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Is the Rwanda flight ban going to help the Tories or not? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited June 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    The risk of drowning is virtually nil

    I take it you have never been to Africa? Being destitute and stateless in an African country is a very big deal indeed. Those photos of the lovely hotel they will be in? Not after the first night they won't
    Which is why if people thought they were actually going to end up in Rwanda, then the crossings would be virtually zero. People are rational beings.

    But as others and I have said, in order for it to work, it needs to be the case that everyone (or near enough everyone) crossing ends up there, regardless of their personal circumstances. Its a kind of all or nothing situation.

    To do it to just an insignificantly small amount of people will have no impact whatsoever as people won't think they'll be within the insignificant proportion.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,439
    Jonathan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Probably the best thing to stop migration, could be to provide a free, safe channel crossing. In one stroke you remove the financial incentives for trafficking.

    Not my solution, but the libertarians who advocate legalisation of drugs to tackle drug smuggling don't seem very keen on legalisation of crossings to takle people smuggling.
    Um, this is bonkers. If you ration free crossings you get illegal operations running in parallel. If you don't you get 100,000 a day entering the country.
    The current situation is what is bonkers.
    Funnily enough the one PM who I could see sorting this out is Tony Blair.

    I think he'd have the right mix of bridging left and right on it and negotiating with EU leaders.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,059

    IshmaelZ said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    The risk of drowning is virtually nil

    I take it you have never been to Africa? Being destitute and stateless in an African country is a very big deal indeed. Those photos of the lovely hotel they will be in? Not after the first night they won't
    Which is why if people thought they were actually going to end up in Rwanda, then the crossings would be virtually zero. People are rational beings.

    But as others and I have said, in order for it to work, it needs to be the case that everyone (or near enough everyone) crossing ends up there, regardless of their personal circumstances. Its a kind of all or nothing situation.

    To do it to just an insignificantly small amount of people will have no impact whatsoever as people won't think they'll be within the insignificant proportion.
    So, you’re saying that the Government’s policy is stupid and won’t work? (Given they always said only a small proportion would be sent.)

  • tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Anyway, “we will disestablish the Church of England and leave the European court of human rights while allying with a pariah regime in defence of an inhumane policy around a problem numbering in the tens of thousands” is many things but it’s not imho “conservative”.
    https://twitter.com/twlldun/status/1536967304063361024
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    So, you’re saying that the Government’s policy is stupid and won’t work?

    and still the fanbois cheer...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Probably the best thing to stop migration, could be to provide a free, safe channel crossing. In one stroke you remove the financial incentives for trafficking.

    Not my solution, but the libertarians who advocate legalisation of drugs to tackle drug smuggling don't seem very keen on legalisation of crossings to takle people smuggling.
    Um, this is bonkers. If you ration free crossings you get illegal operations running in parallel. If you don't you get 100,000 a day entering the country.
    As I said, not my solution!

    Just pointing out the discrepancy between PB libertarians on drugs and on people smuggling.

    I support legal controls on both.
    To be fair, the cases are somewhat different.
    Legalising cannabis, for example, would almost certainly not mean it wasn't still legally regulated.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,255

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1536827968147816449

    So just to confirm, the Mail has confirmed Rwanda doesn’t deter people. Okay then.

    It hasn't happened yet, if it isn't happening it won't deter people.

    If it does happen, then it will deter people.

    Absolutely the policy will 100% work if it is allowed to work. It worked in Australia, after spates of drownings at sea due to illegal crossings, this policy has had a 100% success record in ensuring there hasn't been even a single death due to illegal migration crossings in Australian waters in the past decade. Something that can't remotely be said in this country.

    The policy is deeply unpleasant, but so too is people smuggling and people drowning at sea, so you need to pick your poison. The Australian Labor Party implements this policy quite successfully because it works and it saves lives.
    I supported you yesterday Barty, on NIP, but you posted there is ridiculous. The UK plan is not the same as Australian system, the Australian system didn’t work as well as you claim, and the problem the UK is facing on illegal migration is different.

    At least concede those three points, before building a case in favour.
    The Australian system did work as well as I claim, there hasn't been a single death by drowning from illegal boat crossings since the system was put in place. That is an incredible achievement, if we could achieve the same in the UK then great.

    The plan is not the same, but it could be, if implemented properly. But to work it means that virtually all irregular boat crossings end up in Rwanda, which would halt the irregular boat crossings, rather than none of them or an inconsequential proportion of them.
    Stu from Romford just explained it better than I can why this cannot work here. In fact a lot of people have, and in a way they are actually trying to help the people who arn’t listening, like the stuff you are posting. We arn’t trying to hurt anyone or play politics here, we are just trying to get the Penny to drop for you, don’t use Oz as example to the success this could be.

