http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/around_britain/html/overview.stm
I don't really know what to think about this. All these new arrivals, lots from eastern europe.
My biggest concern is nothing to do with ethnicity, or even language, or even culture, as in their grandparents original culture. All that will sort itself out.
I'm just worried that once you have been forced to accept violence, rape, corruption and death around you, once seen the corpses on the street, once had to lie and rob and cheat and harm others just to stay alive, have seen used, have possessed and even used yourself, personal firearms, etc etc - once you have seen/done all that, then you are forever changed, and can't ever quite go back to "innocence".
Particularly if all this happens to you when you are young.
So those who come to us from (maybe even fleeing from) societies which have collapsed in these sorts of desperate chaos, whether from war, political change, tribalism, or didtatorship, or even "regime change" - a worrying proportion of these unfortunate people may never ever be able to quite fit in with our calm docile law-abiding situation, or see our advanced welfare system as anything other than to be milked and cheated.
I hope that I am wrong, but I have a brother living at the heart of the maelstrom, and he is getting more and more worried at the growth in violence and gang/gun warfare.
It seems that the biggest problems are with Jamaican, Lithuanian, and Rumanian immigrants, who are finding it hard to settle into a more peaceful culture. Bit like the famous "dove and hawk" best-strategy game-theory scenarios, a relatively small number of hawks can cause havoc with huge numbers of doves.
Anyway the link is to a bbc site giving figures on residents born outside the country. One surprise is the relatively large number of Germans, which is quite nice, after all our difficulties with each other. More South Africans than I would have expected, but perhaps lots of them are white.
Notice that no second generation people are included in the figures at all.
I don't really have any conclusions to offer - just thought a few of you might be interested. For you americans with your gun culture perhaps I should say something that is obvious to us but not to you. Private gun ownership in the UK is almost totally illegal, and most of us have never even seen, handled or touched one for real except glimpses when the army goes past. So anyone waving one has a free hand, at least for a little while. It didn't used to happen, but its gathering speed.
I don't know whether those of you more used to this stuff can offer any advice ?