Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

My husband, nephew and son all went to the same south London selective grammar school.

When my husband was there in the 70's, they had the token black kid.

When my son was there in the noughties, Asian kids were in the majority. To be fair, they were there on merit, having outsmarted the local white kids in the entrance exam. The white kids all seemed to be going to the local comprehensive. To put it into further perspective, it was probably the Conservative government of the 80's and early 90's which had allowed the parents of those kids to settle in the UK, and I guess those folks are hard working and high achievers themselves for their kids to have achieved.

My nephew is now in the situation of having 3 year old twins, and he's unsure whether they'll be allowed into the nearest primary school because all the places are being filled by people whose name ends in 'sczy' or suchlike, and every London borough supposedly needs one new school to cope with the influx of eastern Europeans.

If the twins are able to go to the same grammar school in 8 years time, it'll be interesting to see whether the other kids in the school are of eastern European extraction.

You have to question the long term benefits of low skillset mass immigration.

The Asian (Indian) influx of the 70s was largely from Uganda after they were given 90 days to leave by Idi Amin. They essentially ran all the domestic trade in Uganda, as well as in other countries such as Malawi and Zambia. Many had been squirrelling money out of those countries for years, so unlike the current migrants, they had the means and experience to start up again in this country.

The remainers are trying to meddle on all this ............

UK must rescue itself from abrupt Brexit 'disaster', Hague says

LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Britain is heading towards a Brexit disaster that could amount to the biggest muddle in its history unless finance minister Philip Hammond succeeds in achieving a less abrupt exit from the EU, former Conservative Party leader William Hague said.

Since May's failed gamble on a snap election last month, the future of Brexit has been thrown into question with squabbling between her ministers over the pace, tone and terms of Britain's departure from the club it joined in 1973.

"There is the clear potential for Brexit to become the occasion of the greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the Government and the Brexit project itself," Hague wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

Hague, who campaigned to remain a member of the European Union, praised Chancellor of the Exchequer Hammond for seeking such an approach to the EU divorce.

The United Kingdom Independence Party, which opposes EU membership, has called on Hammond to resign for what it said was a plan to derail Brexit.

"The anti-Brexit faction in the government, led by reprieved Chancellor Philip Hammond, are now actively promoting confusion and uncertainty, as part of their strategy to undermine Brexit negotiations and reverse the process," UKIP said.

Anarchists and the Left aren't the only ones who enjoy damaging property, good luck to Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, London if there is a stitch up and talked about action is carried out; extremes of all colours were planning before and after the vote.

http://iht.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

A reasonable appraisal of the glories of Brexit.


No Dunkirk can avert a ‘Brexit’ ruin

The narrative about taking back control from the European Union is already colliding with dismal facts.

How I wish that Christopher Nolan’s new film, “Dunkirk,” had not been released at this moment in history. The reviewers have been near unanimous in their praise: searing, complex, uncompromising about the savagery of war and death. Yet the essential message of the film, with its narrative of heroic retreat in order to fight another day, cannot help but feed the national pride in Britain’s capacity to triumph eventually, no matter what the odds.

Nothing could be less helpful to our collective psyche as the country blunders toward “Brexit.” We hear much about American exceptionalism, but Britain feels it, too. We are the nation of empire, whose ancestors once controlled a quarter of the globe; we are the mother of parliaments; we stood alone against Hitler; we have not been conquered for a thousand years. We feel remarkable.
The Brexit vote was driven by the belief that Britain was hobbled by being shackled to a moribund, bureaucratic group of nations. The Brexiteers convinced enough of the electorate that we needed only to be set free from Europe, with its tiresome regulations, restrictions and pesky immigrants, to become a proud, swashbuckling, dominant and richer country again.
This promise is a stunning misunderstanding of who we are, what we are capable of and where we stand in the world. Britain’s faith in its independent future is rooted in its economic performance. We are a tiny island, but we are — as the prime minister, Theresa May, and leading Brexiteers have frequently assured us — the world’s fifth largest economy. That ranking has given just over half the country the false confidence that we have nothing to fear from change.
The trouble with that statistic is that it obscures all the weaknesses that lie beneath the surface. We don’t have the skills, the manufacturing base, the drive or the productivity we would need to take off as an independent nation. For years, Britain’s inadequacies have been compensated for by its membership in the European Union. Now, they are about to become painfully apparent.
Education is a critical weakness. We claim to have a world-class system, but the latest figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that on scores for literacy and numeracy, 16- to 24-yearolds in England and Northern Ireland rank in the lowest four of the organization’s 35 member countries. More than half of that age group also have poor technological skills; they rank alongside Americans at the bottom of that pile. As a House of Lords report last week complained, businesses haven’t bothered to train Britons to make up for these deficiencies over the past decade because they could always recruit foreigners instead.
There aren’t enough British workers, with the right attitudes and the right skills, to fill the country’s jobs. The consequence is that we import huge numbers of migrants to do what Britons can’t or won’t. The manufacturing, nursing, care and catering industries all depend on foreigners. Nearly onefifth of Britain’s university staff members are from other European Union countries. Almost 100,000 seasonal agricultural workers are needed every year to pick vegetables and kill chickens — jobs that farmers’ groups say it’s impossible to get Britons to do.
E.E.F., the manufacturers’ organization formerly known as the Engineering Employers Federation, reports that Britain is so short of workers skilled in science, technology and mathematics that three-quarters of firms struggle to fill skilled engineering posts, and a quarter recruit specifically from Europe to fill those gaps. A third of new nurses each year are European. Only one in 50 applicants to the sandwich shop chain Pret a Manger is a Briton.