    I’ll have one more go. A cold shower of the raw stats.

    3,127 people were sent to Papua New Guinea/ Nauru since 2013 at cost to Australian taxpayer of AUS$10 billion. £1.7m per person.

    Last year, 28,526 crossed the channel in small boats.

    Patel herself has pointed out the two schemes are not the same. Ours isn’t offshore processing to prevent a trip, ours is old school colonialism to deter a trip.

    How do you see this changing peoples minds about coming here? Do you really genuinely believe it will make any great number pause and rethink?
    FFS the numbers since 2013 are diminished by the fact that the crossings all-but stopped after the policy came into force, because the policy worked. What part of that are you struggling to understand?

    The figures to look at for the policy aren't the post-2013 stats, they're the pre-2013 ones as that shows what has been deterred. In 2012 over 17 thousand people crossed by boat there, a number comparable to the numbers crossing the Channel.

    AUD$1billion per annum since then is an absolute bargain, compared to the estimated £1.5bn the UK is spending today and if you divide it "per person" with the 2012 figure of 17,000 then it isn't £1.7m per person, it is AUD$55,823 per person or GBP £33.7k per person. £33k per person deterred is a very different figure compared to the current costs.
    And you think, given a chance this will change minds and act as a deterrent?
    Of course.

    In 2013 the Australian government said everyone who crossed by water like that would be sent offshore. They were having over 17k such crossings in 2012, from 2013 onwards only 3k have needed to be sent offshore in a decade, because the crossings stopped or voluntarily turned around rather than ending up offshore.

    People won't want to cross the water to end up in Rwanda. If people picked up in the water or who land on the shore are sent immediately and automatically to Rwanda then nobody would cross by water anymore and the drownings would end, and next to nobody would need to go to Rwanda, because next to nobody would be crossing the water.
    that is deluded. It is very funny to read 🙂 No one is going to think for one second they themselves will end up in Rwanda. You clearly have underestimated the mind of the people coming. Marx ended up here. Schopenhauer loved the Times of London. The pull of the promised land is such a fantasy for them. And The timing of this panicky introduction is not lost on me. Birds nesting in the cliffs, Halcyon days. There is about to be a flood - this scheme was always destined to be swept away by it.

    Controversial Scheme or not, this issue, and all it’s knock on effects, is about to plunge the government into a crisis they are not ready for and can’t control.
    @BartholomewRoberts point is fundamentally correct.

    If every migrant crossing the Channel thought they would end up in Rwanda, then the number crossing would be zero.

    If you want close to zero asylum claims by boat, then sending every asylum seeker who arrives by boat off to Rwanda works, and it is ridiculous to claim otherwise.

    On the other hand, sending 0.1% of asylum seekers who arrive by boat off to Rwanda is not going to make a blind bit of difference.

    The Australians implemented off shore processing of those people arriving by boat, and it cut numbers around 70-75%. While expensive, it has been effective.

    If the UK implemented a similar system, I have little doubt it could achieve similar reductions in the number of people arriving by boat.

    But it is equally important to realise that economic migrants entering the UK don't want to become asylum seekers. Becoming an asylum seeker is a "last resort". What you want to do is to illegally sneak into the country, and get a job for £9/hour working at a car wash in Romford, and worry about the future in the future. If no-one has any record of your entry or where you're from, you're very hard to evict.

    This is why - of 750,000 illegal immigrants working in the UK, less than 100,000 are failed asylum seekers.

    There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Rwandan policy, except that it is... what's the phrase... virtue signalling.

    It is transporting a small number of migrants solely for the benefit of headlines, and that will make no difference to people coming by boat. And it deliberately ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of illegal immigrants don't get caught on boats and don't claim asylum.

    I don’t agree with you. I think in their mind they are on a mission to save their life coming here, and it’s set on it, just like Schopenhauer described. It’s not a reality in their mind, you understand, when you want something, it’s like the only reason to exist, there are no other options, you can’t let go. I don’t want to come over all the gold in the Rhine or the fruits of the dapple. But you and St Bart are thinking rationally you see?
    But to take one example - the poor guy from West Africa who was the central case in the New Yorker article on Libya.

