Dear Jeremy Bosk

Are you suggesting that the government sponsors you to travel to Thailand?

~ shocked & disgusted~ (from Middle Wallop)

Well, I'm afraid that I do NOT believe you'd be entitled to annual increases in your state pension if you move to Thailand:

"Receiving your State Pension when moving abroad

If you are moving permanently, you will only get yearly increases in your pension if you are in a European Economic Area (EEA) country. You’ll get yearly increases in your pension if you move to a country that has a special agreement with the UK. This special agreement must allow for the annual increase of the UK State Pension."

However:

" If you spend six months or more each year in the UK, you'll be entitled to your State Pension - with yearly increases - paid in full"

Jeremy - just go and live in Thailand for five months of the year (during our winter months) and keep your UK state pension increases PLUS cold weather allowance paid in full!

The charge for my advice is a pint of best bitter, please............... preferably served by a young lady wearing a sarong and a large welcoming smile!

Robert

Unfortunately I have over two years to wait before getting my state pension. Meanwhile I am saving my pennies to renew my passport for a trip to see friends in Ireland.

That is one of Blair's worst failures, not signing the Schengen Accord. I used to be able to just hop on a train and a ferry. Ireland is a lovely place where you can hear as many delightful European accents as here. All the cafés and seaside kiosks seemed to be staffed by Scouse accented Chinese last time I was there. I felt right at home, but then I have for thirty years or more.

I have a lot of friends who have lived and worked overseas even if only short term during gap years. Youth helps, and a facility with languages.

Think you all have the wrong end of the stick as regards payments to foreign workers ,in my experience the problem lies with the payments made to our own unemployed workers if it was cut we would not need to be employing so many poles etc. ,maybe if the local unemployed would adopt some of the attitude towards work that the immigrants have there would be no reason for most of them being here .Firstly the fishing industry would collapse if it had to rely on local labour , it is the biggest revenue earner in the north of scotland , this is purely down to the fact that differential between payment for hard work and doing nothing is not wide enough . Two hotels i use quite often in Inverness are almost completely staffed by immigrants when i asked the management why the answer was similar to what has happened in the fishing sector local youngsters dont want to work at weekends while immigrants are asking for more hours.If you speak to immigrants they dont want to be here any more than we want to go and work in there country, It is sad to say but we seem to rely on immigrant workers more than they rely on us and if they all went home you would know pretty quickly what a depression is like .so lets get our own doorstep cleaned up before anyone elses and get rid of half the handouts given to british nationals

Ronald

Back in the days before the minimum wage, I worked for an organisation that ran on overtime. Basic pay was below a living wage so I worked my rest days, worked 12 hour shifts six days a week, sometimes seven. I didn't complain when called out at five in the morning after finishing at 11:15 the previous night. The rules were rigged to make everyone but the bosses work horrible hours. We worked in a fog of exhaustion and made mistakes which allowed the bosses to dock wages. In five years I only once earned the national average wage.

Then I finally found another job. People do not put up with Victorian conditions for the fun of it. Nor in general do they benefit either physically or financially. A week into the new job something caught up with me and I physically collapsed like someone with a serious illness. It took weeks before I could walk more than a few yards. I would not wish that on anyone.

The Victorians themselves made a startling discovery. In the early cotton and wool mills it was customary to enforce 16 hour days, six days a week. Exhausted workers who fell asleep on their feet were driven to greater effort by overseers with whips. Then a philanthropic mill owner named Robert Owen decided to limit his workers to 12 hours a day and see that they were properly fed. Much to his surprise, output rose. People who are treated well do better work. Any farmer will tell you that the animals make better meat when not too stressed.

By area, the UK has become the 6th most densly populated country in the world, Under a deliberate policy appplied by successive Labour governments, the British way of life has been irrevocably changed for the worse by a virtual sunami of non EU economic immigrants. It is well documented that some of the latter are living in houses where annual rents are subsidised by taxpayers who could not afford to live in such houses themselves.

We have 1000 convicted foreign criminals walking our streets and a further 4,000 in jail, most of whom it appears cannot be deported for fear of impingeing on their human rights. These are people guilty of very serious crimes including murder, rape and sex trafficking. As if we do not have enough of our own indiginous scum guilty of the same and other serious offences. On top of all this, we have an estimated half million illegal immigrants, whom in the unlikely event of being caught, are taken to court and bailed 'pending further enquiries', only to disappear back into black economy.

With English the most wide spoken language in the world, England in particular is a magnate for immigrants legal/illegal. The catastrophic mistake successive UK governments have made is not to stop immigrants (especially the special case of genuine refugees fleeing persecution, who should be exempted on an annual quota basis), but to allow their entry irrespective of their qualifications in relation to the needs of this country.

The government should also stop the payment of child allowance for more than two children in any one family Eligible immigrants should only be allowed to bring with them immediate family members.