"the scumbag element"

A surprisingly good programme on immigration last night, on Channel Four. Didn't come across at all patronising. Better than I'd expect from the Guardian reading liberal elite. Didn't go down the road of labeling opponents of uncontrolled immigration racists, although there was far too much repetitive quoting of Enoch Powell.

Went and asked native non-whites what they thought of immigration, which was a nice touch. They're against it, it turns out. As are most people, especially the working class. The only person they found strongly in favour was an Indian restaurant owner who wanted to import south asian kitchen staff.

That's rather the point really. The only ones in favour of immigration are the Guardian readers and company, the ones who want the cheap servants. The black bloke they talked to (there only seemed to be two and one of those was in favour of immigration, pretending it was jsut change we had to get used to) owned a carpet cleaning business and can't compete on price with the Poles coming in.

They often come over only for a few months, they're happy to work for a pittance partly due to desperation and partly due to the inborn servility of the foreigner. Either way they come over here, undercut the lower part of the workforce and six months later they're off again with the ill gotten gains. Worsens the market position of the poor. If there weren't a never-ending supply of Poles to, for example, do farm labour then natives would do it instead. Of course the employers claim they can't recruit natives but that's because they're lying scum. It would be more difficult, might need to pay a decent wage, but they'd have to if there was no alternative.

A decent wage is bad for the economy, it would seem.

The title is from another documentary, BBC Radio, about prvate landlords. One was taking deposits then forcing the tenants out and keeping the deposits. Excused it by saying he was dealing with "the scumbag element".

He was the only scumbag there.