The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly this evening have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
The Government is useless, but in this particular respect would any future one do any better?
Nobody seems to have a clue how to create a workable system for dealing with those claiming asylum, in which the number of successful applicants permitted is anything other than "zero" or "everyone."
The alternative has been rehearsed on here, chiefly by @rcs1000.
I seem to recall that his argument consists largely of removing the pull factor of black and grey market employment, through a combination of extensive reform of employment practices and forcing us to have the hugely controversial and widely hated ID card scheme that was previously fought off when Tony Blair attempted to bring it in. This will, apparently, solve the problem for us by making virtually all the migrants magically vanish, because it is claimed to work in Norway. I remain very far from convinced.
Most likely such reforms would hardly put any of the boat people and other irregular migrants off, because they already have family and/or large diaspora communities here, a lot of them speak English, and because (despite its many faults) Britain is still a relatively nice place for people to come, otherwise they wouldn't bother as it is. So they'll keep coming.
And so we're back to the start again. How do you construct a system capable of resettling a quantity of asylum claimants that the electorate is willing to admit - 500, 5,000, 50,000, whatever - rather than none or all of them?
There are countries with large numbers of working illegal immigrants (like the US or the UK), and there are countries with very few (like Norway).
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
If they did pints of champagne, I'd damn well want it served in a pint glass.
SKS fans please explain LAB 10& AHEAD IN RED WALL. SKS massive drag on Labour
Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton · 1h At this moment, which of the following individuals do those in the Red Wall think would be the better PM for the UK? (12-13 June)
Boris Johnson 37% (+2) Keir Starmer 37% (+1) Don't know 25% (-3)
Changes +/- 6 June.
That's not "in the country", that's in a set of seats that the Conservatives won last time by around ten percentage points.
Labour 10pts ahead in these seats.
SKS 0pts ahead of Boris
Massive drag on Labour success
There's more than a touch of HYUFD selective polling here BJO.
Starmer is underwhelming, but you are not giving credit where it is due. He has drawn the sting out of voting Labour, which Corbyn inflicted on the party. If you cannot take the 10+ lead and hand the credit to Starmer, please no more "SKS fans please explain" when Labour and the Conservatives polls tighten by a percentage point.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly this evening have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
The Government is useless, but in this particular respect would any future one do any better?
Nobody seems to have a clue how to create a workable system for dealing with those claiming asylum, in which the number of successful applicants permitted is anything other than "zero" or "everyone."
The alternative has been rehearsed on here, chiefly by @rcs1000.
I seem to recall that his argument consists largely of removing the pull factor of black and grey market employment, through a combination of extensive reform of employment practices and forcing us to have the hugely controversial and widely hated ID card scheme that was previously fought off when Tony Blair attempted to bring it in. This will, apparently, solve the problem for us by making virtually all the migrants magically vanish, because it is claimed to work in Norway. I remain very far from convinced.
Most likely such reforms would hardly put any of the boat people and other irregular migrants off, because they already have family and/or large diaspora communities here, a lot of them speak English, and because (despite its many faults) Britain is still a relatively nice place for people to come, otherwise they wouldn't bother as it is. So they'll keep coming.
And so we're back to the start again. How do you construct a system capable of resettling a quantity of asylum claimants that the electorate is willing to admit - 500, 5,000, 50,000, whatever - rather than none or all of them?
There are countries with large numbers of working illegal immigrants (like the US or the UK), and there are countries with very few (like Norway).
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Out of curiosity rather than doubt, where do you get the 750,000 figure from? How do you count, even roughly, illegal workers? It can't be more than a guesstimate, can it, by its very nature? Could be higher, could be lower of course.
Even if the activists win, it’s a classic case of “win the battle, lose the war” from them. All this does is energise the Tory base and the papers. It’s got everything - asylum seekers, lefty lawyers, middle class activists and now the ECHR stopping at least one deportation. All it will lead to is the Govt stepping up things and saying to its supporters “they are still trying to stop us”.
I wonder what the Human Rights QC SKS thinks about it…
Yeah its definitely been set up to work out this way. They've not even tried to hide what they are doing.
The flaw in the plan is that the idea at the heart of it is abhorrent and indefensible. If its offshore processing, then fine. But when people realise that they are actually forcing people to apply to Rwanda for asylum instead of the UK, then people think again about the wisdom of the policy. They've also misread cultural change. They are making up policies for 10 years ago for people who are dying. Immigration is less salient as an issue than it was pre Brexit. There is a lot of sensitivity about racism that didn't exist previously.
Prices for food items have doubled in about the last 6 months. Filling up the car with petrol has also doubled in price. I've never seen that happen in the 20 years. People are getting very angry about this. The interest in this Rwanda stuff will wane, it is just a policy for a different world... but those who are annoyed by it, will remember.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem and I agree that those who criticise it have no alternative. But that doesn't excuse a dumb solution that just exists to provoke political opponents rather than fixing the problem.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
At the moment my main objection is the environmental absurdity of flying a plane to Kigali with a couple of people on it. The determination to get the plane in air smacks of political posturing.
Is it a "bad" policy? I don't know - there's a real issue about people wanting to come to the UK and how we deal with this migration. One could argue at a time of obvious labour shortages there's an argument for limited economic migration but that's only part of the story.
I don't have an easy answer - the longer term solution is less to make the UK more unattractive but to make the countries of origin more attractive as places to stay but that's going to take a lot of time and money and effort which frankly no one in the current climate would be prepared to undertake.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
If they did pints of champagne, I'd damn well want it served in a pint glass.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
The glacé cherry on the Remoaner cake is the ECHR sticking it’s oar in at the last minute
Like they still run the country. Elite europhile lawyers. Fuck them
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
Reminds me of when I ordered a half litre with my lunch in Italy, and the waiter said, “no, that’s too much, you want a quartino”
l
A half litre seemed par for the course in Albania, but it was mostly with dinner rather than lunch. I normally got a free raki, too.
