Even Mr Titan won't be able to answer that one for him.

The "non-skilled" argument is misleading and is often confused with "poor grasp of the English language", they can't speak very good English so they must be thick.

I've written before about this but I'll give you two examples of my own experiences when working within two different client businesses...

1. Was in an agency when two people came to the reception desk, male and female partners, the male explained that they had literally got the bus straight from Hull to the agency to start the job that they had arranged via the phone from their home (I think they came from Poland), the male was offered a job in a factory as a picker, the female could speak very little English and was told she'd be working "in the fields" tomorrow. they both accepted these minimum wage jobs but the male then pointed out to the interviewer that his partner had a degree in engineering and was taking extra tuition to improve her English - a not uncommon experience according to the person in the agency that I was meeting with, she wasn't unskliied or thick, she just didn't have a working grasp of English - YET.

2. The next day I was at the client site where the woman had been offered the job "in the fields" and in the office that I was sat in was a young man in his late twenties speaking on the phone in an Eastern European language and making copious notes. The Lithuanian girl who I was training eventually explained that he was one of their veg prep guys, spent all day long picking out mis-shaped carrots from conveyor belts so that the supermarkets didn't reject them - they'd had an approach from a Russian business who wanted to deal with them and had asked around the workforce for anyone with good Russian skills, he stepped forward, was Polish but spoke excellent Russian as he'd studied it at University, later they found that he also had an engineering degree, he is now on their maintenance crew, he too wasn't thick or unskilled, just placed in a low skilled job by the agency.

Well indeed.

Although it's precisely the sort of assertion that is illustrative of how difficult having the discussion is.

and wtf do the two issues have in common?

Well indeed.

But it's close to a pretty standard anti-immigration approach that works primarily on the basis of simply trying to smear the 'other' side.

FWIW, I'm not convinced by some of the arguments about why we need immigration: for instance, if we need it to fun pensions, then that relies on economic activity and if we need that, then would it not first be best to ensure that everyone of working age etc who is already here is in a position to be economically active? In other words, that there are jobs available for them.

I do have concerns about the infrastructure coping too.

I also understand why some people may feel, in effect, that their culture is under threat – although I think that a lot of that is because immigration of non-white people is more visible, thus making it easier to blame immigration/migration for what has happened to English culture (and I think it's primarily some of the English who feel that their culture is under threat) for many other things that have happened in the last 30 years that have watered down that same culture, and which also come in the wake of a sense, within England, of wondering what our culture/roile is in the wake of the end of empire.

But it's particularly important to note that you[i can[/i have such concerns without getting into a state of being racist. And these are all, in my opinion, issues that need seriously talking through in a calm manner.

Whether that will ever happen remains, I think, to be seen.

What is "British Culture" though ?

What element have we historically had that has made us unique from any other culture in the world ?

And what element of the "culture" have we lost ?

migration/immigration has enriched society, far more than we realise, and as for culture, I am sure Dally/Titan think the Elgin Marbles are British. And it wouldn't surprise me to find that they'd both be shocked that none of them are described as a "golly"!!

The only lost marbles appear to be yours.

you can't even lie consistently

Indeed. I have found myself in many a heated discussion about immigration. People ranting and me putting them straight. When I tell them I am an immigrant, not from the EU either but with my Hull accent you wouldn't know, I get "well I don't mean people like you" - well who the fook do you mean then???

I think cultural influences from the media have a far greater effect on British culture than immigration. Rap music/culture in particular has resulted in white kids from all over the country talking like they come "Straight Outta Compton".

There's a reason I said "English culture".



I do think that at least some of what is happening is to do with being in a recently (comparatively) post-empire state.

It might have been called the British Empire, but certainly from a cultural perspective – it was English. Where the Scots, Welsh and even the Northern Irish still, in different ways, battled away to retain their own cultural identity, I don't think that the English did in the same way.

Just compare how differently the assorted countries' saints days have been marked over the last decades.

The English didn't need to big up St George's Day as a way of affirming cultural identity: our place in the world had, in effect, done that for us.

But that's gone. Even politicians remain wedded to an insane idea of our being players at a global top table, as though it's vital to the country as a whole.

Take that and combine it with the massive – and very speedy – changes in the country over the last 30 years (the loss of vast amounts of skilled, manual jobs; local and regional identities subsumed to brands and franchises that have homogenised; the dehumanising aspects of technology; the increasing Americanisation of entertainment etc etc) and I think you have a lot of people who feel a bit lost, and insecure, and who blame the one thing that they can most obviously see and be aware of.

Although it's worth noting that they don't just blame immigration. I suspect that many of the same people will blame some or all of the following as well: chavs, benefit 'culture', the EU, the demise of corporal punishment ...

And of course, there are some who make the most of that for whatever reason. And as you yourself have pointed out, more than once, most of the mainstream media plays up to all those things for various reasons. And, if you keep repeating it long enough ...

One could, as a very recent example, cite an article in the [iSpectator[/i by Edwina Currie, on food banks, blaming the rise of such for the demise of small, local shops. This is patent bonkersness – quite apart from anything else, that demise began when she was in government and planning permission was granted, willy nilly, to all the major supermarkets. There's a reason that the percentage of the UK grocery retail trade in the hands of the major supermarket players went from 20% to 80% in a generation and a half. And it isn't because of food banks.

The [iSpectator[/i ended up having to give space for a vast correction article by the Trussell Trust – but the overwhelming amount of comments after that correction piece were not about the fictions and fantasies and inaccuracies of Currie's original piece (and she's repeated some of the same fictions elsewhere, including on that 'Benefits Street row' programme), but about how food banks were clearly a problem because people had to be referred to them by 'professionals' in various fields and obviously those 'professionals' were public sector workers and therefore, part of the engorged state and the problem themselves.

And bear in mind that this was the [iSpectator[/i – not the [iDaily Sport[/i of even the [iDaily Mail[/i. Our standard of public discourse is, in general, absolutely atrocious.