On Tue, 24 Jun 2014 15:57:29 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Because it is leaving our economy.

In any significantly different way to you choosing to spend it on
Italian wine in Lidl?

Because the latter has at least furnished Lidl and their transport chain
with work which is a lot better than nothing.

Some minimum-wage local work, and everything else contracted out of
another EU country, to the lowest bidder. Woo.

The difference between my colleagues and a highly mobile migrant
worker is they are all settled here and being paid the same as me -
that I have no problem with.

So you're quite happy with people of other nationalities who've chosen
to settle here, I presume? It's merely the ones who haven't - yet - who
you have an issue with?

Yes. Is it that hard to understand what I said?

I just want to be clear about what you're actually saying.

OK, so you're quite happy for rewards to be in proportion to the work
required, and for the free market to set the rate for those rewards?

No, wait. You want protectionism based on nationality.

Where the nationalities have highly disparate economies, yes.

Is that regardless of where or how the individual chooses to spend
their money, purely on nationality? Would you regard it as better to
work alongside - say - a Pole who was settled in the UK and regarded it
as their home than a Brit ticking off the days until his retirement to
Spain?

I don't know. Is it relevant to the very clearly stated point I made?

Yes. Absolutely central to it - and, if you don't know, then I can only
assume that your true opinion isn't quite what you're claiming it to be.

Not to mention that that particular job really ought to be being done by
people in this country.

Regardless of their nationality?

So it's pretty easy to understand why people rate their own locality
over and above all others.

I love China - SWMBO is from there. I love Germany, and the baltics and
Switzerland. However, I'd rather my local society looked to itself first
and others second.

You live in the SE - you're nearer to France than you are to the North-
East. Which do you have greater "loyalty" to?

So yes, it's cool that a slovak person can come and be a network
engineer and get paid 40k or whatever and live here for the time,
spending his money and making the wheels go round.

It's less helpful to our society when his mate turns up, with the aim of
dossing down for 2 years, vastly undercuts the nominal wage for some job
and drives the wages for that trade through the floor.

Does it make a difference if that mate is Slovak or from Ireland?
Does it make a difference if that Irish mate happens to live a mile north
or a mile south of the border between Eire and the UK?
Would it make a difference if that mate is Scottish today or after a
"Yes" vote in September?

Most people could tolerate dossing down in simple accommodation for a
1-2 year stint if it led to better things. No-one wants that to be the
norm!

Including, I'm sure, the people doing it. So does it make a difference if
that person dossing on a mate's floor and working all hours is from
Warsaw or Walsall?

Tebbitt was wrong, when he suggested people should get "on their bikes"
to find work?

It is a very similar problem to when the English (generally) were buying
loads of houses in Wales as seldom used holiday homes. The English
thought they were cheap and didn't haggle. The net result was twofold -
the supply for locals went down and the price skyrocketed.

....and yet that's within the same country.

And, of course, not just Wales. It's just the same as Londoners in the
Cotswolds or Yorkshire or Cornwall or Provence or Tuscany.