UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]

You need to wind your neck in a little and don't throw the "racist" word about so freely. It's very easy to play the race card (especially these days) and that's why the Government get away with such "not that bothered really" attitude to immigration.

Anyone who so much as questions immigration gets jumped on as a racist, which allow the real racists to carry on with their own evil and nasty agendas.

I am NOT a racist ! I'm just someone that doesn't like freeloaders, especially British ones, and people who pitch up here without work and without a means to support themselves, kids in tow, and then wants to know what they're "entitled to" are freeloaders.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]


Ok, you're not Polish, but my point still remains that the person you are trying help, who is not your friend as it turns out, is doing nothing to help the image of the Polish in the UK.

I feel sorry for her situation, but why is it for the British to solve it ?

I'm not a crazy nationalist either, I just don't think that benefit handouts for cleaners who don't speak English is what the welfare system was designed for.


Fantastic, great attitude to have !

The country is going to rack and ruin and you want everyone to stand and watch.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]

Thank you :-)

You're right, it's the Government who have got us all into this mess.

I really can't understand why they allowed it to become like this, but they don't see what we see. They seem blind to it. They want it all to be blue skies in Utopia and for it all to be "hands across the oceans" stuff, where we all run across sandy beaches learning to speak one another’s language and celebrating our diversity.

Life isn't like that.

Yes, people rub along quite well with each other, but as soon as someone seems ahead of the game, or seems to be given a priority on account of their background, it all changes.

I've never wanted the embarrassment of signing-on and I'm British and can deal with the paperwork, the queues and the being passed around. Would I want to be the one with the foreign accent asking for help with the housing benefit form ?

No way. There aren't many parts of the country where something like that wouldn't have the potential for trouble to flare.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]


I appreciate that many people ask internet forums questions that they could get using the very pc that they use to post the question, but I would have thought that she would have considered finding out some facts herself first. She must have known the reaction she would get and most people on here are pretty logical, fair people and don't react for the sake of it.

Did she expect a list of helpful links and to be told to get her friend to claim every penny she can ?

I agree that there are plenty of Brits letting the side down when it comes to benefits and that angers me just as much.


YOU ARE NOT HELPING ANYONE OR ANYTHING.

YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO SCOTLAND !!!

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]

I don't normally agree with "noimmigration", but I'm getting increasingly fed up with foreign workers coming here, thinking that cleaning and other similar jobs will somehow make their contribution to the economy something we can't live without.

Where are all the doctors, lawyers and architects ?

If we didn't have a benefit system, or charged foreign nationals for things like schools and the NHS, people like natasia's friend wouldn't have bothered coming here in the first place.

UK, Ireland / Uks population set to become the largest in th EU [13]


"Never a truer word spoken in jest!"

By that I mean, the only way that the UK will solve its population problem is to go upwards and build huge great high-rise flats.

I already live in a road of what were large victorian family houses, which are now mainly flats. There is no room left to build sideways, so I see blocks of flats gradually getting taller.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]


It is not the "duty" of the UK to assist your friend. How dare you suggest that it is!! How many British people are leeching of your benefit system ?

"If you need it, you get it...." - What planet are you from ? There are plenty of needy BRITISH people that don't qualify for benefits. Should they go to Poland instead ?

If your friend had lived and WORKED here for a 4 or 5 years, I wouldn't have an issue.


She has access to the internet, she could have found that herself. I think she has come on here to stir up trouble and cause bad feeling, so she can then say she is a victim of the racist British.

Natasia and your friend - You're both a disgrace to your nation.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]


I have to agree with that one. If she came here already separated from her husband, I really don't see why Britain should now be having to support her. She came here knowing the score. If she thinks that getting a job as a cleaner, while she lives in one room she is about to be evicted from, is somehow worth her kids seeing their Dad, then she is daft. Parents splitting up must be bad enough, without the stress and upheaval of living on welfare in another country.

Do these kids a favour and go back to Poland.


Exactly. Also, just because others do it, doesn't make it a good idea.

UK, Ireland / Benefits for separated Polish wife and 2 kids in the UK [90]


Why didn't he go back ? Why isn't he helping her ?


How long has her husband been here for ? I think he would need to be here a year before they can claim anything. The fact that they are no longer together will be a factor, but these days single-mums get a better deal than couples who stay together, so it may work in her favour.

She needs to find her nearest benefit office and go and find out the situation and start filling in the forms.


What would an unemployed single-mum from Britain get if she pitched up in Poland asking the way to the benefits office ?

UK, Ireland / Uks population set to become the largest in th EU [13]

A Home Office spokesman said: "Projections such as these are proof that we are right to be carrying out the biggest shake-up to the immigration system for a generation.

"Centre-stage is our new Australian-style points-based system, which means only those we need can come here to work or study."

