The Wild East Comes To Stay

From the end of 2013, Bulgarians and Romanians will be free to work across the European Union. These countries have substantial populations - about 27 million in all. Many in Britain worry these Bulgarians and Romanians will pour into the UK, while there are those in these countries who believe that either the bulk of the migration has already occurred (to Spain or Italy), others who believe that it will take the form of "circulatory" migration .... a few months away, then bring cash back home.

What they don't reckon with is the British Welfare Benefit system which hinders this process .... whereas in Italy or Spain there are effectively no welfare benefits for East European migrant, in the UK - child benefit and other benefits are offered equally. So at best we can expect many migrant with families in to arrive, claim benefits, then for families to slip quietly back to the East (while the 'worker' stills claims the welfare benefits), and at worst, they arrive, demand housing and welfare, while working in the black economy, begging or involved in criminal activities.

The Beggars Banquet

In other words the UK will, via its ever giving 'horn of plenty' (by East EU standards), welfare system, interrupt the "circulatory" migration patterns of the Bulgarians and Romanians .... this means that we will end up paying for new housing in these countries via benefits and not the profits of labour e.g. Child Benefit First child £20.30 pw, and £13.44pw for the rest. So with maybe 6 children (not uncommon in the 'Roma' communities), £87.50 pw x 52 = £4550 pa (approx $6,300 pa), this where the average yearly earnings are normally about $6,800 pa .... the incentive to do this is very clear. They can live better than the average citizen simply by claiming one UK benefit - which by the way we seem to be happy to pay for children who have left the UK and returned to the East.

The Treasury says it is forced to pay for the children of any UK workers who contribute National Insurance under European Union rules (which may exclude some of the Bulgarians, with the end result that the UK tax payer is paying child benefit for more than 40,000 children abroad, mostly in Poland and the East.

The costs of this to the UK taxpayer are probably about £12 million pa (based upon 3 kids), but would be likely to double if we have a large influx of claimants from these new countries (which are poorer than the P oles were ..... All this will simply fuel more xenophobia in the UK. Of course the irony of all this is that its Britain that pushed the EU to expand Eastward in Mitteleuropa and the Balkans, against the advice of the French etc ..... now they are advising that we hold back on Turkish membership of the EU, for much the same reasons (The poverty, the illiteracy, the cultural attitudes - not withstanding the Islamic nature of Turkey), only magnified 3 fold as 74 million Turks are loosed onto Europe.

Maybe this time we will listen to the voices of caution, before the problems we will see from 2014 onwards are just the harbinger of things to come.

Whistle For Your Money

In the London Underground, licensed buskers are allowed to perform and can earn good money ..... so much so that a few years ago, a blind man who was something of a whistler, found that for just standing and whistling 'tunes', after just 90 minutes he had earned £36.80 .... and after three and a half hours he got £90. His weekly benefit giro cheque at the time was around £38.

Now he's a professional whistling busker and the BBC ran a story on him ..... "All you need to know is that I live in Wolverhampton, travel down to London four days a week, employ a helper and I make a good living." ........ all for a 4 day week.

So its safe to assume that he's doing at least 7 hours and that he gets more than £250+ per day. A minimum of £1,000pw or (allowing for holidays) it could easily be £48,000 pa .....

Admittedly, he suggests in the story that as he's really blind (as opposed to some who may not be disabled at all .... despite the glasses), he gets more than the average busker, and presumably there's time slots i.e. He can't keep the pitch all day (but that's not actually explicit in the story) ... . even so, probably about £30,000 pa is achievable.

Who says it doesn't pay not to work? ...... we have fostered a very strange culture in the UK.

In fact intrigued by the notion that you can  make a very "good living" for doing very little in the UK, I researched 'Begging' and what can be earned for doing nothing at all .... just hanging a card around your neck with the words "hungry and homeless" and sticking a container in front of you. I was genuinely shocked with the results.

In 2007, the London council of 'Westminster' council revealed that beggars in London could earn up to £300 a day at the time. In 2009, Leicestershire Police and council started an investigation and found no beggars who were arrested to be homeless. In fact most had council accommodation, welfare benefit cheques, with some beggars earning up to £200 on a Friday or Saturday night, which if done regularly would be equal to be about £21,000 a year on top of their normal incomes.

I say 'incomes' because what was most shocking was the fact that the investigations uncovered the fact that a number of the weekend beggars were actually office workers with homes, who were topping up their salaries ....  'We have intelligence-there is a woman who is begging because she wants a new kitchen for her flat,' said a police Sergeant Underwood in one of the reports. In London their are now vast numbers of Eastern European organised begging gangs ... children and adults. Whole villages of villas are going up in Romania and Albania financed out of organised crime in the UK including professional beggars.

The answer to this is simple, make street begging totally illegal, with prison sentences (and deportation where appropriate), large fines, loss of housing benefits and council tenancies all part of the punishments ..... but also make it illegal to give to beggars, with the same punishments meted out to offenders.

Begging in our society, which hands out so much in welfare largesses, is virtually unneeded .... it appears to be nothing more than a fraud of welfare benefits, or taxes, or a means of financing drug taking habits. It should be stamped out now, (along with benefit abuses), before it gets much much worse when millions of Balkan Europeans are no longer stopped from arriving on our shores next year.

'Liberal' Politicians who make these decisions (such as decriminalising begging), never seem to consider the likely long-term consequences and we always end up paying a very heavy price for their lack of foresight. I personally would make every act of legislation have a built in 'Sunset clause' after a decade .... meaning that it would expire after 10 years unless renewed by parliament (no further need after that). The idea being that if a law has worked as expected and with no unforeseen consequences, then it would be nodded through before expiry, but otherwise it could be replaced or allowed to expire.

This would stop bad laws or ill considered laws becoming permanent millstones round our societal necks .... 

NB: There has been something of a tradition of 'whistlers' in the UK .... the folk singer Roger Whittaker made something of a trademark by breaking into whistling in songs .... but who remembers 'Whistling Jack Smith' anymore?