You wouldn't guess it's a notionally Muslim country. Although apparently Bektashi are allowed to drink so it's a popular sect.
The world is crying out for pint or half litre wine bottles. Someone here pointed out the other day that the 75cl size is not based on the capacity of drinkers for wine but of the average glass blower's lungs. A true revelation.
Lung capacity is 5-6 litres.
And glass blowers generally exhibit increased forced vital capacity.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
The glacé cherry on the Remoaner cake is the ECHR sticking it’s oar in at the last minute
Like they still run the country. Elite europhile lawyers. Fuck them
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
If they did pints of champagne, I'd damn well want it served in a pint glass.
With a crown on it.
I said modern pint - which is 500ml.
Wine keeps for a day or two. Champagne does not.
Objection. It loses its fizz but it will still get you pissed
And if you stick a teaspoon in it you might even get some fizz left
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
You may be right, but I suspect most people are less interested than you think in lefty lawyers or legal chicanery. Indeed, I'd go further and say that the whole culture wars stuff is reaching the end of its shelf life for Boris, because people have bigger fish to fry now. Him, Patel, Braverman and others are appealing to a dwindling band of people who are already converted to his side of the culture wars.
The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly this evening have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
The Government is useless, but in this particular respect would any future one do any better?
Nobody seems to have a clue how to create a workable system for dealing with those claiming asylum, in which the number of successful applicants permitted is anything other than "zero" or "everyone."
The alternative has been rehearsed on here, chiefly by @rcs1000.
I seem to recall that his argument consists largely of removing the pull factor of black and grey market employment, through a combination of extensive reform of employment practices and forcing us to have the hugely controversial and widely hated ID card scheme that was previously fought off when Tony Blair attempted to bring it in. This will, apparently, solve the problem for us by making virtually all the migrants magically vanish, because it is claimed to work in Norway. I remain very far from convinced.
Most likely such reforms would hardly put any of the boat people and other irregular migrants off, because they already have family and/or large diaspora communities here, a lot of them speak English, and because (despite its many faults) Britain is still a relatively nice place for people to come, otherwise they wouldn't bother as it is. So they'll keep coming.
And so we're back to the start again. How do you construct a system capable of resettling a quantity of asylum claimants that the electorate is willing to admit - 500, 5,000, 50,000, whatever - rather than none or all of them?
There are countries with large numbers of working illegal immigrants (like the US or the UK), and there are countries with very few (like Norway).
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Out of curiosity rather than doubt, where do you get the 750,000 figure from? How do you count, even roughly, illegal workers? It can't be more than a guesstimate, can it, by its very nature? Could be higher, could be lower of course.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
The England football team has been failing constantly for my entire lifetime. The England football team under Gareth Southgate has been, relatively speaking, the least badly failed England football team since that of 1966, about which tedious nostalgia will still be repeated in the 31st Century (assuming that both the country and the sport last that long,) because the England football team will still be failing in the 31st Century (probably having lost the World Cup final to Scotland on penalties at least once during the intervening millennium.)
It's just one of the immutable laws of nature. Accept it and move on.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
If they did pints of champagne, I'd damn well want it served in a pint glass.
With a crown on it.
I said modern pint - which is 500ml.
Wine keeps for a day or two. Champagne does not.
Objection. It loses its fizz but it will still get you pissed
And if you stick a teaspoon in it you might even get some fizz left
Urban myth with no plausible explanation. Favourite of my sister in law.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
If they did pints of champagne, I'd damn well want it served in a pint glass.
With a crown on it.
I said modern pint - which is 500ml.
Wine keeps for a day or two. Champagne does not.
Objection. It loses its fizz but it will still get you pissed
And if you stick a teaspoon in it you might even get some fizz left
Urban myth with no plausible explanation. Favourite of my sister in law.
What? The teaspoon thing? No it actually works. I’ve done it. Or maybe I imagined it?
The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly this evening have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
The Government is useless, but in this particular respect would any future one do any better?
Nobody seems to have a clue how to create a workable system for dealing with those claiming asylum, in which the number of successful applicants permitted is anything other than "zero" or "everyone."
The alternative has been rehearsed on here, chiefly by @rcs1000.
I seem to recall that his argument consists largely of removing the pull factor of black and grey market employment, through a combination of extensive reform of employment practices and forcing us to have the hugely controversial and widely hated ID card scheme that was previously fought off when Tony Blair attempted to bring it in. This will, apparently, solve the problem for us by making virtually all the migrants magically vanish, because it is claimed to work in Norway. I remain very far from convinced.
Most likely such reforms would hardly put any of the boat people and other irregular migrants off, because they already have family and/or large diaspora communities here, a lot of them speak English, and because (despite its many faults) Britain is still a relatively nice place for people to come, otherwise they wouldn't bother as it is. So they'll keep coming.
And so we're back to the start again. How do you construct a system capable of resettling a quantity of asylum claimants that the electorate is willing to admit - 500, 5,000, 50,000, whatever - rather than none or all of them?
There are countries with large numbers of working illegal immigrants (like the US or the UK), and there are countries with very few (like Norway).
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Out of curiosity rather than doubt, where do you get the 750,000 figure from? How do you count, even roughly, illegal workers? It can't be more than a guesstimate, can it, by its very nature? Could be higher, could be lower of course.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
Because the UK is really only interested in this pitiful spectacle as a skirmish in the culture wars.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
Just to add, because I'm now so fucking angry @MrEd and @Casino_Royale - the chance to "troll the libs" is leading to terrible policy making that doesn't solve the problem and which further divides our country.
