A Fine Old Mess

As we all know, the country is about to be swamped again by a new wave of immigrants arriving early next year. Romanians, Bulgarians, and no doubt lots of others from the Eastern European sector of the EU:

http://news.sky.com/story/1128850/rise-in-migrants-from-romania-and-bulgaria

And of course in slightly more frantic terminology: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486853/How-I-claim-benefits-I-Britain-Romanians-demand-help-job-agencies-UK.html and: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2483807/Queue-work-Britain-NHS-fast-food-firms-hotel-chains-recruit-cheap-labour-Romania.html

All these people have equal rights to our system, of course. If they find it lucrative to stay here, they will no doubt be inviting their friends and families along. Some of them will be criminals already, but we don't like to deny anybody entry, do we? Criminal gangs of them will be inviting their fellow-criminals too, so everyone can share the rich pickings provided by the hapless British public and their stupid political leaders.

As a result crime will rise, jobs will become harder to find, and employers will have every reason to reduce wages to the legal minimum wage. Below the minimum legal wage for many shady employers, no doubt. Before they were allowed here in any numbers, a high proportion of Romanian immigrants got themselves arrested - some 27,000 arrests of Romanians over the past five years, and that's before the gates were opened.

Due to our membership of the EU, we cannot legally deport those who are convicted; we can at best only lock them up and feed them. At worst we can let them go with a pat on the head, and hope they won't do it again. But they will.

The Immigration Problem is an EU Problem, no doubt about that. Apparently, until we leave the EU there is nothing we can do about it. Another fine mess our political leaders have got us into; and one that won't go away.

Already our Hospitals are full. Our Schools are full. Our Doctor Surgeries are full. Even our roads are full and slowed to crawling-point with the great mass of vehicles upon them. Housing is unavailable to all but the very wealthy, and although the government is making noises about helping young working couples to buy properties, in reality all this is doing is talking up house prices again. The rise in house prices is exacerbated by the rent sharks buying to rent in large numbers. You can soon get your money back with ten eastern europeans in every room except the bathroom, paying you £100 a week apiece. The chances of getting inspected diminish as funding is cut, so these sort of buy-to-rent sharks proliferate.

Of those young couples working all hours and striving to buy their first house under the government's help scheme, how many will survive when interest rates rise? Many will have their homes repossessed by the banks and building societies, who will offer them to - you guessed - the buy-to-rent sharks. Since the relaxation of the regulations about where you can have houses of multiple occupation (HMO), back in 2004-5, these places have sprung up like toadstools in every kind of previously-decent neighbourhood.

You even have a class of 'rent-to-rent' landlords now, who rent a set of rooms and then sublet rooms and parts of rooms and space to sleep in to those further down the ladder. Don't take my word for it, take a look: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jun/28/new-class-landlords-profiting-generation-rent

Because of the number of people of any kind that are packed into HMO, there are bound to be issues. From noisy students at two or three to a room, to noisy (hardworking?) eastern europeans at ten to a room, there have been big issues with noise and bad behaviour. So of course decent people living nearby have sold up and moved out as the price of their property plummets. Waiting in the shadows are the buy-to-rent sharks, mopping up a few more houses on the cheap, so eventually you get great numbers of HMO in one street, and the streets nearby.

There appears to be very little regulation of this sort of thing, and what there is rarely gets implemented, because funds to official agencies have been cut, and fewer inspectors are employed.

It's a no-win situation for almost everyone except the rent sharks, and it is being allowed to get worse. As a country we cannot afford to let it go on. We have to call for very much tighter immigration controls; we have to strictly deport foreign criminals of any sort; we have to implement the laws we already have, and we have to realise that we cannot carry everyone in the one boat, as much as some amongst us would like to.

Even the Christian Lord whose statue I currently display on my market stalls couldn't feed the hundreds of thousands we are letting into the country now. It's a fine statue by the way; quite beautifully done, and colourful and artistic. I have had people of the more religious kind prostrating themselves before it and kissing its feet.

I sort of rescued it because for the life of me I could not see it disrespected nor come to harm. If you are down near Northampton market come along and see for yourself. I am currently looking for a good home for it in a religious house or Church of some kind.

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