Tales from Swedish Iraq or Iraqish Swede, ...

Tales from Swedish Iraq or Iraqish Swede, and, oh what a bunch of turnips we must be.

Today, an Iraqi born, Swedish person … Actually, let me start from the beginning:

A Little History

• ‘The Iraqi embassy in Stockholm has issued thousands of passports based on false information, Swedish immigration officials have said.' www.BBC.co.ukWednesday, 31 January 2007

Now I can’t be certain, but perhaps this is related to the fact that an observable proportion of people claiming benefits at the office where I work, are Iraqi born Swedish nationals.

Anyhow, that is not the problem, if they had come directly to the UK, not bothering with Sweden, sooner or later they would have been given British Nationality; however, what I do not understand is the sheer contempt that they display towards us when they are claiming benefit - I was always against the Iraq war, perhaps I was wrong.

Back to the Present Time

• ‘In Sweden, they took 40 thousand Iraqi claims for benefit at the same time; and all of them were assessed within one day. You have taken over 3 months, and still I haven’t received any benefit,’ said my claimant with great annoyance (or perfectly acted annoyance.)

Well, it is good to see that we have so far made all the right decisions on at least one person’s claim, but I fear that sooner or later he will get all the money he wants, and when his children have grown up, and got their western education, he will move back to Iraq. Most asylum seekers, whose claims that I have dealt with, move freely back and forth to their homeland once they have secured their permanent leave to remain in the west and hence their slice of western wealth - which I understand, but I only wish it were the wealthy western business-people that they would take it from, and not us struggling tax payers, who are not due to retire until we are 70 because the national insurance system cannot cope with all the handouts that are being demanded.