What's So Great About The UK?

You'd be the odd one out there then.

well for all my life i have lived in a area that has English ... Chinese .. Japanese .. Indians .. Sikhs .. Muslims ... Kosvans ... Albanians ... Polish .. and a smaller minority of other nationalities living in the population of 300,000 approx people ... so to me i would be a little lost without the multicultural vibe a little bit .. plus my daughter attends a school that has intergration of all ethnicities ...

.. so i think you may find it hard to find a place in the UK WB!

Yes, maybe. You know what when I think about re-locating to another country I feel bad about being an immigrant, how FU is that? I should not feel like that. I know Polish people dont have a choice and that their only essentially trying to earn a crust. I guess thats English politeness.

I have met many professionals in business and when I tell the same story their like wow England is such a great country though. Its going to the dawgs now slowly but surely. I dont even want to think of the long term consequences.

Ohh stop being such a drama queen Wrocław Boy. :))

It's seen much worse times.

What like WWII? bombs boosted morale. I can understand the bulk of immigrants coming to live in England as we colonised their countries however Poland was never a colony.

Who cares?

A "great" thing about the UK is that it's a country that unites in times of crisis, WW2 proved that. Hopefully it would again in a similar situation. I'm sure thats not one of the things that appeals to foreigners of course.

There are many things that do appeal to foreigners though and it would be nice to hear them rather the constant "Poles get out" and such like.

We dont have the power anymore. I enjoyed reading an earlier post I think it was my Imbolia or something that England represented a fascination for Poles and that is true but we are not the nation we used to be as a direct result of England not being English anymore.

I'm not getting into a discussion about that.

Do you remember the 1980s with strikes and Thatcher?
The 1970s and more strikes, a sick economy and the power being switched off and all that?
The 1950s when there was rationing and so on.
The 1930s saw huge amounts of unemployment, rioting and stuff.
Do children work down mines, up chimneys or in sweatshops here these days? Bring back Victorian values.

Let's go back to the mediaeval shall we?

In England, when you take a dumpsicle, it goes down the toilet and disappears.

In Poland, when you take a dumpsicle, it sits on a little platform so you can look at it when youve finished

Which do you prefer?

Could not have put it better myself you really stitched yourself up there quoting everything us Brits have been fighting for to be flushed away with the ever increasing influx of immigrants.

I've not seen this in Poland. I have in the Netherlands and Germany.

They are illegal to install in the UK.


Would you care to explain that last post.

Just England then? Funny that, I thought I'd bumped into a few Poles in Scotland...must have been mistaken...

The point (of this thread) is, what do foreigners see in the UK? I know that I sometimes wonder what anyone thinks is so wonderful about the UK (especially when I see the tax deducted on my wage slip). It would be interesting to find out...

If you have not seen that then you have never really lived in Poland, OK they are slowly erradicating that system but its not un-common to take a dump in a huosehold tiolet and when you turn around its staring you straight in the face, till you flush of course and even then you need to flush for a long time. WTF.


Everything you quoted above Isiol is what us Brits have been fighting to erradicate, it took years of striking and watch dogs to solve these issues and fight for the rights of the average worker albeit minor, chimney sweep, low paid worker etc.

My statement is, are we going to handover our rights which we have fought so hard for to immigrants to just walk in and claim minimum wage??

I have never claimed to have spent more than a few holidays there.


Ah yes! The EU minimum wage.
So when were the glory days? Had we just about got there when suddenly the door from Poland opened and that ruined it? Or were there people like you blaming every other immigrant group since the 1950s and before? Err, yes.

And what did you personally do to eradicate child labour, increase efficiency and install the minimum wage?

What's So Great About The UK?

The ability to change subjects...apparently...

What is the relevence of this to anything?

What's so great about the UK? No child labour (other than a few paper rounds I suppose), minimum wage...

I was just having a matey chat with me ol' pal WB. It's all as relevant as...

Mr H.. I say bravo for coming forth and being truely honest and compasionate at
the same time..

