No 'in-work benefits' for four years? What are 'in-work benefits' anyway?

No sooner had David Cameron finished his speech at the JCB factory about limiting the UK's attractiveness for EU migrant workers than my phone rang - it was TVN24 Biznes i Swiat wanting a comment about what this would mean to Poles headed for the UK. [Full text of Mr Cameron's speech here.]

I must confess to being amazed that EU migrants were eligible for in-work benefits - surely the whole point of tax credits was to incentivise the native British long-term unemployed to get a job. As the spectrum of benefits steadily increased over the decades since the war job-seeker's allowance, child benefits, housing benefits etc, the incentive to find low-paid employment withered away. If you are on 250 quid benefits a week, why bother to go to work for 300 quid a week - a mere £50 pounds for surrendering 40 hours of your time - it works out at £1.25 an hour.

So Tony Blair's government introduced a system of Working Tax Credits in 2002 to ease the way off benefits and into paid employment via a complex system of tapering the credits as pay rises. According to Wikipedia, seven million people in low-paid jobs are entitled to in-work benefits.

Now, Poland has been in the EU for a decade, over a million Poles have at one time or another during that decade worked in the UK, and probably over 600,000 have decided to stay permanently.

I would argue that the existence of Working Tax Credits played no part in any Pole's decision to travel to the UK in search of work. However, once they were in Britain, and working - in a factory, warehouse, hotel, farm etc, and the regular wage packets started coming in, and they got talking to the natives, they realised that Working Tax Credits made it worthwhile to bring over kith and kin - and indeed to start a family in Britain.

Mr Cameron's pledge to only allow EU migrant workers access to in-work benefits and social housing until they have been in the UK for four years will take the shine off Britain's reputation as a welfare paradise - for that tiny proportion of migrants from EU countries that see it that way.

I'm sure that across the UK, few British taxpayers will argue against Mr Cameron's proposals. If you've not paid into the system, why should you be entitled to its benefits after a mere three months?

The problem with the migration debate, UKIP and the UK's possible departure from the EU, is that leaving the EU will not solve the far deeper problem that Britain faces. From the Office of National Statistics' Migration Statistics Quarterly: "The statistically significant increase of 30,000 in immigration of non-EU citizens to 272,000 was in part driven by an increase in immigration to accompany/join others up 19,000 to 54,000."

Look at the graph below:

The rising green line of EU migrants since 2012 has been predicated by the UK's economic turnaround, the moribund state of the eurozone economies, the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU, and a rising number of Poles heading to the UK to work. The vast majority of the green line is in Britain to work. Last week's survey by University College London showing the UK is £20 billion a year better off as a result of EU migration is yet another piece of research which emphatically proves that Britain's economy is in better shape being inside an open EU than out of it.

The orange line is a different story. Yes, it includes Americans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders etc, in the UK to work. But it also includes 54,000 relatives of non-EU migrants who are coming over from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia and Ghana to join their families.

The graph below shows that EU migrants contribute far more to the UK economy than the larger number of non-EU migrants:

So 1.7 million EU migrants are working in the UK, compared to 1.2 million non-EU migrants. And yet the UK is now home to far more non-EU migrants than EU migrants, who are more likely to contribute into the economy.

I was in Birmingham on Thursday. In the centre of the city, amid the bustling throng of shoppers, there was stand in the pedestrian precinct, from which a couple of heavily-bearded mullahs preaching Islam to the people. Once again, I'd point out that leaving the EU would not make a jot of difference. These people will continue coming to Britain in their hundreds of thousands, whether the UK was to be in the EU or not. But once outside the EU, British employers would not be able to easily find willing hands to work, and the economy would slow to growth rates now associated with the eurozone.

Would British employers find those native workers easier if there was a four-year moratorium on in-work benefits for EU migrants? I very much doubt it. Only if there was a persistent increase in the gap between being on benefits and being in work, and that consisted not of tax credits, but of reduced benefits, and increased National Minimum Wage. But the latter might prove to be an even greater magnet to EU migrants than the nebulous attractions of tax credits.

In Poland, there must be more effort made by the UK government to explain just how sore an issue migration is among Britons, and why that is reflected in the growing strength of Ukip, a one-man, one-policy party. The Polish government, realising how important the UK's membership is for Poland's raison d'etre, must back Mr Cameron in Brussels in allowing him to trim back the generosity of the benefits for EU migrant workers. The prospect of letting Ukip pull the UK out of the EU because of loud criticism from the Polish government is worryingly real. Poland needs to appreciate how Britons feel about immigration, and speak accordingly.

This time last year:

Third snow-free November in a row

(if you don't count the spoonfuls that fell on 24/25 Nov, this would be the fourth)

This time two years ago:

Another November without snow

This time three years ago:
Snow-free November

This time four years ago:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

This time five years ago:
Ul. Poloneza closed for the building of the S2

Digbeth, Birmingham 5

Two hectic days in England - the challenge being to get to Manchester and back on days when there are no low-cost flights from Warsaw to either Liverpool or Doncaster or back. The answer - the 6:00 from Okęcie to Luton, thence by bus to Derby, and by train across the Pennines, just in time for a 15:00 seminar start that I was to chair. The National Express coach took its time, meandering through the East Midlands, calling at Milton Keynes, Leicester and Nottingham before arriving in Derby. On the way back, I took a National Express coach from Manchester to Luton Airport, changing at Birmingham.

