That's not true though. Plenty of the Black and Asian populations of London will have been born in England. However I get what you mean though, and its interesting. Living in Reading, there is a surprising number of people in the area who moved here from London.

The determining factor in London's change is largely economic, the affluence of the 60s and 80s, saw a large number of people who benefitted from those changes from London, and these were largely people who were white, and had long historical family ties into the London boroughs.

Migration from abroad filled the migration that was the suburban transit of a large number of people born into long term London families.

The same era saw the growth of a lot of areas in the South East outside of London, where these people moved some for jobs, others for a different arguably perceived better life.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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Funny you should mention the Gurkhas, as Reading has a Nepalese community, and a fair number of ex-Gurkhas in the area - We also have had problems with Nepalese organised crime and gangs.

I also however agree, we have unemployed people that we should be getting into work. The problem for me, is one of geography and wages. The use of migrant labour, typically of young people from the poorer EU states, has kept wages down.

Meanwhile benefits, have risen as they're tied to the actual cost of living. So we have a situation now that's very obvious, low skilled labour wages aren't sufficient to provide stability for families or even individuals. And you have a situation where people who do work are no better off than if they were unemployed.

Given a minuimum wage around Reading, will probably mean you get to rent a room in a bedsit or house share for just over half you income. Its simply not worth working, when you can be better off on benefits, and maybe doing a few odd jobs or hours at the local Asda to top up (provided you do less than 16 hours a week). The outcome of this, you'll have more disposable income, than if you worked 37 hours a week - You won't have a lot, but you will have more - Plus you have more spare time. Why should people work.

Also, people certainly can't to relocate to areas where such work is available, because they'd be massively worse off than staying where they are.

We need to end the notion of profit being in and of itself the justification for everything. Fix a real working wage as the minimum, and subserdise the relocation of people from areas of high unemployment to fill jobs, whilst at the same time ending the EU work to rule.

At present, society serves the interests of Corporations. Corporations must serve the needs of society.

Successive governments failed to tie minimum wage to the costs of living.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

We are all British according to our passport but that is just something that pro mass immigration people hide behind to deny the vast numbers of migrants and their offspring who now occupy our cities.

Labeling someone as British has no meaning in the real world. The term English has no meaning at all apparently.

You can swim against the tide of globalisation as much as you like but it will envelope you at some point. Better to ride the wave than fight it. After all, we were integral in starting it in the way our Empire worked. And many of us benefit from it, just look at where our Palace diaspora now live.

Banging on about immigration all the time isn't going to make much of a difference but certainly takes up a lot of space on this site. It's getting beyond ridiculous. Barely room for any football talk.

Personally I don't consider anyone to be English unless they can trace their blood line directly - without any outside influence - to the original inhabitants of Albion. The Greeks thought they came from Armorica, so we are all Frogs. Except then we had some Italians, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Danes, Germans, Dutch, more French and countless others who also decided they were English. And oddly we now consider ourselves Anglo Saxon.

To me a South Londoner is a South Londoner. Don't care if they are part of a coven or worship the Goddess Annoia (the Goddess of Things That get Stuck in Drawers). If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

I wonder what people like Punch, Zaha, Kaikai or Boateng would think id they read some of these threads.

It's not exactly a stretch to think some of their family might.

Or are they different?

That post displays no Wisdom at all.