English vs. Polish hostility

"Ummm he was talking about England, with blooming economy for 70 years."

Get real,for god sake,you guys had it tough,yes,no one doubts that,but try telling anyone who lived in Nortern England in the 1980s that we had a booming econamy and they will laugh in your face. You may have had communism and martial law but here in yorkshire and other industrial parts of the UK we had represion,poverty and mass unemployment.The sort of unemployment figures that would have made people envious of Polands current position.We also had the army beating up protesters,look up battle of Orgreeve .And the secret service infaltrating educational and industrial institutions,Poland didnt /doesnt have a monopaly on hard luck stories.
The resentment in my local area(not shared by me,but with motives understood by me) has more to do with only just having the area regenerated 20 years after the ***** maggie thatcher(god that pee's me off how much so many Poles I know think the sun shines out of her arse just coz she took on Gorby et al) devested the local econamy.For instance,closing down viable coal mines and importing cheap coal from silisea instead(to add insult to injury doncaster,once a great center of coal and enginering is now twinned with gleiwitze,where our coal comes from) ,some of our northern towns had unemployment running at nearer 40-50 percent even only a few years ago(mid 90s) and this wasnt "lazy people" this was no jobs available and no financial development programes and regeneration in place. Just as the effects were coming into play,ie buisness investment in the area's and things were starting to look up for people we were faced with a string of sudden mass imigration from the late 90s onwards,all this adding strain to weak local infrastructures like schools,housing and medical services, Poles are just the latest arrivals and with over 15 thousand in a small city of less than 90 thousand this is hard to take when jobs are scare and future's uncertain for people who are invested in the area through family ties/history etc.So when some display a locust like attitude of" coming here to get get get" whatever that be,education money etc and then leave it does stick in the throat somewhat.
k.

I can totally sympathise with that. Sometimes I think history is nothing but a huge joke.

I have to say that I have noticed that very strange regard that many Poles have for Maggie Thatcher. Id like it if somebody could explain it to me because as an Irishman, I just dont get it!! Outside of the south of England she was one of the most hated people these two islands ever produced. She destroyed the North of England, Wales and Scotland economically. They only got over the iron lady's reign of terror in the past few years. She also prolonged the war in the North of Ireland by at least a decade through her murderous policies of state sponsored terrorism. I couldnt believe it when I started getting lectures from Polish friends of mine who seem to think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread! I was in Poland for Christmas last year and when her name came up at the dinner table and when I expressed a natural dislike of the woman, a couple of my girlfriends relatives nearly choked on their beetroot soup! Please explain

I've noticed this too. Is it common and why???

Because Poland would love a leader like Maggie Thatcher, it would be better than the jokers they have in place at the moment :)

Dont get me started on Maggie f****** Thatcher - f***ing b*** c*** F**k**

guess the Scots dont like her much then :)

or me!

Changing the subject slightly - many Polish people I have spoken to have a different view of Lech Walensa from that of most people outside Pl.
The general feeling is that , yeah, he did a good job but he hanged around too long.

that's exttemely mild compared to what I think of Thatcher and the damage she did to members of my family

Seriously !!!
I think its best for my health ( and my keyboard ) if I just ignore any thread that contains her name!

BTW, party, leicester square,first saturday after the old beehatch pegs it,meet you all there then :)

or it might be trafalger sqr,sorry, i was very very drunk when one of the "clown army" told me about it :)

LOL uk_ - you're quoting using THE MAIL as a source....How right wing are you exactly??

Let me guess you think powell was right about immigration!!!!

