Open-door policy a major own goal

The Friday THING: SIGNING up to that part of the European rules that allows anyone from a member state to come here has certainly achieved its goal in bringing to Britain people with skills and a spirit of enterprise.

Incomers from places like Romania and Poland have certainly brought something to Britain... a roaringly successful crime wave.

Maybe the Government thought, when they said they would welcome people with special skills who would be able to stand on their own two feet and add something to Britain, they were thinking about doctors, scientists, teachers and traffic wardens but what we have, in fact, is a new army — several armies in fact of thieves and vagabonds.

When it comes to league tables these overseas stars with special skills will certainly help to put us the top of the European crime league. Just as Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have achieved a measure of football fame on the back of their imports, so too will Britain. These European migrants are scoring 500 times a week in Britain and, unlike their footballing counterparts, they know that no matter what they say or do they will never get a red card. They cannot be deported and will be given food and lodging at our expense in one of Her Majesty’s prisons. Must be better than Lithuania, I’d have thought.

In the past two years, 54,000 citizens of Europe have been convicted of 27,000 crimes.

Polish immigrants top the league (and not for the prices their plumbers charge to repair that leak) with almost 7,000 crimes followed by Romania (4,343) and Lithuania (4,176).

The good folk of Luxembourg foot the table with only three crimes and are clearly in danger of relegation.

All of this could, of course, work wonders for our tourism strategy.

“The door is always open in good old GB and so is the window and the safe. Visit UK and take back memories and so much more”.

I have the utmost respect for social workers, even though they all seem to be left-leaning Guardian readers, and accept that they are in a no-win situation, either accused of acting too precipitously or too slowly.

But there does seem to be a contradiction in the case review verdict on the murder of 16-month old Violet Mullen. The review concluded that the murder of the tot could not have been predicted or prevented but then goes on to outline 76 ways that the protection of youngsters like tragic Violet, who was battered to death by her mother’s boy friend, could be improved.

This is, of course, a familiar pattern. A young child is murdered in a domestic environment that has been under some scrutiny but none of the agencies involved with the family is to blame. Part of the issue here, as in too many previous cases, is that when agencies involved in child protection sit down to discuss cases not everyone puts all that they know on the table, rendering the case conference practically useless.

Violet’s injuries were so serious that she looked as though she had been in a high-speed car crash and both her mother and her boy friend Gary Alcock, who were both jailed over the child’s death, were known to social services.

In the wake of the Baby P scandal in 2007, councils and child-care agencies were given a new set of guidelines to follow to prevent future tragedies. Clearly the guidelines are either not good enough or are not being followed.

It seems that because there was no neon sign on the front door saying: “Child at risk of being killed here” nothing was done.


FINAL WORD: Has Oldham Council got a secret stash of cash? Has Charlie hidden away millions under the cushions in his penthouse suite? According to new figures, English councils have stashed away £10 billion for a rainy day. If they look through their windows at the growing dole queues they’ll see that it’s raining pretty hard just now.