Diversity in action ...
As in, the more you look at it, diverse it gets ....
I'll give him 6 months.
Amber Rudd threw in the towel late last night and resigned as Home Secretary over her mishandling of an immigration scandal. Rudd, who scraped through the 2017 general election with a majority of just 346 votes from more than 52,000 cast, quit at 10pm on Sunday night after political pressure mounted over targets set for the …
The first BAME home secretary. Great. As a middle-aged, white male I can now look forwards to being stopped and searched at least once a week. "I'm stopping you under the The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and asking that you submit to a search, as I suspect you are carrying an offensive lunch box with intent to commit a criminal act."
Well, I guess what goes around...
You need to check your facts. We import gas from all over, very littel from Russia. It's the rest of Europe that has a gas problem.
You need to check how European gas grid functions. As a result of the consent decrees on Gasprom concluding the resolution of the investigation of the European Union commission into its commercial practices gas in the grid no longer has a nationality.
While the decision was specifically geared towards Gasprom and its commercial practices which disallowed gas to be resold it applies to ALL grid contributors including France, Norway, Iran/Azeri and UK inclusive of its LNG imports.
So any time UK pulls a cubic meter from the grid there is no guarantee that it is in fact Norwegian, Azeri or in fact Russian. Similarly, if UK ever puts a cubic meter back into the grid (something not likely to happen), nobody asks if it is Qatari via the Welch LNG terminal, Norwegian or something the Scots have scrapped off the bottom of the barrel, err gas field.
Coming back to UK and Russian gas - if the Norwegian interconnects are having issues (as they had this winter) and UK is pulling gas from the Belgium or Holland gas interconnectors it may (and in fact probably is) Russian gas.
And you need to shut the fuck up on a subject you clearly know nothing about.
"or something the Scots have scrapped off the bottom of the barrel"
The gas basin is in the Southern North Sea, off the coast of the home counties, the Scottish parts of the North Sea contain mostly oil. There is a lot of gas still in the gas basin and also the Irish Sea off the coast of Morecambe. If the UK government could manage a stable tax regime for more than 5 minutes the oil & gas companies could build / repair the infrastructure to provide most if not all of the UK's gas requirements.
Things like gas are pretty fungible so it doesn't matter as much as one might think.
If supply is cut to your neighbors, you've suddenly picked up new competitors for what was "your" supply anyway.
Or if say, Venezuela says they won't sell crude to the US anymore but has to sell - an intermediary just pops up to buy it from them and sell it to the US - which has the only economical refineries for that not-so-fungible (or easy to ship) tar they call crude.
Anything else is magical thinking, like believing a politician when they say they're going to pick those other people's pockets to buy your vote. There effectively are no other people available...all who can be stripped have been already.
Of course she will.
She's got the support of that nice Mrs Foster of the DUP, and her other 9 stout hearted Ulstermen. *
Besides, JRM hasn't put the finishing touches to the warrant for "Crimes Against Brexit" and you can't whip up a PCP lynch mob over night. You have to convince the fence sitters that she's friendless before you can move in for the kill en masse.**
*WTF you do, don't call them Irish. **Apologies to Leave voters for talking foreign.
"She's got the support of that nice Mrs Foster of the DUP, and her other 9 stout hearted Ulstermen."
For as long as it lasts. She's made contradictory promises on the Irish border question. At some point she's going to have to resolve that one way or another. If the DUP don't like the choice she has to make then the No 10 gardeners had better start planting fruit bushes so Corbyn will have something to make jam with.
If the DUP don't like the choice she has to make then the No 10 gardeners had better start planting fruit bushes so Corbyn will have something to make jam with.
Don't knock jam-making so readily. We're going to need all the jam we can produce to ensure the nation will thrive in the sunny uplands of post-Brexit international trade. Onward, makers and sellers, onward!
I'll give him 6 months.
At the core is the previous Home Secretary policy, so this will change nothing.
That policy remains unchanged. On all counts - pervasive surveillance, encryption backdoors, removal of rights as we see fit and anything and everything applicable along the same lines.
I find it a bit ironic that we now have a foreigner as home secretary.
