Go back to your own country!!

Ever since I was a kid, i've always been interested in this phrase, what does it actually mean? As the United Kingdom historically is a nation full of foreigners and has been since the countries inception, this blog post will show how at the heart of the UK other cultures have incorporated themselves into the British Isles.

I started writing this post before the outrageous outburst by the woman on the tram in Croydon, I've not even actually seen it because I'm so appalled by such backwards thinking.

If most of the people were in fact to go back to their countries, there would be a shortage of people to do jobs such as hospitality, cleaning, or even people working in fast food chains. Immigrants have been part of the British make up since this country began. With various battles, occupations such as the Roman empire, the UK is what it is today because of all the foreign influences and people who flock to its green and pleasant shores.

The Queen and the royal family themselves are not 100%'British' and they rule the country, albeit constitutionally. Prince Phillip was a Prince of Greece, and the royal family only changed their surnames to Windsor after World War One, due to fighting with their German cousins they thought it wouldn't be patriotic to keep their Saxe-Coburg Gotha title. The house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha shows the German origins of the British royal family.

Another treasured British institution would also be threatened with a deportation of sorts. Alexander Boris Johnson, whose paternal great grandfather was Turkish.

Shirley Bassey, another UK treasure being brought up in Tiger Bay, Wales; her father is rumoured to be of either Caribbean or West African heritage, so should she disappear too?

After watching the BBCs Mixed Race season this October, I realised how complex the idea of British cultural identity is. Mixed race people are the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the UK, if we were all meant to go back to their own countries, where would they go?

In short, what I'm trying to say is that the obsession of some people of people going back to their country of supposed origin should be reduced, simply because its not helpful and it doesn't really make sense. I'm British, Sir Trevor McDonald is British, James Caan is British and lastly and lastly Diane Abbot is too. A preoccupation with pure blood is counter productive and needs to be dropped in order for us to move on as a nation.

City Traders, Angels and Rogue's

A rogue is  defined by dictionary.com as: a "dishonest, scoundrel, who can be playful, a tramp or a vagabond." Quite a formidable list of adjectives I would say so how can this term rogue become synonymous with the work city traders?

City traders who work in Investment Banks take a gamble on what ever their area is, which may be things like  currencies or commodities, and they basically gamble on whether the prices will go up or down.
For example, if the trader thinks the price of oil is rising, from $75 a barrel, they might promise to buy oil at $75 in 3 months' time. If, right and oil hits $100, then he has made $25. If oil falls to $50, then he will have to pay the difference, $25. Or worse, it could fall to $25 and he's lost $50. This is what occurs but on a bigger scale. This happens very quickly in reality and decisions are made after a very short periods of deliberation. The reality is that individuals can make immense amounts of money or huge loses in moments. The back office is the function that checks how much the bank is gaining or losing in the day and are meant to be the whistle blowers when things go wrong, however this is not always the case.

Over the last 20 years there have been several high profile so called Rogue Traders, marketed as immoral, greedy, unruly pariah's. Nick Leeson is perhaps the most famous British export of the rogue trading variety. He managed to lose the bank over 1 billion pounds, which wiped out its reserves and led to the 230 year bank collapsing.Activities of investment banks and traders have become even more under the spot light after the devastating effects of the so called credit crunch and subsequent recession. The most recent city trader to have been accused of being a rogue trader was Kweku Adoboli a trader at the Swiss investment bank UBS, has been accused of losing around £1.3 billion over a three year period and hiding these losses probably with his knowledge of the back office. Although  after the recession, more and more pressure was heaped among banks to have even tighter controls of their finances and bonus cultures; more work still needs to be done to protect the public and the economies wealth at large.