Call out stuff when it's publicity seeking rather than a proper solution. Don't fucking say "oh, the EHCR hates it so it must be good."
Even if the activists win, it’s a classic case of “win the battle, lose the war” from them. All this does is energise the Tory base and the papers. It’s got everything - asylum seekers, lefty lawyers, middle class activists and now the ECHR stopping at least one deportation. All it will lead to is the Govt stepping up things and saying to its supporters “they are still trying to stop us”.
I wonder what the Human Rights QC SKS thinks about it…
Yeah its definitely been set up to work out this way. They've not even tried to hide what they are doing.
The flaw in the plan is that the idea at the heart of it is abhorrent and indefensible. If its offshore processing, then fine. But when people realise that they are actually forcing people to apply to Rwanda for asylum instead of the UK, then people think again about the wisdom of the policy. They've also misread cultural change. They are making up policies for 10 years ago for people who are dying. Immigration is less salient as an issue than it was pre Brexit. There is a lot of sensitivity about racism that didn't exist previously.
Prices for food items have doubled in about the last 6 months. Filling up the car with petrol has also doubled in price. I've never seen that happen in the 20 years. People are getting very angry about this. The interest in this Rwanda stuff will wane, it is just a policy for a different world... but those who are annoyed by it, will remember.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem and I agree that those who criticise it have no alternative. But that doesn't excuse a dumb solution that just exists to provoke political opponents rather than fixing the problem.
I'll put up with the price rises if it leads to the destruction of Putin's Russia. We need to stop fucking around.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
The European court of human rights has made a dramatic 11th-hour intervention into the government’s controversial plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda that could ground the inaugural flight to the east African nation.
Lawyers for one of the asylum seekers due to fly this evening have made a successful emergency application to the ECHR after exhausting applications to UK courts.
The Government is useless, but in this particular respect would any future one do any better?
Nobody seems to have a clue how to create a workable system for dealing with those claiming asylum, in which the number of successful applicants permitted is anything other than "zero" or "everyone."
The alternative has been rehearsed on here, chiefly by @rcs1000.
I seem to recall that his argument consists largely of removing the pull factor of black and grey market employment, through a combination of extensive reform of employment practices and forcing us to have the hugely controversial and widely hated ID card scheme that was previously fought off when Tony Blair attempted to bring it in. This will, apparently, solve the problem for us by making virtually all the migrants magically vanish, because it is claimed to work in Norway. I remain very far from convinced.
Most likely such reforms would hardly put any of the boat people and other irregular migrants off, because they already have family and/or large diaspora communities here, a lot of them speak English, and because (despite its many faults) Britain is still a relatively nice place for people to come, otherwise they wouldn't bother as it is. So they'll keep coming.
And so we're back to the start again. How do you construct a system capable of resettling a quantity of asylum claimants that the electorate is willing to admit - 500, 5,000, 50,000, whatever - rather than none or all of them?
There are countries with large numbers of working illegal immigrants (like the US or the UK), and there are countries with very few (like Norway).
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Out of curiosity rather than doubt, where do you get the 750,000 figure from? How do you count, even roughly, illegal workers? It can't be more than a guesstimate, can it, by its very nature? Could be higher, could be lower of course.
Even if the activists win, it’s a classic case of “win the battle, lose the war” from them. All this does is energise the Tory base and the papers. It’s got everything - asylum seekers, lefty lawyers, middle class activists and now the ECHR stopping at least one deportation. All it will lead to is the Govt stepping up things and saying to its supporters “they are still trying to stop us”.
I wonder what the Human Rights QC SKS thinks about it…
Yeah its definitely been set up to work out this way. They've not even tried to hide what they are doing.
The flaw in the plan is that the idea at the heart of it is abhorrent and indefensible. If its offshore processing, then fine. But when people realise that they are actually forcing people to apply to Rwanda for asylum instead of the UK, then people think again about the wisdom of the policy. They've also misread cultural change. They are making up policies for 10 years ago for people who are dying. Immigration is less salient as an issue than it was pre Brexit. There is a lot of sensitivity about racism that didn't exist previously.
Prices for food items have doubled in about the last 6 months. Filling up the car with petrol has also doubled in price. I've never seen that happen in the 20 years. People are getting very angry about this. The interest in this Rwanda stuff will wane, it is just a policy for a different world... but those who are annoyed by it, will remember.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem and I agree that those who criticise it have no alternative. But that doesn't excuse a dumb solution that just exists to provoke political opponents rather than fixing the problem.
Don't you think there's something racist about treating being given asylum in Rwanda as a fate worse than death?
In one breath, the UK is portrayed as being one step away from Nazi Germany, and in the next, it's the only country in the world fit for human habitation.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
To be honest the Lefty lawyers are absolutely playing their part in making it a culture war fight.
It seems to have more holes than one of Rab C Nesbit's string vests.
At first glance everything he says is correct. There may be a good argument for Scottish Independence but it's not the crap put forth by the SNP, which seems to be just as fantastical as the last time around. Then again when Nats routinely attack their own government's GERS reports it's obvious that they'll be voting with their hearts and not their heads.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
Reminds me of when I ordered a half litre with my lunch in Italy, and the waiter said, “no, that’s too much, you want a quartino”
A half litre seemed par for the course in Albania, but it was mostly with dinner rather than lunch. I normally got a free raki, too.
You wouldn't guess it's a notionally Muslim country. Although apparently Bektashi are allowed to drink so it's a popular sect.