Sajid Javid was born in Rochdale, Boris Johnson was born in New York, so we've got a Home Secretary born in the UK and a Foreign Secretary born abroad. Sadly Philip Hammond wasn't born in a bank.
Oh well, got to be better than Rudd.
A dead hamster would be better than Rudd.
"They usually last about a year regardless of whether they are from the Blue, Red or Yellow parties."
The HO manages to shed those it can't house-train. Those who are house-trained are usually suspected by the PM. In Rudd's case the last didn't apply as the PM is also a house-trained Home Sec.
> I'll give him 6 months.
Like all the recent (30 years)Home Secretaries before him, he'll be radicalised within 6 hours, and normal Home Office extremist service will resume. I wonder which Sir Humphrey at the HO is in charge with the blackmail dossiers on potential Home Secretaries.
I can't see your replacement being much better.
Be grateful It could have been SO MUCH WORSE. There was press chatter that the disgusting little wrecker Smeagol Gove was considered for the post. The sooner DEFRA can spare some marksmen to have Gove "humanely destroyed" the better, but I suppose as he's got that portfolio we might have to wait a while.
The horrible image that brings up is who or what is his "precious". I wouldn't bend over too often Theresa if I were you..
"One Ringpiece to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them"
Still even that's better than Gove doing the "pervy hobbit fancier" thing, although Sam'll kill him if he tries anything..
And to ride the analogy until it falls apart we've even got a "still not king" guy (Aragorn) - although for some reason he goes by Charles these days..
Lotr secret diaries - very worth a visit.
Incidentally I can't say as I'd pick Louis Arthur Charles as auspicious names for royal spawn.
Louis : Louis "da boom" Mountbatten
Louis "the decapitated" (French revolution)
Louis the Fat
Arthur Arthur (the dead and probably imaginary) Pendragon
Arthur (the dead cos I went swimming in an open sewer (the Thames) Tudor
Charles: Charles I Stuart (decapitated)
Charles II Stuart (mercury poisoning - possible syphilis)
Charles III Stuart (drank himself to death, another still not king guy)
Charles the fat/bald/simple (holy Roman emperors)
Charles V Habsburg "the inbred" (see above)
And finally our own Charles the Irrelevant.
Not exactly auspicious stars for that collection of names.
@Ledswinger - I was half-hoping Gollum would get the job[1].
Of course it's the kind of half-hope one might very well come to regret, but the context is a department that's long been dysfunctional.
If anyone could stand up to the department's Humphrey and bring change, Gollum's a strong candidate. And if he fails and becomes the latest victim, no tears shed over that.
BTW, could May's long survival there be because, as top *woman* in the Cameron team, she was essentially above serious criticism? Of course that didn't apply to Rudd, and no longer applies to May 'cos if she gets booted from the PM job her successor gets a clean slate. She survives now 'cos Boris's wet dream is to take over at the bottom of the brexit crisis and be seen to lead recovery, which needs May to take the blame.
[1] Not a reaction to your usage: search the Reg archives and I've called him that here before.
Lack of what a normal person would call competence, is a specific job requirement for the vast majority of our MPs, it seems.
As I see it, there are two types of British Politician / Civil Servant:
* The Visionary: Highly intelligent (more than they appear), often deceitful, scheming. There is only room for a handful of these, as they tend to conflict. Mrs. May falls into this category.
* The Lackey: Acts as a sock-puppet / attack-dog for a Visionary. Independent thought is an undesirable quality. Amber Rudd is so far along this end of the spectrum that she was prepared to throw herself under the bus to save her mistress..
Mrs. May is the most deceitful / malign 'Visionary' I have ever known in British Politics. I strongly suspect that during the Brexit referendum, the only reason that May backed 'Remain' was so that she could poison the campaign from the inside. Nobody liked her anyway, so they would vote against her.
It's the only thing that makes sense given her actions: Even before a Brexit referendum was even on the cards, as Home Secretary Theresa May was trying to bring us out of the European Convention on Human Rights, drafting the Investigatory Powers Act (aka Snooper's Charter) which I'm sure she knew full well was illegal under EU law, and fighting against the ECHR for powers to lock people up indefinitely without charge, which she conceded to 90 days, but was defeated and tried again with 28 days..