Ive never faced this type of situation, I cant say anything encouraging, but I do
agree with yours as well as theirs ( situations) as a whole.

everyone is entitled to move and make better, but as you say, so many have
come, now so many who have established lives want out, but dont really want
to leave... and before immigration wasnt noticed so much because it was so little
and so of course it would be more accepted..

but what is the right thing/ best thing the Eu can do to change this?
and are they currently working on it?

I dont blame the immigrants, im stating that they affect the economy.


Nothing but BRITISH people fought for their rights within the trade organisations to benefit themselves and thier loved ones. Immigrants are distabilising that equilibriam, bottom line Brits in the labour industry are severly affected by the massive influx of immigrants namely Poles and other former EU block states withouit families and who are willing to stay six to a room and send their wages home. You know that.

Like the minimum wage?


It's more dynamic than simple equilibrium. But look - you typed it yourself - immigrants. You could have put the word immigration or something, but use of the word immigrants suggests that it is them you are blaming.

Has anyone actually tried living on the minimum wage ?

What is it ? Just under £6 an hour these days ? I don't get more than £8 an hour and I struggle.

I'm a little further forward trying to work out what immigrants come flocking to the UK for and there seems to be more common ground on here (on both sides) than first seems to be the case.

There is one person on here though that needs to wash their mouth out with soap and water.

There was a comment on here saying that you represent your nation when you speak your views on issues like this. Damn right you do !!

It only takes one or two people from any country to be nasty and before you know it, an entire nation gets branded as this or that.

As the guidelines say....... "play nicely!"

What immigrants as in Poles I am blaming them mainly, never in the history of the UK have we had such a massive influx of one nationality in such a short pewriod of time.

How are we going to cope Einstein? I live in Poland and i can ASSURE you its not reciprocated exchange, thats what really fuks me off.

So what happens when you go anywhere else?


We? You've moved out. There's no you about it.

2,500 registered Brits in Poland to 1,500,000 possible Poles in the UK, if the figures were reversed i'd expect some kind of back lash.


Now youve resorted to pettiness again, im English always have been always will be and when I say we I mean us - Brits!

Yes i do .. its £5.52 an hour


which one is that?


Try the 1940's mate .. you need to do your history homework hundreds of thousands came over then after the war to resettle after much of their homes were destroyed .. this is how british polish nationalities were created .... !!


Estimated figures

errrm, if you are quoting history, do you forget what some Italians did 1000 years ago?
And what the hell did the Romans do for us?? lol

You've not thought about blaming the people who make the decisions about immigration, so instead you blame those who make the most of the opportunities available to them.

Typical thread. We've had the usual shite throwing and no Poles saying they were inspired to move here by the classic British rock music of the 1970s, a love of rain or the lure of bagpipe music floating across a windswept glen.

my mistake...

didn't read all posts before posting now can't delete it...

I was partly lured by stuff like that... and Alice in Wonderland, and Dickens, and Stonehenge, and a vision of high tea and gentlemen with brollies... and three men in a boat, not counting the dog... ;-)

And pubs, and moors, and Lands' End (what an evocative name!) - and stuff.
Unfortunately, I have not (yet) found terribly much of that. I live in London and earn peanuts, because one thing I HAVE found is a very strong class system and a distrust of strangers (and their foreign qualifications). I fight to make ends meet even though I am a very competent translator / interpreter - the problem is that I cannot afford to pay several hundred pounds for an Institute of Linguists or Institute of Translators and Interpreters exam and get their "title", and without it I cannot get better jobs, so I earn little money, and so on... 10 years of professional experience in Poland and a rather nice CV mean nothing here, and I have had to start from scratch. No bitterness of course, I am a humble person and all that, but still - the social system in Britain is very inflexible. If I had the money to start with, I could earn more money, but I entered the system as an outsider and simply cannot jump any higher. I cannot afford it! This is something that I had NOT anticipated. :-(

I would actually love to go back to Poland, as my primary goal (of improving my English) has been, I think, already reached, but I would hate to go back as empty-handed as I had left. And I had left empty-handed because of personal stuff which meant leaving my home and my thriving translation business behind. I thought I would make it in a year or two and come back victorious. It's more a question of staying afloat now. Well, rant over. ;-(