The Romanians Aren't Coming, The Romanians Aren't Coming....

So, that flood of Romanians and Bulgarians, coming here to take our women, sorry, jobs and benefits, hasn't materialised.  Much to the disappointment of the right.  I'm waiting for 'Call Me Dave' Cameron to take credit for the failure of this tidal wave of immigration to actually occur.  After all, their reluctance to come here is clearly a result of his government's advertising campaigns in Romania which tried to make the UK look as unwelcoming as possible.  It's a trick which has worked for the intelligence and security services for years: they justify their increasingly intrusive surveillance on the grounds that it is necessary to fight terrorism, when anyone points out the lack of successful terrorist operations they just turn round and declare that just shows how effective their surveillance is...

To get back to the original pint, the best reason - aside from plain old racism - that the right can give us for opposing these notional hordes of unwashed East Europeans entering the country is that they are really coming here to claim our over-generous welfare benefits.  Leaving aside the highly questionable notion that welfare benefits in the UK are over-generous, the problem I have with the whole notion of so-called 'benefits tourism' is that I have yet to see any evidence that it actually exists.  Sure, the right-wing press love to bandy the term around, but never actually gives us any statistics.  How many documented cases have there actually been?  How many successful prosecutions have there been?  I suspect the answer to both questions is: none.  But Hell, why let the facts - or lack of them - get in the way of a good bit of right-wing scaremongering.  You know, I'd have more respect for these anti-immigration reactionaries if they were to say that they didn't want the Romanians here because they are a bunch of fascists who willingly supported Hitler in the last war.  But I suspect they think that's the one thing in the Romanians' favour...