What I don't understand, is why the Pundits seem to think Rudd's departure is a blow for the pro-EU lobby.. If Amber Rudd truly held pro-EU beliefs, maybe she has finally realised that she has been played by Mrs. May?
the only reason that May backed 'Remain' was so that she could poison the campaign from the inside
The only reason she (claimed to have) voted remain was that her boss was for remain and with the assumption that remain would win, any cabinet minister that voted against it would have to start their own party to get back into government
As I see it, there are two types of British Politician / Civil Servant:
I mean this not as snark or sarcasm, but as genuine curiosity: where on that spectrum would you place:
* Margaret Thatcher
* Tony Blair
* David Cameron
* John Major
* James Callaghan
* Harold Wilson
* Edward Heath
As I see it, there are two types of British Politician / Civil Servant:
I mean this not as snark or sarcasm, but as genuine curiosity: where on that spectrum would you place:
* Margaret Thatcher
Visionary. Second only to Mayhem
* Tony Blair
Lackey
* David Cameron
Lackey
* John Major
Lackey of all Lackeys, the Lackey to which lesser Lackeys aspire.
* James Callaghan
Lackey. Second only to John Minor... um, 'Major'.
* Harold Wilson
Lackey. Behind Sunny Jim.
* Edward Heath
There is no Edward Heath and we'll thank you to never mention that name ever again.
It's lucky no one's found a Ted Heath memoir ala Flashman..
Working title would be: I, Kiddiefiddler.
Try selling *that* to Penguin Classics.
Odd that the bloke who put us into the EU (for which we are forever grateful) has suddenly been whitewashed (or something white at least) from history..
Or possibly not.
If there is a hell he's probably famous down there - f*cked kids *and* an entire country and got away with both. Just think - if the police had arrested him in 81 we wouldn't have had The Permed Avenger & Underpants Boy - so probably no Bliar.. No Brown, Cameron and May.. The UK would be a very different place. Especially Rochdale.
Concerning the hitting of targets which keeps circulating all the papers, has anyone actually paid thought to the fact that to be able to hit those targets, you need to have the numbers of (illegal?) immigrants.
So, that means the H.O knows how many (illegal) immigrants it has actually allowed to enter the country. Or is that number reached because you just happen to throw in some innocent citizens who you know will have lost their paperwork from eons before?
What a joke.
"So, that means the H.O knows how many (illegal) immigrants it has actually allowed to enter the country."
No it doesn't. The setting of targets by ministers is unrelated to the ability of the civil servants to do the job and certainly takes no account of the possibility that any given department can meet those targets. A target is just something plucked from the air and then used as a stick to beat senior civil servants who do what they have always done, cascade the misery downwards until the problem becomes one for some under-educated under-achiever in some miserable, dank office hundreds of miles from London.
In the case of Home Office targets it will work like this, the Minister sets a target for removal of "immigrants" from the UK. The Minister hopes that this will mean that thousands of people who entered the country illegally will be removed. However the Minister is also careful not to specify that the "immigrants" are proved to be in the country illegally, they leave the definition of an illegal immigrant up to the department.
The department has not a chance of getting this right. It has no data to turn to that will tell it who entered the country illegally because they entered the country illegally and didn't fill in a form saying that they were illegal. It would be far too difficult to go looking for these people, so the department does not bother. What they do is to trawl through all the nice people who in all innocence engage with authority. People applying for a passport, driving licence, NHS treatment, pensioners etc. Then the department demands impossible levels of proof before accepting that someone is legally resident. They refuse to accept documents such as decades of tax payments, school records, mortgage, utility bills etc as proff of residence. They refuse to accept legally issued birth certificates unless, say, the person has the original signed-in-blood birth certificate issued at the moment of birth and handed to someone else who lost it. If they can't comply throw them on an aeroplane to some place they have never seen before then forget about the problem. It's just another step towards that 12,500 a year target.
It's always far easier to use bureaucracy to make life miserable for decent people than it is to find people who have actual criminal intent. There's not even an attempt to find out what the contribution of an individual to the UK is. So we end up throwing out doctors, nurses, teachers, grandmothers, kindergarten assistants (etc.) and letting the drug dealers, pimps and ladies of negotiable value stay.
