A couple of days ago the local radio reported some good news - the electricity will be coming back on for most of the day. Apparently the National Power Grid has now been broken up into separate regions. Luckily our region includes an old mothballed coal power station which has been reactivated. One of the UK's few remaining working coal mines is about 80 miles away, so there should be some fuel available, at least for a while. The downside is that the power station is quite small, so most "inessential" factories in our area have been told not to use any electricity.

We have a large strawberry packing factory on the edge of the village. Obviously strawberries are not an essential product so the factory closed yesterday which has led to severe problems ...

Almost all the factory workers are migrants from Eastern Europe and also from Iraq, Somalia etc.  Unfortunately the bosses told the workers at shift change time at midday - which resulted in 3000 workers being sacked all at once. The factory also refused to bus the workers back to the local town, where most live in poor quality housing. The first I heard of all this was when my wife called me at work. She was very nervous - thousands of sacked and very unhappy workers were milling around the village in large groups. My wife locked all the doors and windows and stayed in the house. After a while most of the shocked workers started leaving the village to walk the 5 miles to town - but some were angry and fights were breaking out. Before they left, quite a few went from house to house in the village begging for food and money. Some of the elderly felt quite intimidated and handed over large sums. The little shop in the village was also cleaned out - a large group of people had packed into the shop and when they left the shelves had been stripped of anything valuable, edible, smokable or drinkable. One of the shop assistants was punched & kicked when she tried to keep some people out of the stockroom at the back of the shop. Several bicycles (including one of ours!) were stolen. A couple of cars were stolen too - being the countryside, the owners had felt safe leaving the keys in the car. By the evening the village was almost back to normal - although many people were very angry at what had happened ... especially since not a single police car had turned up during the several hours the trouble lasted. At least we won't have the factory buses and trucks roaring through our village from now on.

I had a chat with a retired policeman who lives in the village. His old workmates had told him that we had got off lightly in comparison with some places. There are now over 600,000 unemployed migrant workers wandering the streets of the UK. Most are trying to get back to Poland, Bulgaria etc - but they have no money, no cars and so can't even reach a sea port or airport ... and even then very few transport services are still running. Many have been chucked out of their rented apartments - although many are refusing to leave and are staying on without paying the rent ... although I have no idea how they intend to feed themselves.

Our local town has become a very difficult & unsafe place - because of the various local fruit factories closing,  there are around 7000 sacked migrant workers wandering the streets and filling up the local community facilities. The local public library has several free access Internet PCs. There have been huge fights as hundreds of migrant workers queue to use a PC - everyone wants  to send emails back home. The banks have been besieged by migrants seeking to transfer money, borrow money etc. The pubs, bars, cafe etc have either closed up or have hired extra security to keep out the penniless migrants who understandably hope to sit in the warm all day, without buying anything. Many shops have also closed because of the risk of losing huge amounts of stock to theft. Overall it's very unpleasant walking around town - you are accosted every few seconds by someone begging or trying to sell you junk. The news services aren't reporting much of this - but apparently the crime situation is soaring. There have been several muggings and quite a few house break-ins. It is also rumoured that many cars have been hijacked by groups of migrant workers trying to reach the coastal ferry ports. I can see how even decent people can become desperate - being stranded in a foreign country without money, food or a future must be horrible. This could get very unpleasant as the sacked workers get hungry ...

UPDATE: The Government has just announced that it has taken control of the rail system and the bus companies for a period of two weeks. They are setting up free shuttle services to move displaced migrant workers to the ferry ports, where several large ships will take them to France and also to ports on the Baltic. Migrant workers who remain in the UK after this period will be ineligble for state aid and will be deported. Emergency feeding & care stations have also been set up to look after the migrants during their journey. There is a looming problem however - the French government is refusing to allow the migrants to transit France. British Prime Minister Brown responded by stating; "These unfortunate migrant workers need to return home. The European Union constitution allows for right of free passage. However we do understand the French Prime Minister's concerns and so we have arranged for the travellers to be escorted by British military units for their safety and for the safety of the transit countries. We earnestly hope that no attempt will be made to interfere with the convoys whilst in transit across Europe."