BEFORE ANYONE SUGGESTS that Wisbech has been brought to its knees by an influx of gun-toting Eastern European Mafioso, it might be as well to remind ourselves that, while not rivaling Midsomer Murders for the number of locals bumped off, Wizzy was no stranger to violent death. Most notoriously, eccentric and reclusive Tony Martin made national headlines when he turned his firepower on a gang of Travellers who had targeted his semi derelict farmhouse. Young Fred Barras died in the raid, and his accomplice. Brendan Fearon limped off with a leg full of shot, leaving Fred to die at the scene. Martin was eventually jailed, but released to return to his isolated home. He is frequently seen around his favourite pubs in and around Wisbech.

The there was the strange case of Christopher French, who was the landlord of one of the town's scarier pubs, The Wisbech Arms. In a drunken fracas, he fatally stabbed one of his customers, Christopher Garford, and then tried to throw police off the trail by claiming that two unnamed Eastern European men had burst into the pub, done the deed, and then fled into the night. The pub has reopened as an Italian restaurant called WFour, but prospective diners can rest assured that there is no outline of the body in yellow chalk on the  parquet floor, and the Tagliatelli is actually quite good.

THE TOWN CAME TO NATIONAL ATTENTION, albeit briefly, after a BBC documentary in July 2010, called 'The Day The Immigrants Left' set out to examine the vexed issues of jobs and the migrant workforce. Its screenplay consisted of finding a cartoonish collection of local ne'er-do-wells, and putting the, on screen, into jobs where most of the workforce were migrants. The locals were portrayed (rightly of wrongly) as bigoted, work-shy buffoons, while the migrants alongside whom they worked (or failed to) came over as articulate and hard-working over-achievers. Cynics suggest that this was the BBC's traditional PC and Left-Wing bias enjoying its finest hour.

So, who has it right? The Daily Mail, with its talk of a 'Baltic Mafia', and terrified locals unable to walk the streets of the town where they grew up, for fear of insult and assault from migrants? Or is it some elements of local media and politicians, who protest that the town is a peaceful and positive place, where everyone peacefully co-exists? This blog will seek to find some sort of truth behind the spin, and will aim, first and foremost, to engage people, and get them talking to each other.