F*cking off out of it aka Things to do in London before you fly

A few people have written to me recently concerning a comment I made about migrating from the UK...

And, coincidentally, figures out today from the Office of National Statistics show that more people (385,000) left the UK last year than in any year since current records began in 1991



It’s worth remembering though that our establishment has an unparalleled track record for misstating migration figures and they should always be taken with a small shovel full of salt.

Taking the current figures for example, something like half the 385,000 people who reportedly left the country weren’t originally British nationals and were simply people returning home. If you look at the inward migration figures, 74,000 people reportedly came to the UK from Eastern Europe which doesn’t match up at all with the 200,000 Eastern Europeans who registered to work in the UK (plus however many others didn’t sign up for what is essentially a voluntary scheme).

Whatever the true figures are for inward and outward migration, they are huge, arguably unparalleled in modern times and netting out to produce an increase in British population

None of which is a prelude to a spot of migrant-bashing on my part. Many of those migrants coming into this country have the potential to be the economic salvation of this nation – if only more of their initiative and energy was applied to activities other than packing supermarket ready meals and changing nappies

As things stand, through no fault of their own, migrants are being used to develop and sustain an increasingly unequal society that is reliant on a huge pool of minimum wage (i.e. maximum wage) labour. And on top of the legal migrants, there is also a not insignificant number of illegal migrants who are vulnerable to even seedier forms of exploitation.

Understandably, there are a lot of British-born nationals who don’t relish the prospect of bringing up their kids and growing old in a country that appears to be on an unstoppable course towards the kind of demographics and authoritarian, corporate-controlled government that would put a 1960’s-style banana republic to shame

Many of those that can are leaving

And don’t think for a minute that this mini-Exodus is restricted to the professional classes. I know plenty of skilled, blue-collar types who have fucked off out of here for good.

There is some irony at work though. Large numbers of people moving into and out of somewhere tend to bring their own problems with them. People moving in from low wage, shitty economies will force down wages in the country they move into. People selling their over-priced houses and taking that money somewhere else will invariably kick-up house prices and the cost of living wherever they settle.

Mass-migration doesn’t solve any problems it just smears them around a bit

Having said that, I am one of those people exploring the possibility of leaving the UK. There are personal reasons why I would feel the pull to leave whatever the state of the country but the course it is currently set on has made the decision a whole lot easier.

We live in a country enslaved and corrupted by the Culture of Fear - Fear of Terrorism, Fear of our Neighbours, Fear of burning too much oil, Fear of not having enough oil, Fear of the young, Fear of not being able to pay our bills… the list is enormous. Who in their right mind would sign up for more of that?

The answer, actually, is the majority of people.

Otherwise the fuckers peddling all that crap couldn’t get away with it

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Anyway, I’m currently updating my list of things I want to do in London/ Britain that I haven’t yet tried, before and if I do clear off

It’s very much work in progress…

• Take a trip on the London Eye

• Avail myself of the services of a mid-price East European prostitute/ teenage sex slave

• Try Crack

• Buy a National Lottery scratch card / Enter a late night premium rate TV phone-in competition

• Pay to download a ring tone (be ready for naughty words if you click that link)

• Fly Tip (even if I don't have to)
  

• Catch an infection inside a hospital (though having seen my father in torment from one in the last year of his life and having lost a friend in her mid thirties from another maybe I'll give that a miss)
  

• Get screwed by my Oyster Card

• Pay the Congestion Charge

• Wire dirty money to some overseas shit hole

• Eat a swan

• Get fucked by rising mortgage costs

• Kit myself out with a fake ID (this story about there being 76.7 million National Insurance numbers issued in a country with an adult population of 49 million makes excellent reading for anyone who thinks the National ID Card is a good idea)
  

• Buy an iPod I cannot afford on credit and have it taken off me at knife point

• Pretend to be Polish

(That last one may seem to be a tad obscure but based on the fact that most of the ‘Poles’ I know who have worked for family and friends in the catering trade are actually from the FSU and using hooky Polish passports. A couple of Ukrainians I know even managed to get their hooky Polish passports renewed by the Polish Embassy in London, which is particularly impressive as they don’t actually speak any Polish)

and, yes, all the pictures I've stuck in this post were taken in Lambeth and Southwark. Hmmm, South London...

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