Perhaps the only sort of illegal immigrant target it might be reasonable to have would be along the lines of "Here's a list of N people who have exhausted all appeals, have no right to remain in the UK, and have somewhere to be deported to. Please make sure you deport at least M of them a month (assuming their status doesn't change)."
On the other hand, a simple "Make sure you deport M people a month", clearly isn't. You wouldn't want numerical targets to determine N, for example, but you might have "process (progress) at least X cases a week towards a final determination of status".
Well its hardly an authoritative analysis, but taking a look at the wikipedia page about him suggests he can't be any worse than Rudd. He seems to be competent in business and educated, and in fact he has in the past opposed some of the more stupid suggestions in the name of anti-terrorism, so a little better than most Torys.
How well his integrity lasts in the data fetishist's tower of the Home Office remains to be seen.
Ask the Grenfell survivors who still haven't been given fixed housing yet.
All of the Grenfell survivors have been offered permanent housing at least as good, if not considerably better than what they were living in previously. Some have rejected what is on offer in the hope that by playing the victim card for long enough, they will receive something even better. For example, some are demanding town houses with private gardens and one particularly enterprising chancer's justification for rejecting a flat was that his adult son, that lived with him in Grenfell, also deserved one! Meanwhile, the bill for temporary accommodation currently exceeds £30 million. A whole new tower is estimated to cost in the region of £10 million!
Sometimes it pays not to take everything you read in the Grauniad at face value.
You will find out when we've copied the front end interface to the AI that runs the HomeSecBot to the new host. We just have to lower the pitch a bit and give it a slight accent. In the meantime, please continue having hope that things will change. It makes those tears of disappointment so much sweeter.
Well, he's the one who described Momentum as fascists, but did it in parliament so that they couldn't sue him for defamation because of parliamentary privilege.
In terms of brexit, he was a 'reluctant remainer' - i.e. a fence sitter who followed wherever the political wind was blowing.
I don't expect him to be worse than Rudd; that would be difficult, but I don't expect him to be a lot better either. Home secretaries (from both parties) have a habit of being authoritarian in recent history, and his 'fascist' jibe does make me think about how Goebbels liked to divert attention from his political party by accusing rivals of the things they were guilty of first...
Well, he's the one who described Momentum as fascists, but did it in parliament so that they couldn't sue him for defamation because of parliamentary privilege.
For context, didn't he say that immediately after bricks were put through the window of a person politically opposing Momentum's policies on the Labour side, with death threats to that persons staff, and staff at places where they were planning to hold rallies to the point of forcing change of venues?
For context, didn't he say that immediately after bricks were put through the window of a person politically opposing Momentum's policies on the Labour side, with death threats to that persons staff, and staff at places where they were planning to hold rallies to the point of forcing change of venues?
If I recall correctly, the "bricks through windows" incident was someone putting a brick through the window of a building next door to a Conservative politician's office, which was then whipped up by the press to be a 'Momentum are thugs' thing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Momentum; they're a little bit too much like a cult of personality for my tastes. However, if you're looking for genuine fascist organisations in the UK, there are a number of them on the far-right (e.g. 'Britain First') who are genuinely nasty.
You have to remember, too, that Momentum are quite a large movement, and as such are bound to have a handful of 'bad eggs', whereas the actual problem organisations are those entirely populated by such rotten ova. To brand an entire organisation as 'fascists' based upon the alleged actions of a few (which later turn out to be fabrications), is a bit like saying all women are serial killers based upon the actions of Aileen Wuornos.
Or because of accuracy / fair comment.
They did state that if he repeated those comments outside of parliament, he would be sued.
It's all too easy to hide behind AC and repeat those accusations, but I'd be careful saying such things on a public forum, where you might find it a little easier to be identified (by use of a court order) than you might think if those in Momentum were to take affront to it, and where parliamentary privilege certainly doesn't apply.
Not that I'd expect Momentum to go after trolls on website forums, since the damage to their reputation is hardly going to be severe from silly comments like yours.
It is fairly easy to find some good things about Javid, unfortunately it's equally easy to find the bad. And it seems more bad than good on balance.
