Off Topic Political Debate

You seem to have missed the earlier comments on The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee's report. Their findings concluded the referendum was well run and competently administered.
Their main complaints concentrated on the biased attitude, towards remain, of the government. The leave side were also disadvantaged by the late designation of the official (subsidised) campaign group.
There is no suggestion that a referendum will not be used in future.

 

y
es... but never on a simple majority.....

and both sides behaved terribly with misinformation..... you cannot deny that............

 

An interesting take on the Spanish trying to bring Gibraltar into the Brexit negotiations: http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/edito...spanish/ar-BBzNoIq?li=AAmiR2Z&ocid=spartandhp
I put it here because the implications reach further than Brexit, as explained in the article.

 

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Romanian pickpockets?

 

You are treading on old ground SH. The newest immigrants in all societies have always been vilified in this way for perceived rises in crime. In the 1920s the Chinese were apparently responsible for a rise in opium consumption - in the 1930s the Italians for a proliferation of protection rackets. In the 1970s the Jamaicans were vilified for their supposed connection to gun crime. It goes on and on - every new immigrant wave has a small number of criminals in their midst, who are, initially, unknown to the police and who are largely an embarassment to the law abiding majority - this majority (in the Rumanian case) also produces nurses, doctors and many others who are invaluable to the economy - they are also less likely to claim benefits than the non EU. migrant population. When you use the phrase 'Rumanian Pickpockets' you are falling into the trap of classifying a whole nation in terms of its worst minority - as if you could classify all English people as 'hooligans' because of a small minority.

 

Information revealed through a Freedom of Information request at the British Transport Police show half (52%) of all convictions for pickpocketing on the London Underground in 2013 were Romanians.

Rob Wainwright from the European criminal intelligence agency stated there are 68,000 Romanians living in the UK but there has been 28,000 arrests of Romanian people for serious offences in the past five years. He added Romanian and Bulgarian offenders are responsible for 90% of all card-skimming in Europe.

I would say it is not unreasonable to be concerned about their over representative activities.

 

In 2014 Police put up a special notice deterring pickpockets in Covent Garden. It was written in Romanian.

 

'Over representative activities' - just look at the following statement and how it was misconstrued to fit a political agenda - '28,000 Romanians were arrested, in the last 5 years, in the Metropolitan Police area alone'. Fact - this refers to the numbers of arrests (not the number of people arrested) - ignoring the likelihood that these recorded offences were by the same people. In reality - for every 1,000 Rumanians in London only 13 were arrested ie. half the arrest rate for Britons. How many other figures are being distorted in the current wave of hysteria rife in Britain ? But you are not interested in facts - just in keeping stereotypes alive, and in creating scapegoats - if there are only 68,000 Rumanians in the UK (compared to over a million in Italy) then where are these hordes that Ukip promised ? We can presume that anyone who wanted to come to Britain from there has done so already. They are underrepresented in crime figures, and underrepresented in terms of social security claims - but, as BJ said whilst a journalist, 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story'.

 

Many Rumanians use the facility of cheap flights to engage in a few days illegal activities. How do you deny over 50% of pickpockets on the underground are Rumanians? Why would police erect anti pickpocket signs just for Rumanians? The figures suggest you are more likely to be subjected to a pickpocket from Rumania than anywhere else.

My assertion is clearly based on fact.

 

Can you provide evidence for the many Rumanians using cheap flights for this purpose ? In 2014 there were 3,322 reported cases of pickpocketing on the London underground - if half of these were actually done by Rumanian people then this gives us a figure of 1,600 or so. Presuming that many of these cases are actually done by the same people - then we are probably talking about no more than 500 or so criminals here - and for this you would brand the whole nation ? There is also no evidence to assume that Rumanians are highly represented in any other form of crime than this - partly because most other forms of crime need some linguistic knowledge. You are sensationalizing this in order to discredit a whole nation - a technique which is well known from Fascist regimes in the past. One day the English will run out of scapegoats - what will you do then ?

 

You need to stick to the facts. My original assertion was that if you are the victim of pickpocketing in London then the culprit is more than likely from Rumania. The official facts back this up. I am not commenting on any other aspect, your ranting on any other subject is not based on reality.

 

I just read an interesting statistic. Rumanians are EIGHT times more likely to be jailed in the UK than Britons.

Right wing vindictive nasty facist police or just Rumanians being naughty?

 

Cut out the insults - I am not 'ranting' about anything. Britain's prison population is around 85,000, of which around 580 are from Rumania - compared to their overall population of 68,000 (ie. under 1%) - more worrying than that would be the Afro Caribbean representation in prison, which is around 10%. For these insignificant numbers you are prepared to demonize a whole nation - which, as I said before, is a tactic well known in fascist states of the past. The other fact is that any crime committed by an East European is more likely to be reported in the press than if done by another group.

 

Rumanians are EIGHT times more likely to end up in prison than Britons, kindly explain that statistic.

 

Kindly back it up with some reliable statistics - and the source, and then we can go on from there.

 

The statistics came from The Ministry of Justice which covered prisoners jailed between Oct 2013 to March 2014.

 

Britain's prison population is currently 95,248, of which 10,834 are foreign nationals. The first total is 20,000 higher than France and 30,000 higher than Germany - both of which have a higher proportion of foreign nationals in prison than Britain does. I do not dispute the figure of Rumanians being 8 times more likely to end up in prison but.........and this is a very big but, the British population includes all of the middle classes and we all know that poor people are more likely to end up in prison. You could say that Rumanians are over represented amongst the poor - and are, therefore, more likely to end up in prison. The only way you can make a comparison is to compare the Rumanians in Britain to their ecquivalent socio economic group amongst the native population, and then a completely different picture emerges. Immigrants of all origins are more likely to live in areas which are already rife with crime. Integrate these people fully into your society, give them jobs and hope, and they are no more criminal than any other group.

 

Come on lads, you should know that SH is ALWAYS right!

That's why he's Prime Minister!

 

UK citizens do not appreciate EU expats arriving in the country who feel inclined to be 8 times more anti social than Brits. Hopefully after Brexit we can start sending these crooks back home.