The world is crying out for pint or half litre wine bottles. Someone here pointed out the other day that the 75cl size is not based on the capacity of drinkers for wine but of the average glass blower's lungs. A true revelation.
That was me. And here's where I read it. Don't think I linked to it.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
The government has won all the legal challenges in the U.K. courts. It has now been ordered to stop the deportation pending a full hearing in 3 weeks time. It may well win that hearing as well. But apparently waiting 3 weeks is the End of Times or something.
Going to law is not undermining anything. In a free democratic society people are entitled to disagree with the government and to take legal steps to oppose it.
Does this really need saying? Apparently so.
In refusing the appellant's application today and siding with the government the Supreme Court said this:
"In bringing that application, the appellant’s lawyers were performing their proper function of ensuring that their clients are not subjected to unlawful treatment at the hands of the Government."
The PM's response has been to defame immigration lawyers by claiming that they are working with criminal gangs. He made that statement outside Parliament. It would serve him right if he were to be sued for libel, frankly.
you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
I've just realised (and, honestly, the revelation should have come much earlier) that I've got better things to do than to read Leon's tragic, drunken, and occasionally racist bile.
As I said a few days ago, this site is losing some of its best posters because they can’t be arsed putting up with various comments.
It’s no so much, in my opinion, that Leon is tragic, drunken, and occasionally racist - although that’s brutally accurate - but simply that he is repeating himself.
We all are.
Why don't we do a year zero. A ctr alt del. A spring clean. A mucking out of the stables. A new broom. A new start. A new way of delivering internet punditry. All adding value. All holding forth on areas of expertise and soaking up the expertise of others. We can do it, I think. The ingredients are there.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
The glacé cherry on the Remoaner cake is the ECHR sticking it’s oar in at the last minute
Like they still run the country. Elite europhile lawyers. Fuck them
Leave the ECHR. Vote for Boris again
I think they must have climaxed when they saw the ECHR got involved.
For most, they will see how this policy annoys All The Right People and, thus, it will secure their support.
For that to change their tactics will have to change but they just can’t help themselves and secretly love culture war fights just as much as Boris.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
If you think such a reaction (from leftists) both predictable and liable to lead to “a demagogue authoritarian leader”, why on earth would you support the government’s policy.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Says everything about you
I think it says everything about you that you think that says everything about me.
I must apologise unreservedly for calling you racist.
The truth is that you are not intellectually equipped to form a first order judgment on any issue whatsoever. You can only assess a question, as you yourself explicitly admit above, by who is on what side of it. So, the holocaust: inhuman nazi scum, nuremberg is too good for them. The (certainly by any measure more evil and more damaging) uk slave trade: Yay for the Raj, stand to attention with a small polyester royal standard crammed firmly where the sun don't shine, all's right with the world.
Never ascribe to evil what is adequately explained by dummheit.
I plucked a low ball number, so nobody could argue with it.
Given the applications for residency we've seen from EU citizens which far outstripped expecations, and for some nationalities the numbers were huge, I could easily believe that there are millions of uncounted people in the UK working illegally. We simply don't do a good job of tracking this sort of thing.
Results up til now have been pretty good. But the one thing that always baffles me is how slow he is to respond when things aren't working.
I am no fan of Southgate. But I will say this in his defence; he is mildly more responsive to outside stimuli than Sven was. Every single match the same team, bar some titting about with left wing; every single match take off an attacking midfield player and bring Phil Neville on to hold things firm at the back regardless of the match situation.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
If you think such a reaction (from leftists) both predictable and liable to lead to “a demagogue authoritarian leader”, why on earth would you support the government’s policy.
Because they really piss me off and this really pisses them off. And I want them to feel it.
It gets that visceral. That’s what Boris has correctly assessed.
If I was calm I’d say Starmer should come up with better and more effective solutions, along the lines of what cyclefree and rcs1000 outlined earlier, but he needs to rein in the broader mobs of his movement first and go high when Boris goes low.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
Wrong @rcs1000 and you are letting your temper get the better of you.
As I said earlier, I think what both you and @Cyclefree were saying before makes perfect sense. The problem is that, while the likes of myself and (I suspect) @Casino_Royale would accept it, those who essentially want open immigration but realise they can't say that publicly will come out with a 1,001 excuses why your proposals are racist, harmful etc.
You're picking the wrong target. The reason why a lot of people are willing to go with the demagogues is because they have seen how those on the left take the p1ss by blocking any reasonable solution on the grounds it's 'racist' / 'horrific' / 'nazist'. In their world, the only good policy is one that lets everyone in.
I've just realised (and, honestly, the revelation should have come much earlier) that I've got better things to do than to read Leon's tragic, drunken, and occasionally racist bile.
As I said a few days ago, this site is losing some of its best posters because they can’t be arsed putting up with various comments.
It’s no so much, in my opinion, that Leon is tragic, drunken, and occasionally racist - although that’s brutally accurate - but simply that he is repeating himself.
We all are.
Why don't we do a year zero. A ctr alt del. A spring clean. A mucking out of the stables. A new broom. A new start. A new way of delivering internet punditry. All adding value. All holding forth on areas of expertise and soaking up the expertise of others. We can do it, I think. The ingredients are there.
I think @Foxy is right - silly season without any decent politics to discuss. We are in limbo waiting for Johnson to fall, Starmer to get a FPN or off Scot free. Still a week til the by elections.
This is surely a red herring? If we are agreed that 75ml of wine can appropriately be consumed over a solitary supper, where is the incentive to try to ensure that a bottle of sparkling will survive overnight?
you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
Where do PBers stand on the question of ordering a whole bottle of wine when eating alone in a restaurant? My default is I will have a half bottle when it's on offer, but if not it's expensive and inconvenient to buy by the glass. But the waitress gave me a very disapproving, are you expecting someone else sort of look.
