‘Town’s getting multicultural and that’s good’: How Swindon views changes in its workforce
The arrival of the Victorian railway turned Swindon into one of the fastest-growing industrial towns in the UK.
Workers flocked to the thriving Wiltshire hub from all over Britain.
In more recent times, Swindon has been attracting people from further afield – so many, in fact, that one in five of the town’s population was born abroad.
In 2011, 26,911 people in Swindon were born outside the UK. By 2021, that figure had risen to 47,656. The British-born population, by comparison, had risen from 182,215 to 185,754.
On Manchester Road there are a host of shops, with signs boasting goods from all over Eastern Europe and South Asia. There are dozens of small businesses with diverse heritage.
Asher Graham, who owns a barber shop on the street and has lived in Swindon all his life, says he has seen a change over the last few years: “The town’s getting multicultural and that’s good.
“That’s what we need and like – everyone’s just getting to work.”
Mr Graham employs two foreign-born barbers – one, Gaja Sherlekar, 50, is from Goa. He tells us: “There are many opportunities here so people are coming from abroad.”
The barber shop is busy, and soon Mr Sherlekar finds himself cutting the hair of British-born Jamie Carash.
Mr Carash, 50, owns his own business, and declares: “A lot of foreigners [are] coming over and driving the prices down, but again I did end up taking two of them on as well…their work ethic is better than most of my guys.”
But Mr Carash insists that there are not enough controls on immigration.
“I just think it’s gone a bit too far,” he says, adding: “I mean some places you go to in England… you’re kind of an outsider in your own country.”
Across the UK there’s been a significant increase in the number of foreign-born workers.
From January to June this year, there were 6.8 million foreigners in employment across Britain – 20.7% of the UK workforce. In the same period in 2014, there were 4.6 million foreign workers – 15% of the working population.
Migrant men are more likely to be in work than their British-born counterparts – 82% of working-age men are employed, compared to 78% of UK men.
Foreign-born workers also lead in high-skilled jobs – 36% of those born outside the UK are in specialist employment, ahead of 33% of British workers.
These statistics are likely to reinforce views on both sides of the immigration debate.
Some will see them as evidence that migrants are essential to Britain’s economy, while others will claim that immigrants are taking the jobs of British workers.
In Swindon town centre, sheltering from a June downpour, we meet Jason who’s in his fifties, unemployed and looking for work.
He believes immigration is a big problem for him. “I can’t get a job. They come to this country, they can just get a job just like that,” he says.
Christine, shopping with her son Jack, said the UK has always taken in genuine refugees
He then reveals he has a criminal record and served time in prison for assault around three years ago, a reason why, he claims, some employers have refused his application. Even so, he insists immigrants are to blame for his joblessness.
Other people, however, say they welcome workers from abroad.
Christine, out shopping with her adult son Jack, tells us: “We’ve always been that sort of country that is taking in genuine refugees.
“At the end of the day we do need people from around the world to help with certain jobs.
“Where I live, near a farming community, they’re really struggling with trying to get people to come in.”
At a car wash near Swindon’s train station all the staff are recent migrants.
The manager, Fazlumenallah Azizi, 50, employs them and admits he came to the country on the back of a lorry as an Afghan asylum seeker back in 2001.
But he thinks immigration has now gone too far in Britain, putting pressure on public services. “If you’re going to the hospital now you have to wait three to four hours now, that’s an example,” he complains.
But Mr Azizi isn’t convinced by people who say that he could be giving jobs to UK-born workers instead.
“Yeah, they could say that, but I don’t know if you ask them to come and work in the car wash, I don’t think they would come.”
Emma George, 53, runs a law firm in Swindon’s Old Town with her husband, Francis.
She has repeatedly recruited foreign staff whose applications stand out. “I think our homegrown students or graduates aren’t really as driven as those coming from overseas,” she believes.
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Bianca Milea, 30, works at the firm as a paralegal. She came to the UK from Romania eight years ago with no plan and “wanted an adventure”. She worked as a waitress and in a call centre before studying for a law degree.
She rejects the idea that she has replaced a British worker: “I don’t think that I’m taking anyone’s place because I worked to be where I am today.”
Emma’s daughter, Stella, 19, is helping at the firm while home from university.
Both mother and daughter worry that immigration has become such a political battleground not just in the UK but across Europe.
Mrs George says: “It actually makes me feel quite sad and quite frightened, actually, for the future, because I fear it’s all very negative.”
Her daughter agrees: “I think the kind of narrative that they’re spreading at the moment that there’s all these negatives to immigration is just really dangerous for anyone who’s ever emigrated at all.
“That just turns into casual racism, I think, amongst the general population.”
For all the tough talk on migration by politicians, successive governments have allowed foreign workers to keep coming.
That’s because British industry argues it needs them – despite the concerns of those who feel their country is changing as a result.
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has resigned from the Labour Party.
The 53-year-old MP is the first to jump ship since the general election and in her resignation letter criticised the prime minister for accepting thousands of pounds worth of gifts.
She told Sir Keir Starmer the reason for leaving now is “the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to”, despite their unpopularity with the electorate and MPs.
In her letter she accused the prime minister and his top team of “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” which are “off the scale”.
“I’m so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party,” she said.
Rosie Duffield. Pic: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via Reuters
Sir Keir has faced backlash after a Sky News report revealed he had received substantially more freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader.
Since December 2019, the prime minister received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality – a specific category in parliament’s register of MPs’ interests.
Ms Duffield, who has previously clashed with the prime minister on gender issues, attacked the government for pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies as she resigned the Labour whip.
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She criticised the decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test the winter fuel payment, and accused the prime minister of “hypocrisy” over his acceptance of free gifts from donors.
“Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous,” she said.
“I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”
Ms Duffield also mentioned the recent “treatment of Diane Abbott”, who said she thought she had been barred from standing by Labour ahead of the general election, before Sir Keir said she would be allowed to defend her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat for the party.
Her relationship with the Labour leadership has long been strained and her decision to quit the party comes after seven other Labour MPs were suspended for rebelling by voting for a motion calling for the two-child benefit cap to be abolished.
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister,” she said.
Ms Duffield said she will continue to represent her constituents as an independent MP, “guided by my core Labour values”.
UK
King Charles hails ‘uniquely special’ Scotland as it marks Holyrood milestone – before being hugged by woman
The King has paid tribute to Scotland as a “uniquely special place” for the Royal Family as he marked the 25th anniversary of the Scottish parliament.
At the ceremony to commemorate a quarter of a century since parliament opened at Holyrood, the King said: “Speaking from a personal perspective, Scotland has always had a uniquely special place in the hearts of my family and myself.
“My beloved grandmother was proudly Scottish, my late mother especially treasured the time spent at Balmoral, and it was there in the most beloved of places, where she chose to spend her final days.”
He said we are all “united by our love of Scotland”, paying tribute to its “natural beauty”, “strength of character”, “diversity of its people”, “passions and frequently deeply held beliefs”.
“From the central belt to the north Highlands, across the islands in Ayrshire, in the Borders, the cities, towns and villages, all the coastal communities, who I wonder, could not fail to be moved by this complex Caledonian kaleidoscope?,” he asked as presiding officer Alison Johnstone and the Queen sat beside him.
After he gave the speech, the King was hugged by a member of the public – who said she did so “because of him being unwell”.
The 75-year-old was diagnosed with cancer in February but has since returned to public duties.
Yvonne Macmillan, 59, from East Renfrewshire, attended the anniversary ceremony with her husband Russell who is registered blind and chosen as a “local hero” for work in their area.
“I asked him if he was feeling better and if I could give him a hug. I actually said to him: ‘Can I hug you?’,” she said.
“As I hugged him I said, ‘God bless you’, so it was like God giving him a hug.”
The King listens to the presiding officer of the Scottish parliament at Holyrood. Pic: PA
The Queen sits alongside the King as he makes his speech on Saturday. Pic: PA
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While Sir Tony Blair’s Labour government legislated for Scottish devolution in 1997 – parliament officially opened at Holyrood on 1 July 1999.
The King has made six visits to the parliament since 1999 – while his mother Queen Elizabeth II made 10 visits during her lifetime.
The King arrives at the Scottish parliament on Saturday. Pic: PA
Scottish First Minister John Swinney is one of a number of MSPs who have been at Holyrood since the start of devolution.
He said in his own speech in Edinburgh on Saturday that the parliament has “placed itself at the very heart of the nation”, describing it as a “vessel of enlightenment, invention and creativity”.
The King shakes hands with First Minister John Swinney in Edinburgh on Saturday. Pic: PA
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The SNP’s Christine Grahame is another MSP who has been there since the start.
“Free tuition, free prescriptions, game-changing policies to tackle child poverty, the ban on smoking, the baby box, ScotRail back in public ownership – none of this would have been possible without the Scottish parliament and the strength of our commitment to self-determination,” she said on Saturday.
The King said the devolved parliament has the ability to “touch and to improve the lives of so many individuals”.
Former first ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf take a selfie as they wait for the King. Pic: PA
But he added that “there remains much more to be done” for Scotland, the rest of the UK, particularly with regards to climate change.
“Let this moment therefore be the beginning of the next chapter,” he told those assembled.
“The achievement of the past and the commitment shown in the present give us the soundest basis for confidence in the future.”
A moped riding phone thief was caught red-handed after police tracked the device down hours after he snatched it from a woman’s hand.
CCTV footage released by police showed a masked moped rider mount the pavement in Croydon, south London, to swipe a phone from a woman’s hand on 6 March, while another victim had theirs stolen while they waited for a bus an hour later.
Amari Scott, 20, looked surprised when confronted by officers inside a shop, where he was found with two mobile phones.
Amari Scott was caught red-handed. Pic: Met Police
“We’ve just had a moped rob a mobile phone off the pavement and the phone is pinging in this location,” one of the officers told him in body-worn camera footage before Scott was handcuffed and led away.
Police also recovered a stolen motorbike and Scott, from Sutton, south London, was later jailed for four years.
Two teenagers who committed four robberies in the space of just half an hour were also arrested as part of a crackdown in Croydon.
Aged 16 and 17, the teens were issued with referral orders after pleading guilty to charges of robbery, attempted robbery and attempted grievous bodily harm.
Amari Scott was jailed for four years. Pic: Met Police
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They were behind a spree of eight robberies across Croydon and nearby Bromley, including four within 30 minutes on the morning of 5 August.
Their crimes, which included the knife point robbery of a rough sleeper outside Croydon library, were caught on CCTV.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
One of the teenagers tried to discard a knife before she was arrested after a foot chase, telling officers: “The knife wasn’t mine”.
The other ran away, leaving a knife and his bag, but was lying in bed at home when he was arrested shortly after.
Two teenagers committed four robberies in 30 minutes. Pic: Met Police
The Metropolitan Police said officers are intensifying efforts to tackle robbery and theft, encouraging victims to report incidents as they happen to increase the chances of catching the criminals.
Chief Inspector James Weston said: “We understand the impact that robbery has on victims – it is invasive and frightening.
“That’s why our teams are working so hard to deter and catch offenders to reassure our local community.
“Thanks to the hard work of officers, our partners and community grassroots organisations, we are stepping up our efforts and tackling the issues that matter most to the people of Croydon.”
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