Wait, seriously? This is actually a real news report?
Absolutely nothing has changed,” says Rashid, a young asylum seeker on his own in Britain who was among the people who met the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, when he visited the UK in November. “I am still living on £5 a day, struggling with travel, struggling with food, struggling with making friends. I thought that was going to be changed to something like £50 a day, but I am still hoping and waiting for change. I don’t know what I have to do.”
We’re to run the economy according to the delusions of children now?
50 quid a day he wants, so 1500 quid a month. After tax that’s what? 20 odd grand a year and I presume somewhere to live is covered apart from that.
“I don’t know what I have to do.”
Has he tried fucking off?
Tears spring readily to the eyes of Mariam, a young woman who is alone in the UK and is appealing against her asylum decision.
Hard-hitting investigative journalism.
Read the guardian? I’d sooner chop onions.
OK, Rashid, so here’s the deal; Free food, free housing, free healthcare, 50 friends supplied by the Gruadnigan, 50 quid a day pocket money, but you have to give up the virgins and only 2 different little girls a month. OK?
It really is hard to make friends when you’ve no money. Whether that’s because you are tapping them for cash, food and whatever all the bloody time is a factor I could not say. I understand that in RoP. countries generosity to the stranger is required. Try there.
I’m from the UN and i’m here to help.
Currently UK jobseeker’s allowance for 16-24 year olds, which is meant to be based on contributions, is £57 a week. So about £8 a day. So Rashid is receiving 62.5% of the allowance given to those seeking work.
The government is now responsible for making friends for these people now?
WGAF?
National Minimum wage for an 8 hour day (current):
Apprentice: £29.60
U18: £33.60
18-20: £47.20
21-24: £59.04
>=25: £62.64.
Before deductions.
Net, that works out at:
Apprentice: £29.60
U18: £33.45
18-20: £45.10
21-24: £53.15
>=25: £55.60.
And the Grauniad is giving sympathetic column inches to an asylum seeker who basically wants 21-24 year old full-time minimum wage money while not working?
@abacab
I’m afraid not. Rashid wants £50 seven days a week, so he wants considerably more than your numbers.
That said, those national minimum wage numbers are pretty low.
He wants this AFTER free housing as well. It’s £50 SPENDING money…. so …
50×365 = 18250
Plus housing, say £8,000 a year for a room inc all bills.
Or £26250…. which plugged into my reverse tax calculator is equivalent to a £33,000 gross income. Nah…. that’s not poverty, that’s in the top 1% of the world’s population.
If that’s him in the photo he doesn’t look old enough to work. I doubt he pays for food and accommodation from that £5 so he’s basically in the same position as any schoolboy in the country. And of course he gets free healthcare, education, and access to public provision generally like every other schoolboy in the country. He is presumably free from the persecution that he claims to have fled- if he hasn’t fled persecution then he has no right to asylum.
Miriam gets support from the family she lives with, again just like every schoolgirl in the country.
Basically we have teenagers asking for more pocket money- again like every other teenager in the country.
Pat,
If you click on the little (i) button on the photo, it tells you it’s Rebecca Parkes, aged 12. Perhaps dressing like a boy keeps the likes of Rashid away from her.
Incidentally…Praxis is a pro-refugee charity chaired by former Labour MP (and Oxford PPE graduate), Barbara ‘open borders’ Roche, who as Minister for Asylum and Immigration (1999-2001) opened the floodgates to migrants. (Curiously, like many Jews, she is very keen on multiculturalism, even though importing Muslims makes Jews less safe.)
Stephen Boys Smith, who was then head of the Home Office’s immigration directorate, said: ‘It was clear that Roche wanted more immigrants to come to Britain. She didn’t see her job as controlling entry into Britain, but by looking at the wider picture in a “holistic way” she wanted us to see the benefit of a multicultural society.’
Andrew- thanks for that. But the article focusses on young people, leading the reader to assume that Rashid is one such. And whatever his actual age he likely is in the same position as a schoolboy.
To repeat schoolboys try it on as a matter of course. They don’t normally get support from a national newspaper, nor a UN dignitary though.
Pat
“…….nor a UN dignitary..”
You are a card. UN dignatory, indeed!
According to my calculations £50 a day would be equivalent to a pre-tax salary of £1,790 a month or £18,000 a year, give or take.
That’s a lot of money to be paid to sit on your arse all day watching Sky.
Also pretty much roughly equivalent to someone who is totally disabled (Universal credit + Housing + LCWRA + Enhanced PIP for daily living and mobility).
Maybe what we should be doing instead of listening to this guy who has never contributed a penny in Income Tax or National Insurance is process his asylum claim and accept or reject it at the earliest possible opportunity.
Then, if he is genuine he can get a job which pays him a taxed salary and gives value to his labour, if not we can deport him back to where he came from.
I’m guessing he’s probably not a fan of those options either.
Jesus, that article would be exhibit 1 in any thesis on how the Guardian is a front for rightists who want to make the lefties look bad.
I read half of it and I am increasingly in favour of involuntary deportation for asylum seekers, immigrants, charity workers and anyone who thinks the plight of ungrateful fucking moochers is a shame.
He’s wearing a Hogwarts hoodie. That means he should be contacting the Ministry of Magic to find out where the Money Trees are, or applying to that Warwick Davis look-alike at Gringotts for a loan.
Incidentally, Rashid is an anagram of Radish. Is that significant given that Lord Voldemort’s name anagram was so significant in the Potterverse?
My immigrant girlfriend, who works, agrees with all of this. She wonders why we put up with it, and gets similarly pissed off. Then she shrugs and says, “Well, it’s your country”.
This article is not open to comments. Suspect even the Guardian subs know these people are taking the piss!
Then she shrugs and says, “Well, it’s your country”.
If only it was our country. As we’re going to find out over the next few hours and days it’s been taken from us and all they will be doing is rubbing our noses in it for ever daring to think it was.
Indeed, Mr in ND. Indeed.
Just thought I’d inject a bit more spine into the proceedings: I’ve extensive personal and professional dealings with a variety of nig nogs, and they’re often more closed borders than Mr Autarchy of Autarkyshire. For several obvious reasons.
She’s no sympathy with the Paki rape gangs, either. And she’s a Mohammedan, but from one of the saner jurisdictions.
What he’s got no friends ? i thought that living with one of the “celebrities” he’d make lots of friends. Oh! you mean he’s not living with lily, gary or yvette? Who could of guessed that they were mindlesly virtue signalling ? I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.
Let’s hope that Rashid’s story is being spread round Africa and some parts of Asia with comments about how nasty we are.
50 QUID A DAY?????? Dole is 70-something quid A FUCKING WEEK!!!!!!! And he wants/demands/expects £350 a week? For DOING NOTHING?
Why not just let them work?
@MatthewL: because we don’t want to have to pay for our own home-grown youth to sit on their arse all day watching Sky either…
@ Matthew L
Because some New Labour advisor decided that would enable them to spot which ones were genuine asylum seekers and which ones were economic migrants – the economc migrants would vanish into the black economy instead of sitting there living on half (Osborne’s austerity package wasn’t as harsh to the starving as Brown’s “generosity” so they now get a bit more than half) the income for an unemployed citizen. Of course it didn’t occur to them that if the economic migrant disappeared it might be more difficult to deport him/her. (Or did it?)