A dilemma I have often faced, and I have learned that the best way to do it is with a swagger
"Si, a WHOLE bottle, grazie". Confident smile, stare hard at the waitress - and what are you going to do about it?
Absolute insouciance. Works a treat
I used to feel self conscious, dining alone, but I had to do it so often in my job I developed a carapace. Now I do not give a tiny little F, and when YOU clearly don't care, no one else does either
I positively relish it, a lot of the time, these days. Whip out my iPad, relax, have an argument on PB or Whatsapp, chill, wine, sleep. Lush
A waiter in a restaurant once gave me a very disapproving look when I ordered a bottle of wine while dining alone.
"Would that be one glass, sir?" he asked, with a disapproving arch of his eyebrow.
"Oh god no," I replied. "I'll just have it with a straw."
There are two negatives to NOT ordering a bottle of wine (apart from the obvious).
Firstly, the wines by the glasses are usually not the best choice. You also don’t know how long they have been open.
The second, with half bottles, is that the rule is that the larger the bottle, the better it is for the wine. So, with a half bottle, the wine is somewhat inferior to a full bottle
If she gives you more grief, ask her to confirm that the service charge is optimal. That should get her attention.
The third is the relative price of wine in bottles, and glasses, in restaurants.
I have no problem at all ordering a whole bottle - I just make sure I get the cork and take half of it away with me.
It's the perfect demonstration as to why we need modern pints of champagne. Plus the latter would offend some of the right people.
On the overnight sleeper from Madrid to Paris, twenty years ago, in the dining car, I asked for a second half bottle of wine as, for various reasons to do with life, I needed a couple more drinks.
I have never received such a stare of utter contempt in my life.
I felt like some half blind bum lying in a Paris gutter begging for just one more absinthe.
Clearly the waiting staff were not paid by sales is all I can say.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
If you think such a reaction (from leftists) both predictable and liable to lead to “a demagogue authoritarian leader”, why on earth would you support the government’s policy.
Because they really piss me off and this really pisses them off. And I want them to feel it.
It gets that visceral. That’s what Boris has correctly assessed.
If I was calm I’d say Starmer should come up with better and more effective solutions, along the lines of what cyclefree and rcs1000 outlined earlier, but he needs to rein in the broader mobs of his movement first and go high when Boris goes low.
Have you considered asking yourself why you are so pissed off? Seriously.
You yourself describe Boris as “going low”; so why does that seem not to annoy you as much as the “predictable response”?
I am no fan of Southgate. But I will say this in his defence; he is mildly more responsive to outside stimuli than Sven was. Every single match the same team, bar some titting about with left wing; every single match take off an attacking midfield player and bring Phil Neville on to hold things firm at the back regardless of the match situation.
He isn't the worst we've had in my lifetime.
For sure, I think he's one of the better ones we have had.
Results up til now have been pretty good. But the one thing that always baffles me is how slow he is to respond when things aren't working.
I am no fan of Southgate. But I will say this in his defence; he is mildly more responsive to outside stimuli than Sven was. Every single match the same team, bar some titting about with left wing; every single match take off an attacking midfield player and bring Phil Neville on to hold things firm at the back regardless of the match situation.
He isn't the worst we've had in my lifetime.
Southgate is the second most successful England manager ever.
you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
I’m shocked, shocked.
What I don’t think many on the Left/centre-Left realise is that they’re playing into Boris’s hands by doing this; they are so utterly sanctimonious and insufferable that their petty pedantry will succeed in generating the cultural dividing line he seeks, and thus shore up his support. I don’t think they realise just how much this sort of legal chicanery stuff pisses people off.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
The glacé cherry on the Remoaner cake is the ECHR sticking it’s oar in at the last minute
Like they still run the country. Elite europhile lawyers. Fuck them
Leave the ECHR. Vote for Boris again
The added bonus being that @HYUFD can complain endlessly about how Communists seize private property until even he realises that it will have been a Tory government which will make this very much easier for a future lefty government because property owners will no longer be able to rely on the right to peaceful enjoyment of your possessions contained in Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR. Or any of the other rights - like the right to an effective remedy or a fair trial.
And who owns property in this country? Oh yes, Tory voters.
Apparently there is only person left on the flight. Half a million quid, and it doesn't stop anybody crossing the channel.
Supporters of good Government (and the rule of law) should be incandescent at this policy.
And still they cheer...
Until flights are taking channel migrants regularly to Rwanda then this policy cannot be judged and your comment is just your anti government mantra again
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
Even if the activists win, it’s a classic case of “win the battle, lose the war” from them. All this does is energise the Tory base and the papers. It’s got everything - asylum seekers, lefty lawyers, middle class activists and now the ECHR stopping at least one deportation. All it will lead to is the Govt stepping up things and saying to its supporters “they are still trying to stop us”.
I wonder what the Human Rights QC SKS thinks about it…
Yeah its definitely been set up to work out this way. They've not even tried to hide what they are doing.
The flaw in the plan is that the idea at the heart of it is abhorrent and indefensible. If its offshore processing, then fine. But when people realise that they are actually forcing people to apply to Rwanda for asylum instead of the UK, then people think again about the wisdom of the policy. They've also misread cultural change. They are making up policies for 10 years ago for people who are dying. Immigration is less salient as an issue than it was pre Brexit. There is a lot of sensitivity about racism that didn't exist previously.