But it won't matter once he's had a sip of Home Office tea. I don't know what they put in it but it seems to turn every entrant into an illiberal, authoritarian Home Secretary in short order.
authoritarian Home Secretary in short order."
It turned Gerald Kaufman into a fascist. Blunket always wanted to be Beria - it would be entertaining to elect a Green party home secretary just to see what happens.
What he is or was is irrelevant, can anybody remember anybody getting the Home Office portfolio and not turning out to be, or turning into “...some kind of totalitarian whack on...” after the first month or so in post?
Honestly, it makes you wonder what’s in the orientation briefings, and whether there’s something in them that the rest of us really ought to know about....
CASE NIGHTMARE RAINBOW anybody?
“You know, there’s a handful of people that run everything. That’s a fact, I’m not some conspiracy nut. A handful, very small, elite run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever’s elected president… when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialists capitalists scum-fucks who got you in there. And a big guy with a cigar goes: ‘Roll the film.’ And it’s a shot of the Kennedy Assassination from an angle you’ve never seen before. It looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. Then the screen comes up, and they go to the new president: ‘Any questions?’”
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor (1993)
I believe the Home Office orientation briefings are something like that, except they show the new appointee their and their family's entire internet history.
"How much of an authoritarian whackjob is he compared to Amber "Hashtags" Rudd?"
I think the evidence about Javis is that these days he's very keen on deporting all those horrible EU citizens from the UK ASAP. He also proposes that the UK should throw open it's borders to let in as many nice, cheap Indian citizens who know something about IT so that the government can escape from having to pay huge contractor wages. Some of these contractors earn more than the Prime Minister you know!
From Wikipedia:
"a master of disguise, using various masks to try and discover the secrets of the Thunderbirds machines and carry out various missions. He also possesses strange hypnotic powers of unknown origin, although these abilities are apparently limited to making people carry out simple commands, such as to follow him or put them to sleep. He is also apparently unable to use these powers to acquire information; on one occasion he attempted to force Brains to tell him the location of a lost treasure by burying him up to his neck in sand and sunlight and depriving him of water rather than simply hypnotising him to learn the answer, suggesting that he cannot make people tell him information but simply make them carry out certain actions."
...with a side of derision, if she's lucky enough to be remembered at all. Unfortunately, we still have the Old Grey May-or who, when it comes to tech, the Internet and all things privacy, is just as bloody bad.
Of course, as John Smith 19 pointed out to me yesterday, it's the bureaucrats in the back rooms that drive this policy. The figureheads are just the fall guys when it all goes TITSUP (total inability to swindle uneducated proles).
Good riddance. Never in my 40 odd years of "political awareness" have I known a politician make so many gaffes and ignorant statements just by opening her mouth. She was reaching the point of being beyond a joke.
As a young teenager in 1979 I used to think Thatchers teams were a bunch of worthless old suits (as Ben Elton eloquently described them). However, as part of "Generation ZX" (along with many other reg readers it seems) I now appreciate strong leadership, and the vision, for instance, to put a computer in every school. She may have been despised and taken away our school milk, but the computers made up for it, even though she and her suits wouldn't have had a clue what to do wih one. Quite what the governments of the past 20 years will be remembered for, other than pure incompetence, I have no idea.
"Never in my 40 odd years of "political awareness" have I known a politician make so many gaffes and ignorant statements just by opening her mouth"
You must have missed the shadow home secretary then. Who cant do basic maths amongst countless other gaffs.
"You must have missed the shadow home secretary....."
Yes - I stand corrected. Have a beer on me.
I had forgotten about her inability to figure out that policemen cost more than £32 per year. The thought of having someone from a cesspit like Hackney putting her socialist views and beliefs on the whole country is somewhat frightening.....
To be fair to Diane Abbot, she's been the MP for Hackney since 1987. You don't keep that job for 30 years unless the people you're representing think you're doing something right.
Personally I also found the slagging off she got for muffing her figures AFTER admitting she had diabetes and had been struggling to manage it during the election, rather distasteful. Without that admission, fine, she's a fair target.
