Monday 29 January 2018

Greeks Bearing Fines


Well, sending off the two requests to do a speed awareness course for the two speeding offences within a couple of minutes of each other didn't produce the desired result of two speed awareness courses. Got one speed awareness course (cost £88), one £100 fine and 3 points. Better than £200 in fines and 6 points though.


Here's a conundrum:

  • Greece has very high unemployment.
  • European citizens come to the UK for jobs.
  • Why do we not see a huge influx of Greeks into the UK looking for work?

The UK is a magnet for Eastern Europeans, where unemployment is not as great an issue as in Greece, or for that matter, Spain and Portugal. Could the reason be the weather? I can't think of any other reason, except perhaps (and contentiously) work ethic.

Update: I was speaking to an economist yesterday and he suggested it was unequal pay that drove Eastern Europeans to the UK, and now that sterling has fallen and wages have risen in Eastern European countries (which was one of the objectives of admitting other countries in order to create markets), there's not such an imperative to move here to seek work anymore. 

It annoys me intensely when Uber-Brexiteers (aka Kippers) suggest the EU owes the UK for having saved it in WW I and II, yet they take no cognisance of the fact Europe saved England from the Ottomans in 1683 by stopping them at the gates of Vienna. If that had not happened they'd be Muslims (which is somewhat ironic) and, in all likelihood, staunch supporters of remaining in the ultra-conservative Caliphate.



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