Prices for food items have doubled in about the last 6 months. Filling up the car with petrol has also doubled in price. I've never seen that happen in the 20 years. People are getting very angry about this. The interest in this Rwanda stuff will wane, it is just a policy for a different world... but those who are annoyed by it, will remember.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem and I agree that those who criticise it have no alternative. But that doesn't excuse a dumb solution that just exists to provoke political opponents rather than fixing the problem.
Don't you think there's something racist about treating being given asylum in Rwanda as a fate worse than death?
In one breath, the UK is portrayed as being one step away from Nazi Germany, and in the next, it's the only country in the world fit for human habitation.
Its got nothing to do with racism. People came to seek asylum for whatever reason in the UK, not Rwanda. That is the fundamental problem here. There is something very wrong with shipping them to Rwanda (or any other country) instead because we are incapable of administering a decision on their claim. Well it seems that way to me, anyway.
I plucked a low ball number, so nobody could argue with it.
Given the applications for residency we've seen from EU citizens which far outstripped expecations, and for some nationalities the numbers were huge, I could easily believe that there are millions of uncounted people in the UK working illegally. We simply don't do a good job of tracking this sort of thing.
There's shitloads of Albanians, and they are *not* covered by FOM. But look at the frequency of Wizz flights between Luton and Tirana. I don't necessarily have a problem with that - there's a huge Albanian diaspora - but I am sure we don't know who's here.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
If you think such a reaction (from leftists) both predictable and liable to lead to “a demagogue authoritarian leader”, why on earth would you support the government’s policy.
Because they really piss me off and this really pisses them off. And I want them to feel it.
It gets that visceral. That’s what Boris has correctly assessed.
If I was calm I’d say Starmer should come up with better and more effective solutions, along the lines of what cyclefree and rcs1000 outlined earlier, but he needs to rein in the broader mobs of his movement first and go high when Boris goes low.
Have you considered asking yourself why you are so pissed off? Seriously.
Have you considered asking yourself the same?! You’re a bolus of anger and loathing. And all about a country where you don’t even live
This is not an insult nor meant to incite. I find it genuinely bewildering how you can get so worked up about a place that is neither your home nor your homeland
I am not driven mad by the Rwanda plan, in the way that some people are. But what is disingenuous about it, is that those deported are, as I understand it, required to seek asylum in Rwanda, not the UK. That is why it is unfair. If it was just a case of offshore processing, it would be a different situation.
Even in its current highly dysfunctional form, I don't think that Rwanda plan is actually as bad as some of the things that have gone on over the past decade or so in immigration policy. Lots of people with de facto citizenship have been stripped of their rights to live in the UK and banished to poor caribbean countries etc and have died there, for little more than irregularities in their paperwork or minor historic criminal offences. This work still going strong but has just been stripped back a bit to focus on 'unsavoury' characters who will attract little public sympathy. But it is still completely wrong on many levels.
In the end, this work was at its worst under the 'respectable' administration of the coalition government. So to my mind the fall of the liberal order is not a new thing. But previous governments did at least outwardly espouse some key principles that were contiguous with the twentieth century post war liberal order. The opportunist Johnson and his team of low rate philistines will just trash everything for short term political survival, with no idea about what they are there to do, except to indulge in vanity.
Some top drawer stuff from you today, I have to say. Sorry to make you blush and pull your cap down.
But, yes, what a shower. The confluence of bad intent and shambolic execution across almost all policy areas is truly exceptional.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
Lawyers are involved.
Do the Dutch not have laws and lawyers?
Of course they do.
They fund their justice system properly. That's the difference.
you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
BoZo is already doing it.
Idiots are cheering him on
Bingo!!
QED
I literally predicted how you’d respond, and then you deleted my prediction and then responded exactly how I’d predicted.
Traditional vacuum and stopper is better. But not satisfactory.
A vacuum stopper (e.g. Vacuvin https://www.vacuvin.com) is utterly useless for champagne and should never be used; the act of creating the vacuum unsurprisingly sucks all the bubbles out.
Under JC Labour lost the Red Wall. Under KS Labour is due to regain mostly all of it.
To credit anyone but the leader is nuts. Unless BJO also wants to try and claim Corbyn wasn’t to blame for GE19.
Arguably I was to blame as I voted him in.
Surely much of the credit for KS's success is due to BJ, just as much of the credit for BJ 's success was due to JC.
Actually a very good point.
But KS is one of the few recent Labour leaders to understand you only need to be less unpopular than the opponent. I think Johnson understands that too.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It is dying on its own merits.
It's not legal...
It’s perfectly legal. There dozens of lawyers trying to find spurious grounds to get their clients off at the last minute - appealing to all and sundry to delay/obstruct and obfuscate - often changing the grounds for appeal as and when it suits them. And even if it wasn’t - which it isn’t - the government are entitled to change the law to legislate so it is, which would no doubt be obstructed in turn.
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
If you think such a reaction (from leftists) both predictable and liable to lead to “a demagogue authoritarian leader”, why on earth would you support the government’s policy.
Because they really piss me off and this really pisses them off. And I want them to feel it.
It gets that visceral. That’s what Boris has correctly assessed.
If I was calm I’d say Starmer should come up with better and more effective solutions, along the lines of what cyclefree and rcs1000 outlined earlier, but he needs to rein in the broader mobs of his movement first and go high when Boris goes low.
Have you considered asking yourself why you are so pissed off? Seriously.
Have you considered asking yourself the same?! You’re a bolus of anger and loathing. And all about a country where you don’t even live
This is not an insult nor meant to incite. I find it genuinely bewildering how you can get so worked up about a place that is neither your home nor your homeland
Define home, define homeland.
Having said that, I would not describe myself as “angry and loathing”. Despairing is perhaps more accurate.
