)

 

By and large capital cities aren't as friendly as the rest of a country. The only capital cities I've ever been where the people have really stood out for their friendliness is probably Istanbul, Berlin or Dublin. Regional cities I find the best and rural places by far the best for hospitality.

 

London is way more unfriendly than Paris imo - can you imagine a French bloke asking a few Cockneys for directions to the nearest Travelodge!

Never understood all this French hatred, I know a few French people living over here and they are sound. Paris was fine when I went and no more rude or unfriendly than any other large city I've visited. Russians are the most rude arrogant twats I've met on my travels.

[Harry Squatter]

Eritrea is lovely, if you do military service you are kept in and made to build stuff for the government that they don't want to pay people for. Sometimes they can make a 2 year service last 12 years. Plus if you fuck off out th country illegally you will be put into prison upon return, unless you write a letter of apology to the government.