What use are Britain’s Somalis?

As we find out that the Russell Square knifeman was a supposedly ‘Norwegian’ Somali, I thought it worth reminding readers of a blog I wrote about 3 years ago:

To avoid any accusations of waaacccciiissssmmm, all figures in today’s blog are taken either from the Office for National Statistics or from the Guardian – the bible of the bien pensants, professional handwringers and overpaid child molesters at the BBC.

There are an estimated 250,000 Somalis living in the UK. But the real figure may be much higher as many thousands of Somalis with Dutch residence permits and passports are believed to have moved to the UK because of the higher benefits paid here compared to Holland.

So-called ‘economic inactivity’ among Somali men is believed to be around 65%. As you’ll see from the diagram, this is many times higher than any other ethnic group. In fact it’s so far off the scale that I haven’t been able to include it:

And, if I remember correctly, over 90% of Somali women are also ‘economically inactive’ though very active when it comes to producing swarms of children.

If we just play with a few imaginary figures: let’s assume that the 250,000 Somali population includes 60,000 men of working age and that of these, 65% (39,000) are each claiming about £20,000 a year in benefits (unemployment, jobseekers’ allowance, housing benefits, child benefits, council tax benefits and so on) for themselves and their families. Then these 39,000 economically inactive Somali men are costing us around £780m a year. Then when you add in another £20,000 a year for healthcare, schooling their children, policing their criminal activities, social worker support and other public services, you can probably assume that Britain’s Somalis are costing us well over £1.6bn a year.

The problems with the Somali community are not just in the high levels of unemployment. In our schools just 33% of Somali students passed five GCSEs, compared with 59% for students from other African communities and 80% for Chinese students.

The handwringing, socially-responsible, politically-correct Guardian blames the British government for the problems with the Somali community claiming it is responsible for “the immense harm caused by this continuing social dislocation”and “the figures for educational attainment of Somali students are shameful for a government which prides itself on its commitment to equal opportunities” and “the government needs to recognise the Somali community is a resource to this country, not a problematic burden”.

But a cynic might wonder whether the problems caused by high economic inactivity and low educational achievement among Britain’s Somalis could possibly maybe perhaps have something to do with the cultural and religious attitudes of the Somalis themselves. After all, many other ethnic and religious groups – Chinese, Hindus, etc – have come to Britain and even thrived here.

So, to answer the question – what use are Britain’s Somalis? – I guess the answer is ‘not much use at all’!

(As for the Russell Square stabber, I hope you’ve all been using your “Blame Bollox Bingo” cards and have ticked off two excuses given by our rulers and media – ‘bullied at school’ and ‘psychological problems’. But, of course, the murderous spree was NTDWI)