I find myself more in favour of the Rwanda policy the more I see the forces ranged against it.
There's a supremely well organised campaign to undermine it.
Spot on. What is happening now is a perfect reply to those on the left who claim that the right exaggerates what the left is doing
Eh?
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
If the Dutch can resolve cases in 10 weeks, why do we take years?
Lawyers are involved.
Do the Dutch not have laws and lawyers?
Not our ones... (Tongue in cheek. I have no idea why our system takes so long. It cannot benefit anyone.)
As I said a few days ago, this site is losing some of its best posters because they can’t be arsed putting up with various comments.
It’s no so much, in my opinion, that Leon is tragic, drunken, and occasionally racist - although that’s brutally accurate - but simply that he is repeating himself.
We all are.
There's a general sourness in the air at the moment. The Platinum Jubilee euphoria is wearing off and the realisation of 12-18 months (if not longer) of real economic hardship is growing.
Politically, the Right and centre-right see nemesis approaching - all the hopes of a new wave of Thatcherism after the last election are gone smashed by a virus and Vladimir Putin and the future looks cold, uncertain and bleak out of office.
As for the other side, they now face inheriting this mess and having to take some very difficult decisions in the mid-2020s and having to get people to accept years more of stagnant if not declining living standards.
I'll be honest - we haven't really moved forward from 2008. The lack of imagination in economic thinking (partly a result of political reality) means both left and right have nothing serious to offer for growth in the late 2020s and beyond while the environmental degradation and the impacts thereof continue.
This is surely a red herring? If we are agreed that 75ml of wine can appropriately be consumed over a solitary supper, where is the incentive to try to ensure that a bottle of sparkling will survive overnight?
Who's agreed that a whole bottle can be sensibly consumed over a solitary supper?
Comments
People come to the UK to work illegally. There are about 25,000 asylum applications a year. There are around 750,000 people working illegally in the UK.
750,000 people.
Very few of the people working illegally in the UK are failed asylum seekers. Even if every failed asylum seeker in the UK was working illegally, that would only be 100,000 out of the 750,000.
Maybe we could learn something from those places where illegal immigrants make up less than 1% of the workforce - like (say) Switzerland and Norway.
Has he come to praise or bury it this week?
Or has he decided that he must destroy the village to save it?
It’s a crime. I despise him
With a crown on it.
Starmer is underwhelming, but you are not giving credit where it is due. He has drawn the sting out of voting Labour, which Corbyn inflicted on the party. If you cannot take the 10+ lead and hand the credit to Starmer, please no more "SKS fans please explain" when Labour and the Conservatives polls tighten by a percentage point.
For what it's worth, I hope he gets his FPN.
It would have been far better to give the policy a fair shot and let it die and fail on its own merits.
It's not legal...
The flaw in the plan is that the idea at the heart of it is abhorrent and indefensible. If its offshore processing, then fine. But when people realise that they are actually forcing people to apply to Rwanda for asylum instead of the UK, then people think again about the wisdom of the policy. They've also misread cultural change. They are making up policies for 10 years ago for people who are dying. Immigration is less salient as an issue than it was pre Brexit. There is a lot of sensitivity about racism that didn't exist previously.
Prices for food items have doubled in about the last 6 months. Filling up the car with petrol has also doubled in price. I've never seen that happen in the 20 years. People are getting very angry about this. The interest in this Rwanda stuff will wane, it is just a policy for a different world... but those who are annoyed by it, will remember.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem and I agree that those who criticise it have no alternative. But that doesn't excuse a dumb solution that just exists to provoke political opponents rather than fixing the problem.
Is it a "bad" policy? I don't know - there's a real issue about people wanting to come to the UK and how we deal with this migration. One could argue at a time of obvious labour shortages there's an argument for limited economic migration but that's only part of the story.
I don't have an easy answer - the longer term solution is less to make the UK more unattractive but to make the countries of origin more attractive as places to stay but that's going to take a lot of time and money and effort which frankly no one in the current climate would be prepared to undertake.
Wine keeps for a day or two. Champagne does not.
Like they still run the country. Elite europhile lawyers. Fuck them
Leave the ECHR. Vote for Boris again
The attempt to classify everyone that has concerns about the Government's Rwanda policy as enemies of people is absurd.
I strongly believe the UK should build and properly staff off-shore processing facilities. I also believe that we should aim to match the Netherlands 98% processed in 10 weeks record. I also believe that we should work to massively reduce the demand pull of the UK by properly clamping down on illegal working.
Rwanda, though, is none of those things. It's not an offshore processing facility. It's a few tens of people, maybe a few hundred in a year, out of maybe 20,000 people arriving. It's a publicity stunt designed to garner a few headlines.
The fact that we're spending so much time on it demonstrates how deeply unserious you are about tackling the problem, and how keen you are to just make into a part of the culture war fight.
Size was more likely determined by the difficulty of controlling the free blown glass beyond a certain dimension.
https://sha.org/bottle/glassmaking.htm#Free-blown Bottles
And if you stick a teaspoon in it you might even get some fizz left
Most people don't give a fuck.
Pew reckons 800,000 to 1,200,000 (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/fact-sheet/unauthorized-immigrants-in-the-united-kingdom/)
The GLA reckons 600-750,000 (https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/8548/html/).
I plucked a low ball number, so nobody could argue with it.
HMG will no doubt criticise UK law being overruled from an outside body and how that is perceived may well be important to UK politics
The England football team has been failing constantly for my entire lifetime. The England football team under Gareth Southgate has been, relatively speaking, the least badly failed England football team since that of 1966, about which tedious nostalgia will still be repeated in the 31st Century (assuming that both the country and the sport last that long,) because the England football team will still be failing in the 31st Century (probably having lost the World Cup final to Scotland on penalties at least once during the intervening millennium.)
