Invasion of UK!

I am amazed by how some part of media and politicians act, I have sometimes the feeling that those belong rather to a mental institution than to their actual jobs.

Frankly, average Romanian looks at the issue with condescension and cannot picture that "invasion" imagined by media.

I am posting here two recent articles around this subject. First one is from well known The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/12/what-britain-forgets

The other is form a friend of mine, an Englishman who works here for decades:
http://www.applesearch.co.uk/hrblog/romanians-make-good-immigrants/

However, I am interested to find out the opinion of average guys like me about this subject and your RL experiences with Romanians, if any.

The Economist probably pointed out the key factor. Whether the poles were good or not, an absolutely huge number of them came over, that was a shock. The fact that the majority apparently left when the crash happened probably didn't help either. Even though them leaving was likely good in many ways for Britain, it would have been seen as quitting while they're ahead, instead of working with everyone to help make things better again.

Don't know any Romanians to my knowledge. If they go to the UK and work, great. I do hope that Cameron gets the welfare laws stopping new immigrants getting welfare in place (don't even know if it's possible for them to do anyway), since such a situation would be absurd, but those that want to come and work, no problems.

It's important to note that much of our media will not let fact or sanity get in the way of playing on the fears of their rather thick readership.

There is I suppose some fair cause for concern if one looks at the number of Polish people who've moved here, which was miles over the official estimate. Though just about every story which notes the problems of Polish migration utterly ignores the positives.

There is one further problem for Romanians in how they're perceived, and that's the Romany people. There are people in this country who don't hate the gypsies, but probably not many, and they've never had to live next to them. I'd expect over time it may sink in that the two groups aren't quite the same thing, but it will take a while

Really? There are English gipsies too. There are so many that can't make the difference?

I'm not making an argument that our land is brimmed full of well educated people who're inclined to think through situations, and ponder the possible bias in any story presented to them.

Sadly many will equate Romanians with gypsies. I suppose one can say in fairness that British gypsies aren't popular either.

Happy New Year and all the best!

I had a good laugh with this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/adjwilson/twitter-reacts-to-the-romanian-and-bulgarian-inva-hzvl

James Gaskell to Wasps sounds pretty much confirmed, just what they need another back row and/or lightweight lock.

Possibly he wanted the move to help protect the barricades around Heathrow from the teeming masses of Romanians and Bulgarians piling into the country.

Just one thought Amz, when the Poles came we started finding local shops selling delicacies of Polish food/beer, basically sausages (sic) and cabbage in jars and the beer I know the name of as I've had it Warsaw but can't recall (nor possibly spell), could you given us an idea what our local shops may start to sell to appeal to the Romania expat hordes?

send the good looking Romanian women to mine    

ben_fluleck wrote:send the good looking Romanian women to mine    

come here in May, I guarantee you'll have snail eyes  

Tangy wrote:James Gaskell to Wasps sounds pretty much confirmed, just what they need another back row and/or lightweight lock.

Possibly he wanted the move to help protect the barricades around Heathrow from the teeming masses of Romanians and Bulgarians piling into the country.

Just one thought Amz, when the Poles came we started finding local shops selling delicacies of Polish food/beer, basically sausages (sic) and cabbage in jars and the beer I know the name of as I've had it Warsaw but can't recall (nor possibly spell), could you given us an idea what our local shops may start to sell to appeal to the Romania expat hordes?

Ursus beer, local liquor (tzuica, horinca, palinka),
forcemeat rolls in cabbage leaves (sarmale)
and Romanian wines.

Never met a Romanian person in my life so have no experience of that. I do enjoy talking to you though amz so you give me a good impression of Romanians, you sound like a hard working man who is very considerate (when on here at least). I have been watching and reading the news with articles on this and have been utterly shocked at people's comments, it just seems they never think about any of the positives and are far too quick to jump on the bandwagon (something I feel social media and people's short attention spans have not helped).

It will be interesting to see how many Romanians and Bulgarians do come here, at University I did meet a few Bulgarians and they were very nice people. One I worked with for a group project and she was a very nice (and an attractive ) lady who was very easy to get on with. I really hope that Romanians do not believe that all of us Britons hold these (in my opinion) awful views of Romanian people and that in fact some of us would welcome you to our country and would happily drink a (possibly Romanian) beer with you.

Thanks Widget for your kind words! Definentely I want to be there in 2015 and I'll announce that and hopefully I will meet some of you in real lifer to have some pints of whatever beer.

I am actually curious to see how this will end up. For sure there will be some who will go there but it won't be something like the Polish invasion or anything related. Average Romanian is indeed hard working guy, especially abroad where he is motivated by environment. I know villages in mountains side that were built by guys working abroad for years.

There are also dangerous guys who will try to come there but generally crime level in Romania is very low. Lot of bad opinion about Romanians was made based on Gitanes (wandering ones) deeds like: eating swans in Wien. Unfortunately, although efforts were made, especially in Communist regime, like:

- giving them houses in condominiums -> they choose to make a fire inside and park the horses there
- obliging their kids to go to school -> parents were sanctioned even with imprisonment if they withdraw their kids from mandatory 10 grades at that time

Unfortunately, their issues were never solved even partly by Romanian state. Many are OK, I have few colleagues of this origin but they're trying to hide.

