Not just is it to keep wages low its also “blow-back” from Globalization. How can the population of third-world countries fight exploitation of their homelands if the brightest and best always emigrate to a better life? Ever wonder why this country has been so keen to take-in individuals who are an irritant to foreign resource-rich countries? Political asylum only allows the host governments to carry on as they do as all dissent is no longer obligated to stand and fight as our forefathers have done to make this country what it is (at least what it was 7+ years ago) today.

Stef, you are not in the least bit mad.

unslicker @

I can’t remember the last time a chav had a [serious] go at me. Must be my face.

Hard to stand your gorund but it normally does the trick and saved me this week again. Glad I leanred my lessons in that respect when I lived in LA.

That’s just one factor - there are loads of others. All of which combine to leave parts of London feeling more like transit camps than committed, established communities. As it happens, I just spent the afternoon strolling around a few places just like that today - not too far from your neck of the woods

London has always been home to the kind of xeno-cultural communities you refer to. I grew up in one. A White European community admittedly but with its own identity nevertheless. I don’t think xeno-cultural communities are necessarily problem. They do become a problem when the rate of their growth outstrips the host country’s ability to assimilate them. I think large parts of London passed that point five or more years ago

The thing is, even if restrictive border controls were introduced tomorrow that won’t shift the balance back. Short of deporting millions, and it would be millions, of people this major demographic change is already a done deal and its impact will take years to be fully manifest

And, of course, the same thing is happening in many other developed countries. My take has always been that this was the result of deliberate policy to lower the wages of jobs that couldn’t be moved to undeveloped countries and to create a fractured, divided underclass that could be more easily ruled. Chuck in the impact of f*cked up state education systems and the implosion of the middle class that’s just around the corner and we have a Brave New World ahead of us

But I am a conspiracy theorist and therefore mad

My concern is not that we have racists but that we are importing them whilst ignoring the issue or worse still blaming the victims.

Agreed that the social cohesion in London is in serious jeopardy, but I don’t see how that can be addressed. Its a financial capital and there will always be inequality but I would even suggest to you that even under a Marxist utopia these problems would not go away because they go right to the heart of the fundamental primitiveness and tribalism which define mankind in most parts of the world. I don’t even think that wise leadership could solve where we are headed, at least not without closing the borders.

Earlier immigration waves felt the need to integrate because they were a minority. Now the immigration levels are high enough that the new entrants can feel that they can form xeno-cultural communities without the necessity to integrate and in doing so we are left with hostile intra-community suspicions. Recall the last spate of Asian/Afro-Caribbean gang warfare/rioting, based mostly on the premise that each was more privileged than the other.

Nobody really believes that official stats anymore.

I see stuff like this every day. And it’s not just White on Black. Many East Europeans don’t like Blacks. Many groups within the Black ‘community’ don’t like Somalis and it’s fair game for virtually everyone to get stuck into Muslims. The permutations for one group having it in for another in London these days are virtually endless

I can’t speak for the rest of the country but social cohesion in London is under strain. Economic inequalities have a part to play as well.

Too many people from too many different backgrounds piling into one place too quickly. It’s bound to cause issues and something I personally have been grumbling about for years now - very often to be met with accusations of racism. Curiously for a racist, I know 2nd generation Asian and Jamaican Londoners who share my concerns

The issues are not necessarily insurmountable ones but they require wise and decent leadership - and that’s pretty thin on the ground these days

Me, I’m lucky and I’ve got a couple of possible ways out - and I’ll be taking one of them before the end of the year. Like so many other people have already…

PS I would trust the stats at all. They’ve been crooked for years now and way under the mark…

I can’t see any reason to be intimidated by these morons, but one day I’m going to old and I don’t want to be fighting my way through life then. Don’t see why I should have to either.

Used to be an almost weekly occurrence on the NY subway. I used to laugh at all the white guys in suits scared out of their brains, who thought that they could make the problem go away by burying their heads deep in their WSJ.

• 100,000 immigrants arrive each year in London, where 57% of all births are now to foreign-born mothers.
• 29% of London’s population are non-white immigrants and this proportion will increase rapidly. Only 44% of London school pupils are classed as ‘white, British.’ The figure is 25% for inner London. (In the rest of England, it is only about 87% overall - the minority is growing. 50% of the school population of Leicester is black or Asian– a figure comparable with those for London.)
• 100,000 Londoners move to the rest of the UK each year.
• Despite the ‘white flight,’ London’s population is nevertheless set to rise by 700,000 to 8,150,000 during the period 2005-2020, requiring 400,000 new homes and 130 new schools in addition to extra health and social care facilities.