It's just one of the immutable laws of nature. Accept it and move on.
I’m going to check
Pure decadence.
Call out stuff when it's publicity seeking rather than a proper solution. Don't fucking say "oh, the EHCR hates it so it must be good."
Don’t be too clever. If no solution is found to this then at some point you risk a demagogue authoritarian leader being elected who upon taking office who rips up the rule book and drives a cart & horses through all laws and all lawyers with all sorts of knock on consequences.
(You’re utterly predictable, so you’ll probably respond with something like “we’ve already got one: Boris. Brexit etc.” but that’s your hyperbolic neurotic obsession talking and totally at odds with the reality of what could come next)
That attitude is why Brexit happened
Still very high.
In one breath, the UK is portrayed as being one step away from Nazi Germany, and in the next, it's the only country in the world fit for human habitation.
Pompous idiots.
https://www.orangecoast.com/winedudes/all-about-the-size-shape-and-dimple-of-wine-bottles/#:~:text=A typical glass blower's lung,400 to 500 years ago.
Going to law is not undermining anything. In a free democratic society people are entitled to disagree with the government and to take legal steps to oppose it.
Does this really need saying? Apparently so.
In refusing the appellant's application today and siding with the government the Supreme Court said this:
"In bringing that application, the appellant’s lawyers were performing their proper function of ensuring that their clients are not subjected to unlawful treatment at the hands of the Government."
The PM's response has been to defame immigration lawyers by claiming that they are working with criminal gangs. He made that statement outside Parliament. It would serve him right if he were to be sued for libel, frankly.
Idiots are cheering him on
It's been his style and those of his various egos for the last 15 years on this site. He's a provocateur.
https://winefolly.com/lifestyle/champagne-spoon/
For most, they will see how this policy annoys All The Right People and, thus, it will secure their support.
For that to change their tactics will have to change but they just can’t help themselves and secretly love culture war fights just as much as Boris.
The truth is that you are not intellectually equipped to form a first order judgment on any issue whatsoever. You can only assess a question, as you yourself explicitly admit above, by who is on what side of it. So, the holocaust: inhuman nazi scum, nuremberg is too good for them. The (certainly by any measure more evil and more damaging) uk slave trade: Yay for the Raj, stand to attention with a small polyester royal standard crammed firmly where the sun don't shine, all's right with the world.
Never ascribe to evil what is adequately explained by dummheit.
Under JC Labour lost the Red Wall. Under KS Labour is due to regain mostly all of it.
To credit anyone but the leader is nuts. Unless BJO also wants to try and claim Corbyn wasn’t to blame for GE19.
Arguably I was to blame as I voted him in.
Traditional vacuum and stopper is better. But not satisfactory.
Supporters of good Government (and the rule of law) should be incandescent at this policy.
And still they cheer...
He isn't the worst we've had in my lifetime.
He had the chance to make that final his. But his timidity undid him again
He’s been a decent manager. But England need to WIN a trophy to get over their hoodoo. He’s not a winner
It gets that visceral. That’s what Boris has correctly assessed.
If I was calm I’d say Starmer should come up with better and more effective solutions, along the lines of what cyclefree and rcs1000 outlined earlier, but he needs to rein in the broader mobs of his movement first and go high when Boris goes low.
As I said earlier, I think what both you and @Cyclefree were saying before makes perfect sense. The problem is that, while the likes of myself and (I suspect) @Casino_Royale would accept it, those who essentially want open immigration but realise they can't say that publicly will come out with a 1,001 excuses why your proposals are racist, harmful etc.
You're picking the wrong target. The reason why a lot of people are willing to go with the demagogues is because they have seen how those on the left take the p1ss by blocking any reasonable solution on the grounds it's 'racist' / 'horrific' / 'nazist'. In their world, the only good policy is one that lets everyone in.
I have never received such a stare of utter contempt in my life.
I felt like some half blind bum lying in a Paris gutter begging for just one more absinthe.
Clearly the waiting staff were not paid by sales is all I can say.
You yourself describe Boris as “going low”; so why does that seem not to annoy you as much as the “predictable response”?
And who owns property in this country? Oh yes, Tory voters.
This is not an insult nor meant to incite. I find it genuinely bewildering how you can get so worked up about a place that is neither your home nor your homeland
And I thought it was all a bad dream.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1536815929845288961
But, yes, what a shower. The confluence of bad intent and shambolic execution across almost all policy areas is truly exceptional.
They fund their justice system properly. That's the difference.
Brilliant.
What does work is this:
But KS is one of the few recent Labour leaders to understand you only need to be less unpopular than the opponent. I think Johnson understands that too.
Having said that, I would not describe myself as “angry and loathing”. Despairing is perhaps more accurate.
(Tongue in cheek. I have no idea why our system takes so long. It cannot benefit anyone.)
Sniff.
I'm wasted on you.
** goes off in a huff to bed **
Apparently the Rwandan Government had a big ceremony planned for tomorrow...
Politically, the Right and centre-right see nemesis approaching - all the hopes of a new wave of Thatcherism after the last election are gone smashed by a virus and Vladimir Putin and the future looks cold, uncertain and bleak out of office.
As for the other side, they now face inheriting this mess and having to take some very difficult decisions in the mid-2020s and having to get people to accept years more of stagnant if not declining living standards.
I'll be honest - we haven't really moved forward from 2008. The lack of imagination in economic thinking (partly a result of political reality) means both left and right have nothing serious to offer for growth in the late 2020s and beyond while the environmental degradation and the impacts thereof continue.
I haven't.