Too Little, too late.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said the figures showed it was "essential we develop a coherent strategy to deal with population growth".

By doing what exactly ? Building an extension and make the country a bit bigger ?

They need to stop so many people from coming in and being much more fussy about the sorts of people who do come here.

UK, Ireland / a trip to Dublin at Christmas? [30]

Never been myself, maybe you should invite forum members along too :-)

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]


Ouch ;-)

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put together a further survey.

I've completed it and forwarded it onto as many people I can think of.

Thanks for listening :-)

UK, Ireland / Polish Pubs in Scotland. [22]


No, it was a genuine question.

UK, Ireland / Polish Pubs in Scotland. [22]

What's the difference between a Polish pub and and English one ?

UK, Ireland / Journalist from The Observer looking for UK Poles returning to Poland [7]


Aren't the Government always saying they don't know how many people are coming here from the EU ?

Either they know or they don't.

I should some are leaving due to a combination of thing like a much higher cost of living that many were expecting, a sometimes hostile reception from the locals and awful weather.

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]

When I referred to the "yobs", I was meaning the chaps.

The cheap cost of alcohol is part of binge drinking, but the general attitude to drinking is the bigger part.

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]


I don't think there are that many really (sadly).

You only have to look at something like 24 hour drinking, where the Government were hoping for European "cafe culture", where we would all sit outside cafes, sharing a bottle of wine over a meal. It would all be very congenial and civilised.

What did we get instead ? Binge drinking yobs and half-naked women puking and copulating in the streets.

With freedom comes responsibility and the Government in the UK is too content to allow people not to accept responsibility for their actions.

I've always got the impression that other European Governments are much tougher and this creates a very big difference between the cultures in UK and elsewhere. They don't have binge drinkers because law and order is enforced.

The British have allowed themselves to be accepting and tolerant of so many other cultures and religions, that the general "identity" of what it is to be British is very watered down as a result.

I don't think we know who we are anymore.

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]


That's only really on the London Underground, where people not in too much of a rush stand on one side (I think it's the right) so others can dash past and catch their train.


Depends where you are, but when you work/live (or both) in a right chav town (such as somewhere like Crawley), you'll find it's England shirts, baseball caps, bling from Argos and cheap designer knock-off as far as the eye can see.

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]


It has been destroyed by the Labour Government and not helped by an apathetic population.

Too many Brits seem to want a life on benefits, complicated extended families, England footie shirts and Big Brother on the telly.

At times we seem like we're a nation that's about as deep as a puddle and with about as much culture as a yoghurt.

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]

When people think of what the British think of immigration, they think of people like noimmigration and anyone else just gets lumped in along with him.

It seems to me that you're only allowed to be either for or against immigration and any other view just doesn't exist.

UK, Ireland / Postage from Poland to England - is it expensive for a Brit? [6]


Hope you sorted out your problem with that nasty bookseller, he sounded really horrible.

(Sorry for sounding cryptic, but just saw your name on another forum)

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]

As I say, not having a pop at you and I wish you all the best with your research, but I disagree that "the Brits are more than represented in their views".

Yes there plenty of newspapers claiming to speak for the majority, but we all know that they do more harm than good.

People like me never get asked anything. We're told to "put up and shut up."

UK, Ireland / Polish towns/cities/villages twinned with UK ones [30]

Town twinning is just an excuse for local councillors to go on a jolly and have a holiday at the local tax payers expense.

I think they call them "fact finding missions" !

What benefit is there in twinning a town in one country with another town somewhere else ?

UK, Ireland / Staffordshire Bus Crash [6]

Such a horrible fate for someone and so young too :-(

UK, Ireland / Survey on life in the UK, Sweden and Ireland [35]

I hope you get some interesting information to work from, Magzy, but it also just goes to show how no one is interested in the views of the British.

I'm not having a go at you personally, Magzy, but the only research people seem to want to do these days on immigration is how it effects those who move here.

Why do those who lived here before never get asked what they think ? We feel the effects too !

UK, Ireland / UK house for rent "no foreigners"...advert condemned [8]

I know it's been said on here before, but people really should research places before they up-sticks and move to another country.

Yes, people should be able to live where they like, but life isn't like that

UK, Ireland / UK house for rent "no foreigners"...advert condemned [8]

He would have done better just not to have rented it out to a foreigner.

I agree that it isn't ideal, but you can appreciate his situation if having foreign tenants attracts, shall we say, unwanted attention.

UK, Ireland / 2 years in London, maybe it's time to go back to Poland? [60]

Firstly, home will always be home and nothing will change that.

You will only know if you really want to be back in Poland by giving it a try I guess or going back for a long holiday to see how it makes you feel.

Could you take a few weeks off work ?

UK, Ireland / British car with 3 wheels... [45]

I've already said that :-)