I agree with FA, what does that make me?
Answers on a postcard please.

It makes you right.
HTH

Cracking post.

Like FA I only "worry" about immigration in the context of population increase coupled with an unwillingness from government to invest in necessary infrastructure in the country.
For example, IIRC, the NHS needs roughly a 9% annual increase in funding to keep pace with a variety of issues (ageing population, new drugs/treatments etc) including population growth (which is why a flat NHS budget is effectively a 9% cut, compared to a historical average annual increase of 4% since 1950. The only time the NHS has consistently received an annual increase close to the 9% it needs was in the early 2000's, with an average annual increase of 8.8%).
Obviously other areas such as education, social & care services, police etc (& also transport which is often overlooked and chronically underfunded in my opinion) also need investment to deal with an increasing population.

I do also think there can be a problem with large groups of immigrants living in one area. In some cases it might not help in terms of "integration" but mainly it's because most immigrants are relatively poor and communities generally seem to do better when there is a mix of different "wealth states".
For example, my gran used to live in Harehills in Leeds. When she moved there in the mid 60's it was a decent place to live with a mixture of different wealth & social classes. Over time it's become populated mostly by immigrants (obviously most are British born now) and is now, to be frank, a bit of a dump. Not because most people who live there are immigrants (be it 1st/2nd/3rd etc generation) but because it's a poor area, no different to poor "non-immigrant" areas.
But seeing that area turn like that, along with the racist/extreme newspapers, fuelled my grans annoyance to the point where you could easily describe her as racist. Despite the facts I used to point out to her that the young paper boy who used to check on her and look after her came from an immigrant family and the person who broke into her house and stole her tv, money & cheque book was "British".
The combination of a once thriving area becoming run down and just a general sense of unease at any kind of change (the shops on the parade changed from traditional grocers/butchers/corner shops etc to halal meat shops etc) and then throw in the odd person dressed in a burka and a few inflammatory newspaper headlines...



IIRC approx 1/3rd of the UK's population growth is due to immigration. So even if we took an extreme UKIP approach and left the EU and closed the borders we'd still have a rising population. Just talking from an anecdotal point of view, it seems that people are having more children. For instance there were only a handful of people in my school year group who had more than 1 brother or sister and I'm willing to bet the birth rate has increased quite a bit.

I'm not sure what all the answers are and maybe some EU rules need changing or adapting, but I don't think walling ourselves off from the world is the way to go, and leaving the EU at this stage is such a ridiculous suggestion that no political party who runs on that basis should be taken seriously. It's akin in seriousness to the MRLP's manifesto energy saving pledge to attach all cars with bungee ropes to save fuel on the return journey.
But I do think a government should react accordingly to the effects of its policies, and governments of all colours have been ignoring the effects of immigration and population growth in general on the UK infrastructure.
Also other policies, such as allowing/not discouraging companies to offer paltry wages and conditions (and associated use of recruitment agencies, zero/low hours contracts, no job security etc), has I'm sure led to more short term immigration, which governments have again ignored.

If you worry about immigration into this country, do you also worry about the impact emigration from this country has on other countries? If not, why not?

That's a bigger problem imo. In the industry I work in, over the last couple of years, I know people who have moved to Saudi Arabia, Libya, Angola and Australia because they can earn a lot more money over there. They were good earners, earning 40-50k plus overtime here and aside from the skills we have lost we have also lost probably lost over 100k in taxes going into this country, and that's between 6 people.

An obvious concern of immigration is whether we have the resources to cater for everyone. I'm going off topic slightly here but investing in shale gas projects in this country would almost end our energy problems over night. A fact that all these idiot protesters overlook. Just to put it into context, the company I work for has recently committed to a project that is, essentially, building a huge tank to store shale gas in. We are spending £300m on it, and we will import shale gas on ships from the US to use in our processes. Because it is much more plentiful and cheaper than North Sea gas it will have paid for itself in 6 years.

You seriously believe that?

Wow

BTW how does a tank to store shale gas differ from a tank to store any other form of methane?

The concerns that a lot have is that we seem to have no control over who comes in from EU countries, we can prevent a highly qualified engineer from a non-EU country but have no say if a violent criminal from Italy lands up here. We should have the right to have a say in who settles here, especially if they are likely to contribute nothing or bring their criminal behaviours here. I would rather have 100 Bangladeshi labourers who are willing to work than the one Italian drug trafficker.

Do I believe it will solve energy problems or do I believe it will pay for itself in 6 years? If the latter, well thats the figure we've been told. Not only does it reduce our costs but the fact it is more readily available means we can run at a higher capacity. If the former, well, its reletively easy to obtain and theres lots of it. It needs to be supplemented by other renewable sources, but it would certainly buy us alot of time.

As for the tank, I'm not directly involved in the project, but I would imagine it doesnt differ at all. We just need somewhere to store the gas that is coming over by ship. The £300m price tag is because its f**king huge.

Shale gas will not sort our energy problems, nor will it get even close to paying for itself in six years.

As for the gas tank, if the gas is coming by ship, it's LNG and the reason for the huge cost is not because the tank itself is huge, it's because it's stored cryogenically and under pressure.

Please don't simply swallow then regurgitate whatever guff your employer is feeding you

I've heard that it's very damaging in terms of pollution as well, but to be honest I don't know enough about it to comment. In particular I am led to believe that the chemicals that they use to release the gas in combination with the drilling contain such as formaldehyde and mercury which can get into the water table.

Any insight?

I am not a racists or owt ( ) but as a Celt I will be glad to see the Anglo types replaced, at least now I can buy a decent mango in Hull and I can walk down Spring Bank on a night for the first time in memory without the worry of being mugged. The English...what are you like? LOL

The only two comments that I'd make is that apparently shale gas is so cheap and so plentiful in America that they are starting to send shipfulls of the stuff over here for us to burn.

And this cheap gas that comes all the way from America on a big ship is then priced at such a level that having to fork out £300m for somewhere to store it is peanuts and doesn't even need a long term mortgage to pay for it.

Sounds like someone's getting shafted here and it doesn't take a genius to work out that if it was ever used on any sort of grand scale here then it would not produce one single whiff of cheaper gas.

Some of us (you included) can remember all the promises of cheap and plentiful energy just bubbling out of the North Sea

...or indeed nuclear energy "too cheap to meter", we should all be living in all-electric houses by now with not one penny invoiced every month.

That lie was still being peddled in 1974 when I joined the workforce and the electrical contractor that I worked for were installing electric night storage and electric ducted air heating in hundreds of council houses, "cheap and clean" is how it was promoted by the manufacturers of the heating units.

Can I just point out here that I never said anything about it being burned. The gas is cracked and separated into different hydrocarbons (ethylene is the main money spinner) and sent off elsewhere. We can only get enough North Sea gas to run at half capacity currently. So not only is the shale gas cheaper but there is enough available to allow us to run at higher rates and as a result the process becomes a lot more efficient. Hence why they are willing to fork out the money.