The new coach station is located in Digbeth, Birmingham 5, on the site of the old Midland Red bus depot, just a few paces from a pub and music venue that I'd often frequent while a student at Warwick University - the Barrel Organ (now the Dubliner). It was here that I would see Ricky Cool and the Icebergs - the band that had an enormous formative influence on my musical tastes to this day. American music from the late '40s and early '50s - from jump blues and R&B (Louis Jordan, Amos Milburn, Little Walter, Jimmy Liggins) through Western Swing (Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys) and Country & Western (Hank Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford), all delivered with excellent musicianship and a large dose of humour. I must have seen Ricky Cool and the Iceberg 20+ times before the band reformed as Ricky Cool and the Rialtos, then as Ricky Cool and the Big Town Playboys. They still tread the boards as Ricky Cool and the Hoola-Boola Boys, though I've yet to see this line-up...

I had an hour and ten minutes between the Manchester coach arriving in Digbeth and the one for Luton departing, so, after a pint of mild and packet of scratchings at the Dubliner, gazing at the empty stage, I took myself around Digbeth in search of Bricktorian Britain. And here it is...

Below: the Selfridges building (left) stands at odds with the spire of St Martin in the Bull Ring. Welcome to Birmingham, Britain's Second City.

Below: the Big Bull's Head public house, on the corner of Digbeth and Milk Street. Across the road, an old advert for dog food has been restored to its former glory.

Below: under the viaduct on Oxford St. It's built from Staffordshire Blue brick that has a hard, impervious surface and high strength. The viaduct carries the railway line to Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Left: under the viaduct (on the opposite side of the road to that shown above), the cast iron screen of a public lavatory, or Temple of Relief. For Gentlemen only, Victorian lady-folk needing to spend a penny had to look elsewhere. The local authorities have blocked off this facility, though vandals have broken in. It's now used (unofficially) for what it was originally built for.

Below: ensuring that law and order in Digbeth, the local police station is quite an imposing edifice, with clock tower and balustraded roof. It is neither Victorian (built in 1911) nor brick (stuccoed Italianate in appearance)

Below: Meriden St, and the premises of Norton Hydraulics. Note the motto of the City of Birmingham on the roof gable - 'Forward'. A reminder that Birmingham was once the workshop of the world.

Below: looking north up Meriden St (Meriden, about 15 miles away, is traditionally said to be located at the very centre of England). Victorian brickwork - factories, warehouses, viaducts - abounds.

By purest Coencidence, just after arriving home from my two days in England, I was tidying my room and sorting through boxes of mementos of yesteryear, when I came across no fewer than three Ricky Cool and the Icebergs playlists, at least two of which were picked up after a gig at the Barrel Organ.

Below: here they are...

"The Tennessee Local is a smoky little, pokey little train..." Indeed, Jack.

This time last year:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79

This time two years ago:
Looking at progress along the S79 (how little has been achieved!)

This time three years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time four years ago:
Two Polands

This time five years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time six years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time seven years ago:
Flag day

Brictorian Birmingham

Birmingham - England's Second City, former Workshop of the World, Britain's manufacturing heartland. Lots of Bricktoriana to be seen, lots of klimat to be enjoyed. Rather than be driven to the exhibition centre, I decided to walk. Exercise is necessary for mind and spirit.

Below: view from my bedroom window - Brindleyplace (one word, no space), a development begun in the early 1990s, the brickwork is contemporary but sympathetic with the city's Victorian heritage. Named after Joseph Brindley, one of the creators of Birmingham's canal network, this agreeable development of new buildings stands on what was a derelict industrial site.

Below: looking along the Birmingham Old Line Canal as it passes under Granville Street. Turn left at the end for the Gas Street Basin. The conurbation is criss-crossed with over 100 miles (160km) of navigable canals; much of the 18th Century infrastructure, wharves and warehouses, locks and bridges, is still in place and functioning, though now mainly as a tourist and leisure facility, hosting also residential narrowboats.

Below: a 1920s boozer abuts some nice brickwork; corner of Granville Street and Broad Street. The adornments on the pub roof boast the logo of Mitchells and Butlers, the Birmingham brewers that ceased brewing beer a decade ago and now manage pubs under different brands, including O'Neills,such as this one.

Below: further down Granville Street - brick arches with stone lintels on the second floor, solid, respectable Victorian architecture, scrubbed clean of grime and soot.

Below: plainer, early Victorian brick frontage with stone lintels over the windows. Note almost complete lack of decorative elements, and yet the simplicity of the design pleases the eye. This was the Hopkinson Tinplate Factory back in 1839.

Below: the same early Victorian brickwork, at ease with more modern architecture on this sunny morning. The building is now home to the Arts Council.

Below: Birmingham cobblestone. Much of what was underfoot in Birmingham would have looked like this before asphalt became ubiquitous. Slippery when wet and bumpy, it puts one in mind of clattering horse-drawn carts and bone-shaking bicycle rides.

Below: Engineering Blue - the bricks used to build the bridges, tunnels and retaining walls of Victorian Britain, built to support heavy loads for centuries. This canal bridge needs some pointing between the bricks though; the look like they might come loose in a decade or three.

Neither brick nor Victorian but still worthy of posting here; St Thomas' Church, a neoclassical edifice built after 1818 to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Waterloo. This is one of two 'Waterloo churches' in the city. St Thomas' was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940, leaving only the tower and entrance and rear portico. The space between has been preserved as a Peace Garden, though the tower itself is closed off from the public being in danger of collapse.

Below: into the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston, this is the Calthorpe Park keeper's lodge on the corner of Pershore Road and Speedwell Street. It dates back to 1857, the height of the Victorian craze for neogothic ornamentation. Above the first floor window, the coat of arms of the City of Birmingham, and its motto: 'Forward'.

Birmingham has come a long way since the 1960s when ugly monstrosities like the Bull Ring Centre and New Street Station were allowed to be built. The latest wave of development boasts architecture that is generally at one with the city's heritage.

This time last year:
Welcome to Lemmingrad

This time three years ago:
Dream highway

This time four years ago:
The Days are Marching

This time six years ago:
First snow, 2007