To be fair to Diane Abbot, she's been the MP for Hackney since 1987. You don't keep that job for 30 years unless the people you're representing think you're doing something right.
Personally I also found the slagging off she got for muffing her figures AFTER admitting she had diabetes and had been struggling to manage it during the election, rather distasteful. Without that admission, fine, she's a fair target.
My issue with Abbot is that, in common with many socialists, she's a hypocrite. Despite campaigning for an end to selective education, she sends her own kids to private school. When challenged about this apparent contradiction her response was that being black they're susceptible to joining gangs! Not quite sure how that clumsy response would've gone down with her Hackney constituents, but I guess they're still happy enough to vote for her.
Selective education exists the UK, whether we like it or not. As a consequence the state schools are not as good. If you're expecting her, or anyone else to put their ideals ahead of their children you are going to be disappointed.
Aside: while we're railing against the state of our schools here's a campaign that everyone can get behind
You might have heard of the "Daystrom Effect"? An extremely talented young person who turns into a dribbling imbecile after too long achieving absolutely nothing. Sound familiar?
Named for a certain Richard "I'm not nuts!" Daystrom and collaborator and co-dribbling nut job, the M-5 Multitronic Unit.
... And send my regards to Prime Minister Dunsel...
But this can't happen soon enough.
Theresa May: "I'm the Prime Minister..."
Dalek (bored): "Yes, we know..."
Never in my 40 odd years of "political awareness" have I known a politician make so many gaffes and ignorant statements just by opening her mouth.
You must have been living on a different plant then as there have been loads of them. I'll give you John Nott as a starter.
Good riddance. Never in my 40 odd years of "political awareness" have I known a politician make so many gaffes and ignorant statements just by opening her mouth. She was reaching the point of being beyond a joke.
Er, Jacqui Smith ??????
There's a problem with her resigning from this notoriously weak cabinet. For example, BoJo should have gone months ago for any of his many gaffs but can't be forced out. The cabinet has to contain a delicate balance of those for and against leaving the EU and hopes to rely on cabinet discipline (try that with BoJo…) to keep the government in power. Having taken one for the architect of the Windrush omnishambles and by going on the back benches Rudd has little to lose and might be more inclined to lead a group of Tory MPs to vote against the government line over, say, staying in the customs union. I think history is replete with similar examples.
Having taken one for the architect of the Windrush omnishambles and by going on the back benches Rudd has little to lose and might be more inclined to lead a group of Tory MPs to vote against the government line over, say, staying in the customs union.
In which case, all of the Remaniacs who would ordinarily be highly critical of the moronic Rudd will suddenly declare her a saint.
n which case, all of the Remaniacs who would ordinarily be highly critical of the moronic Rudd will suddenly declare her a saint.
As a proud Remaniac*, I'll settle for declaring her slightly less useless than she otherwise was. Somewhere between chocolate fireguard and cock-flavoured lollypop.
*I'm not sure those in favour of the status quo in any situation could be referred to as 'maniacs', but this sort of thing is par-for-the-course coming from an obvious "smash up everything and call it brilliant" brexit troll.
Cock flavoured lollipop...
Thanks - now I have images, really bad images, that need counselling. Involving politicians down the ages.. Widdecombe, Heath, Abbott.
Good ole Gove blowing the Horn of Gondor...
That doesn't need brain bleach - it needs molecular acid - in Carboys.
"In which case, all of the Remaniacs who would ordinarily be highly critical of the moronic Rudd will suddenly declare her a saint."
Personally I'd have liked to have had David Davis replace Rudd as Home Sec and then Rudd appointed to take his place..
I remember him, wasn't he The Man Who Went Up An Alley and Came Down a Hooker - or am I thinking about someone else?
I never saw the attraction myself - he started off looking like an anorexic bloodhound and now he looks like a bloodhound that was an unlucky extra on 28 days later. Some people improve with age, some just age. There was never much to be going on with.
The idea that people can be lumped together as "BAME" is pretty racist in itself, but tell me why someone from the Caribbean who has worked all their working lives in the NHS or public transport would be more likely to vote Conservative because the Home Secretary is a banker of Pakistani origin? In case you haven't noticed, the various Pakistani cultures (with the exception of the educated upper class) are more foreign to your average Evangelical of Caribbean descent than are white British.
