I posted this on Twitter yesterday.
There's not a lot to add, except my thanks to all involved. I hope I communicated that to all involved.
What I did not do is apologise for any stress the people in question - and throughout the NHS - might be suffering. I should have done. The atmosphere of fear that the far-right are trying to create is utterly unacceptable. I hope there is widespread revulsion at their actions expressed whenever possible now.
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Oh for a little honesty in this issue…………………..
As a boy growing up in a local neighbourhood, all the local shop owners were initially white.
Over time, these became owned by Asians – one even had a full time job as a bus driver.
So – all you racists and white supremacists out there – how did that happen?
Who made the white folk sell to Asians? Answer: No one.
The culture in the white folk was always to make the shop viable and sell into retirement at a profit as early as possible OR use the cash to set their kids up so they did not have to work as hard as them, go to university and become ‘professional people’.
Or sometimes the kids just did not want to take over the family business or (as one local lad did) he sold the shop for redevelopment into housing.
I know a lot of white people who are private landlords who have got into property because it makes money and replaces work. Property is easy money on the whole. Yes, Asians do this too.
Hard working Asians not only keep the NHS going, they also keep the shops going in many communities I have seen over the years working all over this country.
I don’t want to generalise too much, but I can only recount what I have seen and heard over my lifetime.
So there it is.
This raises an interesting question.
You point out that sometimes kids do not want to follow in their parents footsteps and take over the family business, and so the parents end up selling their business.
Do the statistics suggest that when they do, Asians are more likely to buy the business, than another white family? And if so, why is this the case?
Britain used to be described as a nation of shopkeepers – have less recent immigrants (such as the Normans from 1066) changed that much?
All I can recount is what I saw happening in my neighbourhood. As a kid I knew where every sweet shop was (naturally) when I used to hang out with my mates. I worked as a paper boy and saw the local newsagents change hands too.
I have no idea what the dynamic is but it seemed to me that being a shopkeeper started to rank lower in white society as a job but there are exceptions?
Maybe that is what is meant by being ‘aspirational’? The money appeared and a generation of owner-occupiers just upped and left.
Maybe it is just to do with gross flows in and out of housing in an area, with people moving out into newer housing, more affluent areas, maybe to do with businesses and savings maturing – I’m not sure what the profit margin is on a traditional shop? Maybe it’s a generational thing?
The Asians are still there BTW, staying open and providing a service. If they left, I wonder the place would be like? Maybe under Thatcherism and financial engineering, one group was able to leave and another come in?
Your last para asks a very important question.
‘ear ‘ear!
Glad you are on the mend Richard
Not much, right now ….
I was hoping this would be a point about the migrant worker tax surcharge. A distortionary and immoral additional tax charge on legal migrant workers.
Alas I’m disappointed,
Sorry
Agreed. All of my wife’s carers are from Africa, and without them I simply couldn’t manage.
Every time I’ve been in a hospital in the last few years the migrants, from Asia, Africa or Europe, have been doing a lot of the jobs: Nurse, Doctor, Cleaner etc. They are part of the backbone of the NHS and care homes. Migrants aren’t the problem, Farage and his ilk are.
The same is true in Florida.
Over 50% of total hospital staff are immigrants or 1st generation children of immigrants.
Most are from India or South America. I always ask because I am really interested non-European cultures and the medical professional are always glad to talk about the “Home Country” and how much they love Florida.
Many came to the USA to study ‘medicine” and after graduation just stayed in the USA to practice.
The UK (England) needs to devise a new set of comprehensive medical training schemes.
I’ve recently been to the see my GP, the hospital consultant, the MRI scan team and the biopsy team. They nearly all had black or brown faces and the only ones who didn’t sounded East European! I’ve no idea how many of them were born in the UK, how many trained here and how many may have been immigrants who trained abroad but it doesn’t matter I’m just thankful there were there keeping our NHS going.