Blog: Archives

I haven't seen much of the White season being broadcast on BBC2 recently (not through choice or deliberate avoidance, just through lack of time), but I did manage to catch the programme on tonight: The Poles Are Coming! (you can see it on the iPlayer in the UK until the 18th March).

A documentary by Tim Samuels, he travels to Gdansk in Poland where he finds the lack of people to fill jobs so severe that women whose husbands have moved westwards are holding up the city's fire service, immigrants from North Korea, Ukraine and China are filling the gaps in the shipyards - and even the site of the proposed new Baltic Stadium for Euro 2012 - in just four years' time - is a grassy field with a dirt-track access road which requires a ferry crossing to get to from the city.

In general, I support the idea of immigration and emigration, and believe everyone should be free to move around as they please, leaving the economy to sort itself out: more people = more money from taxes = more money to spend on services and more jobs to serve the extra people; likewise, less people = less money needs to be spent serving them. But I know it's not as simple as that: as seen by the sheer number of people getting training in places like Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia before moving further west, where they know they will earn three or four times as much, leaving the economy in their home town and country to suffer.

Full credit to Tim for following one particular migrant on the 33-hour coach and train journey between Gdansk and Peterborough. Obvious delight at seeing the White Cliffs of Dover faltered at the sight of the traffic on the M20, finding out that Peterborough isn't a traditional English village with red brick roofs, and a rather rude and abrupt train guard at Peterborough train station.

I'm off to watch the rest of the White season - it's a truly fascinating insight into both English and international cultures and traditions, and how they mix together in the melting pot that is contemporary Britain.