As a Londoner who moved to the West Country years ago before everybody suddenly realised it was nicer in our neck of the woods, I used to feel pretty minority ethnic myself.
Why? He's still BAME, got to be better than putting a white person in the role after a scandal over immigration.
Why, you ask?
Newsflash...Shock horror, but not all the 'coloured' ethnic minorities in Britain like each other...I suspect the label used to describe him won't be BAME, but 'Coconut' or 'Bounty Bar' or '{insert the 'P' word here} Bastard' (or just plain 'Tory Bastard').
If the rationale here is that the Government thinks that by appointing someone of Pakistani descent to the post, this is somehow an acceptable means of trying to ameliorate the Windrush debacle, then it proves they know very little about race relations in the UK, in fact, the action also displays more than a hint of the old 'Pakistani, Indian, African, who cares? they're all just wogs..' colonial attitudes coming to the fore.
Good question.
a) Something very nice or
b) The promise of something very nice "When the fuss dies down. Look Amber, just keep your head down, don't stir up any Remainers in the Party to mutiny and I'll look after you when the time comes."
Of course if it's the latter the question is who's making that promise?
If it's May it may not be worth the breath it's written on.
of policy on the vulnerable"."
OK That's at the top of my current "Are you f**king kidding me" list for 2018.
I know, still 8 months left to go, but I think it's going to take a lot to top that pile of merde de taureau.
"There is no scenario where such an individual is suitable for such a position."
The HO would disagree. Someone as deeply ignorant as that could repeat anything they told her without showing any signs of disbelief because she didn't have the knowledge that would have caused her to disbelieve.
I keep forgetting how to spell his first name despite being nearby to my constituency.
Anyway seems a nice enough bloke on the local radio, but then all the locals ones seem decent enough to me. The real idiots tend to be rejected at the ballot box.
But they do get over their head sometimes, they are only people.
He did used to run a bank so SHOULD be OK (we hope)
The problem is that if you have a target of finding 100 illegal immigrants and you can only locate 90, you will be tempted to go after some legal immigrants who happen to be, through no fault of their own, easy targets.
The Windrush people were asked to provide multiple pieces of evidence that they were here for each single year for over forty years. I don't know many people who could do that. I couldn't.
It's not unlike giving ATOS targets to find cheats and then finding that people were unjustly losing their benefits.
Quote:
There are targets for prosecuting drink driving, speeding, and a hundred other illegal things. If your entitled to be here fine, prove it or be nicked.
Which is exactly how the child support agency started life, as a well intentioned idea to get absent fathers to pay for their sprogs.
But when it came to implementing this idea, it suddenly became clear that it was much easier to target those men already paying for their sprogs via court orders/divorce agreements and the like.
So lets get them and make them pay more regardless.
Then the DHSS got in on the act....... mothers with kids getting more money... well... we'll have that off whatever benefits they are claiming with the result single mothers ended up with no more money than they had before the CSA was setup.
Of course the CSA could have gone after the actually absent and non paying fathers......... but then that was a shit ton more work and unlikely to reduce the benefit bill......
As for your 'prove it or be nicked' line , it is the governments job to prove whatever against you, not you having to prove something to the authorities every 5 mins... unless you like living in a state where you hear "Papers please" all the time....
"prove it or be nicked"
Apart from turning upside-down the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", think where such a policy will lead.
The police could walk in your house and seize everything that you cannot prove belongs to you, on the basis that if you cannot prove it's yours, it is presumed stolen. Do you have the sales receipt for your beds, fridge, washing machine, TV set? No good calling the shop you bought them from - they shredded the records ages ago.
Come to think of it, that's how POCA works. "Prove that you did not buy your car/house/boat using money you got from selling drugs, or they're gone."
There's an interesting thing to note - Javid is not considered an ally of May. This in itself is interesting - May's grip on power is tenuous; mostly she seems to still be PM because nobody else is stupid enough to want to lead the mess she's gotten them all into... except one man.
The real danger we face now is that May goes and we end up with HIM as PM. That would be a Very Bad Thing Indeed.
You know of whom I speak.
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