David, We both worked really hard full-time (husband in construction and I was

Comment on General Election 2010 Poll Results by Sarah in the Desert.

David,

We both worked really hard full-time (husband in construction and I was commercial and legal) on top of 1 hour daily commute (both of us).

2k per month in childcare (2 kids, 1 full-time and 1 part-time), mortgage and council tax.. I was the breadwinner so husband had to stay home to look after kids if they were ill or anything like that.

We earned over the thresholds so only paid into the system and not out of it (other than child benefit) but we were actually ok with that.

We moved house (admittedly to a nicer one) because we were abused for standing our ground after being threatened by 2 sets of Pakistani neighbours and then husband arrested for Racism.

Schooling was becoming an issue as the only ones available were awful. It was going to cost us £3k per term for private schooling for just one.

Life just became a grind for us trying to live, work and actually have some quality of life too. We were living not too far away from a socially deprived area full of teenage mums and incapacity benefit receivers. You actually don’t mind the idea of parents on benefits long-term so much if they actually made an effort to spend their time instead bringing up decent kids but they didn’t, they still managed to produce toe-rags!

Over 100,000 British people live in the UAE, it’s morally stricter but does offer a great lifestyle. Crime is more harshly punished, there is no such thing as community service – you go to prison for your sentenced time. Alcohol is served (apart from in Sharjah) if you want it (I don’t actually drink myself) as long as you are not muslim and you are not drunk in public.

So we are really happy at the lack of public disobedience from alcohol and drugs, our kids are safe to play outside and free from threat of knives and muggings. You don’t see pornography on the internet (it’s all banned), or people walking around half-naked, kids having sex (we did witness this whilst out walking our dog in the UK and they didn’t even stop when we walked past!). People automatically have a duty of care to each other, if I want my friend to pick up my kids from school she can without suspicion or hindrance. If I want to take photos of my kids out in public I can without someone thinking we are suspicious.

It’s mainly for our children we live here, there are lots of activities for them and they are surrounded by children of the same background and we also don’t have the threat of the Social Services taking our kids away because someone holding a grudge phoned them anonymously! We choose the schooling as we pay for it and they are streamed according to ability, they also have a lot of competitive sports and activities.

You do have a freedom of speech as long as you’re not insulting the Royal Family and there is always a policeman around if you need one too!

Kissing (pecking!) your wife is fine as long as you’re not snogging passionately in public! Kissing someone you’re not married to can cause you problems as was the situation with the recent case you highlighted. There is always a risk you may cause offence particularly when there are local Arabs around. You just check your behaviour if you are somewhere where there are likely to be Arabs.

The Arabs on a one to one level are the nicest people you could ever meet; stick them in a big white 4×4 with tinted windows and they can be very rude!

Your research is way off! It’s a lot more expensive here, you need a hell of a lot more than £20k per year! My rent alone is around £3K per month (for a very very old villa and not a mansion!) and then monthly charges of municipal tax (council tax equivalent) £150, water / electricity £400 per month, school and nursery fees £1700 per month.

Our food costs are huge because a lot of stuff is imported, we can get a lot of Waitrose products and we can pay around £1.30 for a tin of Waitrose Essential beans(like the savers / value range) as an example! It’s really not cheap!

You should visit and see why so many people of all nationalities are here. You do read horror stories but it is usually inflated.

I would like to come back to the UK eventually, I accept that it would be once the kids are adults as it would be alien to them now (youngest was born here) but I’m starting to think that even eventually is not that probable..