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Continue the read and boast of the probable success.


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Still in denial then Fred ?

We're leaving , get over it and move on.

Haven't seen the film...but the few clips I've seen suggest to me that it might have been better to have filmed it in black and white !....some films are better that way.....

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Controlling immigration doesn't mean no immigration, next we will be told the EU is Europe.

Attitude: have a look at the employers; what they really mean by 'Britons won't do the job' is 'Britons won't do the job for the money we pay'.

Dil,

Not in denial, but I have grown up and recognise the problems and can think of some of the excuses which will be given for the chaos which may occur and also can guess who will be scapegoated as being responsible for the failed economy.

Read the article if you think the UK economy is not already in increasing trouble and figures given by this government are falsifications of data.

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''We claim to have a world-class education system, but the latest figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that on scores for literacy and numeracy, 16- to 24-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland rank in the lowest four of the organization’s 35 member countries''.

Hundreds of thousands children failed by a Labour government.


''There aren’t enough British workers, with the right attitudes and the right skills, to fill the country’s jobs''.

See KidA's response re attitude

And the economy has never been in trouble while we've been in the EU has it Fred ???

Here's a few - miner's strikes and blackouts , oil crisis , winter of discontent , inflation through the roof , high unemployment , leaving the erm , banking crisis.

George.

Labour spent about 10 years in office improving the infrastructure of the schools and dilapidated infrastructure left by Maggie Thatchers period of tory self-service.

Many of the schools with leaking roofs were only fit for to be condemned and the teaching staff worn out by constant change and modification of curriculums, etc..

To develop a younger generation and saddled with debts of £50,000-£100,000 as a reward for obtaining a university level education seems total madness to me.

Education like money is a lubricant for well organised and decent society.

Fred
''To develop a younger generation and saddled with debts of £50,000-£100,000 as a reward for obtaining a university level education seems total madness to me''.

I couldn't agree more, but the Labour Party via Lord Adonis introduced uni fees.

That's why they dumbed down education, thereby creating more uni paying under-performers with their useless degrees. To hell with real education and technical ability let's get some money in.

Answer Dil Fred ,he makes a good point ,although it may not be what you wanted to hear.

Inconvenient facts are very inconvenient George.

You're not wrong there MaxK

25I7,

At the time that labour introduced fees and reduced "support grants" that it was wrong to do so. I had exposure to the changes in the University, Technical Colleges, system and again thought it wrong in general, but understood the non-fictitious and fictitious reasons for doing so.

The increase in the numbers of students was seen by many as an attempt to camouflage unemployment figures, just as zero hour contracts are being used.

Again I thought a small payment to fees etc. may bring a sense of reality to many students and parents.

However, I also think "education" should be paid for by the tax system and in a way it is. The ones who benefit the most from their qualification by later "earnings" can afford higher return what paid for the success, while those who settled further down the income chain, in nursing, teaching (Some in both have PhD and good honour degrees.) would pay less back in tax.

Others whether educated practically or theoretically give back to society in other ways by lubricating it.

As far a valuing the returns that various "courses" or "training" give to society immediate or long term it is often open to individual taste.

I was told by a very successful businessman as a friend, who had what many would think was a disastrous university career, that the qualifications he had been from "mixing" with others, the period to challenge and mature and the "debating society"

It stood him in better than his degree.


~_~_~_~_

Dil,

Much of what you describe was due to lousy and incompetent management, poor union leadership, lousy and incompetent dishonesty of government's aims or goals.

And little to do with rules, negotiations, laws of the EU ect..

It appears you are looking for scapegoats.

Don't only look at the problem.

Look at the precursors of the problems

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It was the stupidity of little Englanders, Welshmen or Bordermen.


Many businesses had good working relationships.

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At the moment, I am in the South of France, where many are bemused by the "Brexit" actions of Little Englanders, but also dismiss the action of little passing importance.

Errr Fred , the erm crisis was entirely due to us being in the EU.

I'm not suggesting the other things were caused by us being in the EU just pointing out that there will be lows whether we stay in or leave.