Finally, there are Romanians who will do bad things there, that's for sure. But level crime here is low here so don't expect other than petty crimes. Anyway, Romanian workers are so scattered trough Europe and so many are thinking to Germany right now (only language is a bit of discouragement but it's easy for some inhabitants from Transilvanya, Banat or Bucovina) that I doubt that high numbers will go to UK. I have a lots of friends who are M.D.s (I lived two years in University in one of their campus) and most of those who left are in US (two are Marines sugeons  ) or Germany. It easier to come from Germany back to Romania to relatives, even by car so many will think at this possibility.

Finally, UK is attractive considering many young Romanians know to speak decent English. And since most of the British people that live here are adapted pretty well I don't think will be an issue for Romanians to adapt there and work.

It's just lousy politics. Here is a bit of a shock that Netherlands is so keen to deny our access in Schengen, most people don't understand why, our borders are secure enough. Hope such feelings won't develop towards UK, would be a shame because you guys are "popular" here.

Do you know anyone coming over to the UK out of interest? If so, what sort of education etc? And what jobs are they aiming for? Are we going to have physicists driving taxis?

A taxi driver just the other day was talking to me about the Heineken Uncertainty (it's weak I know, but I've only had one cup of tea, and physics jokes don't spring that easily to mind)

Raggs wrote:Do you know anyone coming over to the UK out of interest? If so, what sort of education etc? And what jobs are they aiming for? Are we going to have physicists driving taxis?

I don't know any person who is targeting a move to UK but Romanians that I know in UK are working in their fields: a programmer in Leeds, one stomatologist near London and a administrative worker or something like that (studied Law at City Uni London).

I highly doubt you'll see physicists driving taxis, we arent that poor   ...there are plenty of jobs for them. I studied in a high school profiled on mathematics/physiscs and many of my ex-colleagues are working around the world: cardiologist in Monaco, researchers/scientist in Taiwan, Japan, Canada, programmers in Finland (Nokia), professors/uni level teachers at Uni level (Canada, Toulouse, Rotterdam). UK is not such a good option especially for scientists.

As for lower level jobs, I don't know anyone but most of them will be probably in construction field.

Interesting read:
http://www.channel4.com/news/romania-bulgaria-migration-uk-life-in-bucharest-cost

I wanted to say that we don't have a culture of living on state benefits but didn't find the right words and wanted to have a good thought before saying something but I found this article and I think this guy explained better than I could have done it.

As for medical services, I know people living in UK that come here to have medical care by dentists...and ambulance does come fast here. Last example, I made a scan to my tendon and I waited for a week. True, I knew somebody who helped me to make it faster but in the worst case scenario I would have waited one month, one month and a half (wasn't emergency, those are made immediately). How much time do you wait in UK for a scan paid by the state based on your taxes paid for medical system?

Anyway, any idea why Charles have properties in Transylvania? Is this because he is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler? Or it's just an interest for country life and ecology?

It's not a matter of money as such, but sometimes qualifications don't translate well etc, was unsure. And I reckon some taxi drivers take home a better wage than a lot of physicists .

No idea about the scans. I know when I had almost done in my AC joints (collar bone) I saw a nurse, doctor, had and xray and saw a physio all in the first visit to a&e, about 4 hours in total, with another physio appointment in a weeks time.

It depends on a lot of things, but the NHS has always done well for me.

There's a lot wrong with the UK, but in fairness the NHS is amazingly good, even with far too many lazy staff and plenty of bad management. There are areas where it's left standing by other countries, just as there are areas where we are superior to them.

I know someone who works in the NHS, the inefficiencies are ridiculous but somehow it has never failed me.

I waited 1-2 months for an MRI

you can't run an organisation the size of the NHS delivering the range of services it does without waste. for sure try to minimise it, but not by spending even more on keeping costs down. but to a large degree accept it's just how it is

For a start Tangy they need to cut the amount of directors. It is beyond ridiculous how many they have who all do the same job. Yet you're cutting nurses? And you don't have enough doctors to man A&E so you pay GP's exorbitant fees to cover?

there are certainly savings to be made, and I'm yet to meet more than 2, perhaps 3, competent board members anywhere in my life.

just you're never not going to have a lot of waste

In an ideal world there would be a bottomless pit of money and the NHS could be funded perfectly - sadly there isn't that much money and cuts had to be made as you cannot keep spending the amount we did

The only other way of getting the money is to raise taxes - and I doubt many people would prefer that

We're spending more than we ever did on the NHS. And if you had a bottomless pit the NHS could probably spend that and more anyway. So whatever we do there'll be a rationing.

Quick post in order to avoid another thread.

I am logging into this site and for whatever reason I can't see the chat room nor log into it, there's no button or something like this. Same thing is happening to me in Uruguay Offsite (same platform). It happens from both my computers (work and home). I cleared cache but no effect. It also happens from Chrome. I have different ISPs and no contact between two PC. Any idea what is happening?

Not sure. I do think I once ran into a problem with Web content encoding, somewhere in tools/settings dependent on browser.

Mine is set as Western ISO-8859-1

I had the same problem with Chrome at home, no idea. Working fine at work though, perhaps new versions with problems? I'll try and check it out today.