Can i say one thing to you -just came back from warsaw on a stag do (and yes we did live up to the British stereotype ie drank too much got really noisy and rowdy yet we were treated honourably by the locals and yet the following weekend we went out in our home town and one of my friends was slashed in the arm so badly that he had to have 5 tendons re-attached surgically. I say let the polish come to live in edinburgh.There are approximately 25,000 Poles out of a population of 275,000 and I see no problems with them at all.In fact they are adding to the multi cultural mix that makes the city such a great place to live in.
uk_r seriously you need to get your issues sorted out Immigrant workers are what keeps the economy going and your forgetting you need to work for a year before you can claim any benifits. So that's a year of Tax and N.I income for the government while they do the jobs that no-one else wants!!

dont worry nessie,look at the heading,its ENGLISH hostility to poles,funny though,us Scots seem to be outnumbering them here as well as in parliement :)

Still upset about being Colonized for 300 years??....Your Scots Prime Minister is only on the throne because us Englishmen agree to it........He would be thrown out otherwise!!....Most Poles get F-cked about more up there in Scotland than they do in England!

Actually, I know a group of men who have sussed out the nearest pub to the cemetary she's going to be buried in. They are going to drink 10 pints, then go and pi$$ on her grave. They're not joking either, so unfortunately, they won't be able to make the Trafalger square party.

What gives you that impression?

You are nearly correct Bossie, Polish people working in the UK are not allowed to claim benefits for the first 12 months, but, they can claim child benefit. This is rarely paid in Poland as it is meams tested (if you earn more than 500 PLN per month you cannot claim) This payment is a european regulation and can be claimed by Polish workers, even, if their children reside back in Poland. At present, the rate is £17 for the first child and £6 for every subsequent child and some 69,000 are already claiming this tax fee payment. When applied for, it is back-dated for the first 3 months. It seems that the British government did not realise this when throwing open its doors to Eastern europe.

There has been quite afew incidents of rascism up there. Not only against Poles but against the English also. The world cup was a good example.

Unfortunately there have been, but lets keep it in perspective.

In my experience, there is much more animosity towards the English than Polish people.

Good example of what? The Scots keep getting "best behaved supporters" awards and Fair Play awards ( only awards re football we get nowadays ) whilst the English fans.....

he means that ned who hit a little boy in an england top.....savage but you get drunken bums everywhere.
BTW,I dont think the PM sits on a throne pal.........d'oh,next time have a little look around famous british inventors/soldiers/politicians etc,funny how so many are Scots,and not sure where you get "colonised for 300 years.." from either,sorry,where exactly? Sorry mate,go anywhere in europe the reactions always the same;
european " are you english?"(asked with trepidation,fear of a r s es being exposed or general drunken b um behaviour,)
"no,Scottish/Irish."
"ah,your welcome here then:)"

Polish & Brits: you are both White Europeans who have much in common...Britain is ruled
by corrupt Freemasons & Jews who direct the destruction of the UK economy...they use
Muslims & Asian immigrants to fan the flames of hatred, and when you have Poles coming there for work, they are treated as enemies, not European brothers...the UK at
the top is completely rotten, and this is the cause of your problem...so Poles & Brits,
recognize where the problem lies, leaders/bankers who view you as 'human resourses'.

Yawn.

Osiol, are you playing the guitar in your garden on Saturn currently?

Thats a shoe shop on the high street isnt it?

Fan the flames of some cracking tandoori ovens more like.
The only hatred here is from numpties who spout hitleresque tosh....


Eh?competitors maybe,enemies????


Thats how the world spins,and always has done,crappy maybe but just life...

Yes, actually a chain of shoe shops, the main shop is Buckingham Palace & the other is
Waddeson Manor.

One of the masons was drummer in Pink Floyd.


Particularly when we had a football match England + 1 German vs. Poland. They one. Aargh!

Hm, you exaggerate Joe. You should come to UK and see it all for yourself. You'll see that prejudice against Poles is thousandfold worse in US than in England.

It's a fact that there's prejudice against Poles - parhaps the result of competitive attitude (mentioned by Isthatu)? - among some non-English residents in the UK, including Thirld World people (Asians, incl. Arabs, Africans). Some of the bad cases of the prejudice, as known to me, involve a Latvian woman, a Slovak woman, and a Bangladeshi man.

Generally, Poles get along very well with the English people. As you rightly remark, Poles and Brits have much in common.