'Sheds with beds' (*thousands*) — welcome to 21st century London

You've heard about tent cities in the US. How about slums under construction across the world's greatest financial capital? —


Video report

A series of modern day British slums have been described as "sheds with beds".

The illegal structures, some dangerous and cramped, are offered by landlords - often to Britain's illegal immigrants.

Many occupants send money back to their families in India, paying thousands of pounds to traffickers. But the economic downturn means work has dried up...

This is absolutely appalling. Squalor coupled with monthly rental fees of £500-£800 just from a couple of random examples. On top of which the occupiers can't find work. After having paid to get into the country illegally.

Borders that are not policed effectively. Authorities that are toothless. Why not just admit defeat and start advertising the UK as a new destination for desperate people who have nowhere else to go? [/sarcasm]

Yes these people are to blame for breaking the law. But the human tragedy is still very real. What must drive these people to go to such lengths in the first place? And what is the world coming to if parts of London are beginning to look like the slums these people left behind?

What a mess.

reply to post by pause4thought


While I don't feel bad for them simply because they feel they are in some way entitled to come to a country that is not theirs and be "rich" instantly.

I also hate to see people purposefully taking advantage of people.. especially "their own" people.

Which in turn makes me completely pissed off at people that support mass immigration.. it's nothing more than slavery in most cases, and in the rest of the case it's immigrants taking advantage of the host nation.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Well said. It's the heartless exploitation that is most shocking, and the creation of a defacto 'open border' over a decade ago created an exploitation industry. Now that they are trying to begin to reduce official immigration there is neither the will nor the money to tackle the problems head on. Added to which the prisons are already crammed full...

reply to post by pause4thought


It's a Keynesian smack in the face situation. We stopped breeding so they needed to import "brown people" to work cheap, as well as bring a big boost into the consumer markets.

Clearly these open border policies since 2000 have done absolutely NOTHING to further our economies. Hell we are up @$! creek without a paddle, and a lot of it had to do with the debasing of the living wage through the import of cheap labor (off setting wage growth) Coupled with the inflation methods used by both the EU and the US the middle class eventually hit the breaking point, with a cascading tsunami of credit defaults as inflation overrode wage growth and credit expansions.

Bah..

Some people think the World is run by this elite cabal who have it all figured out. The truly frightening prospect is that they are really clueless self absorbed asshats.