    He was very clearly moving because his farm couldn’t earn enough to support his family. That’s a very understandable motive. But it’s not asylum and we have no moral obligation to offer space to someone in that position
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,039
    edited June 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    The removal of any deterrent to crossing the channel will see an increase in crossings

    And as far as your declaration pot calling the kettle black comes to mind

    And Sky are just making the same point
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    What an embarrassing clusterfuckingshambles. Eminently predictable and yet more shame heaped onto this country by a government that couldn't run a fucking whelk stall if it was given a year's supply of sodding whelks. FFS bring in some adults who know what they're doing.
    https://twitter.com/IainDale/status/1536822951579877376
    https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1536820752925835271
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited June 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    Oh, I reckon you can and will out-dumb it by noon
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    NEW Minister insists Govt not planning to quit ECHR amid Rwanda flight farce

    'No I don’t believe it’s our policy, nor is it something I would be advocating - withdrawing from the ECHR,' Guy Opperman tells @TimesRadio

    Contrast w/ PM warning all options face 'constant review' 🤔

    https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1536968466929967105
  • IshmaelZ said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    The risk of drowning is virtually nil

    I take it you have never been to Africa? Being destitute and stateless in an African country is a very big deal indeed. Those photos of the lovely hotel they will be in? Not after the first night they won't
    Which is why if people thought they were actually going to end up in Rwanda, then the crossings would be virtually zero. People are rational beings.

    But as others and I have said, in order for it to work, it needs to be the case that everyone (or near enough everyone) crossing ends up there, regardless of their personal circumstances. Its a kind of all or nothing situation.

    To do it to just an insignificantly small amount of people will have no impact whatsoever as people won't think they'll be within the insignificant proportion.
    So, you’re saying that the Government’s policy is stupid and won’t work? (Given they always said only a small proportion would be sent.)

    As far as I'm aware the Government hasn't said only a small proportion would be sent, if they have then yes its stupid.

    Any policy like this has to start somewhere, it started with relatively small numbers in Australia then once the policy was up and running it was expanded to say everyone crossing by boats would end up offshore, and then the numbers crossing by boats dropped from tens of thousands to virtually zero.

    In the UK I expect the policy would be even more successful than in Australia if implemented like that, since in Australia people don't really have alternative destinations, but in Europe there's a plethora of European countries people could claim in instead of here if the Channel were closed to crossings.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    edited June 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    Oh, I don't think so, @Leon will be up soon...

    Edit: speak of the devil, then hear the swish of his tail!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    "at least the papers seem to have moved on from Partygate."

    Which is the major purpose of the whole exercise.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Minister insists Govt not planning to quit ECHR amid Rwanda flight farce

    'No I don’t believe it’s our policy, nor is it something I would be advocating - withdrawing from the ECHR,' Guy Opperman tells @TimesRadio

    Contrast w/ PM warning all options face 'constant review' 🤔

    https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1536968466929967105

    His is the wonky shopping trolley, so of course all options are constantly being reviewed.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,663

    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    The removal of any deterrent to crossing the channel will see an increase in crossings

    And as far as your declaration pot calling the kettle black comes to mind

    And Sky are just making the same point
    By implication the risk of drowning in the channel is part of the policy.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Many in govt are relishing a fresh row over the European Court of Human Rights.
    But what's the story the govt doesn't want to talk about? The biggest drop in wages for 10 years:


    https://inews.co.uk/opinion/windfall-tax-bankers-boris-johnson-rishi-sunak-cost-living-crisis-1685647
  • HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    Arm to part list in London.

    Major win for Sunak.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    👀 Minister concedes the legality of Govt's flagship Rwanda policy still needs to be proven...

    'We need to establish the legality of the policy, which has been disputed overnight,' Guy Opperman tells @TimesRadio

    https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1536970320782864384
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,255

    Wow - Easyjet are cancelling 1 in 26 flights whilst Ryanair are cancelling 1 in 4366 flights! (This is cancelling with [less than] 1 weeks notice)

    By airport, Stansted is at 0.1% whereas Gatwick and London City are 3%+.

    This data will change which airlines I am booking with over the summer. It should be publicly updated and regularly published to deter the rubbish ones. At the 3%+ level there should be talk about losing licenses if sustained.

    Why? There should be an obligation for compensation and alternative routing (say within 24 hours) but why should 97% delivery on schedule result in a termination of their licence?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,039
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    IshmaelZ said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    The risk of drowning is virtually nil

    I take it you have never been to Africa? Being destitute and stateless in an African country is a very big deal indeed. Those photos of the lovely hotel they will be in? Not after the first night they won't
    Which is why if people thought they were actually going to end up in Rwanda, then the crossings would be virtually zero. People are rational beings.

    But as others and I have said, in order for it to work, it needs to be the case that everyone (or near enough everyone) crossing ends up there, regardless of their personal circumstances. Its a kind of all or nothing situation.

    To do it to just an insignificantly small amount of people will have no impact whatsoever as people won't think they'll be within the insignificant proportion.
    So, you’re saying that the Government’s policy is stupid and won’t work? (Given they always said only a small proportion would be sent.)

    As far as I'm aware the Government hasn't said only a small proportion would be sent, if they have then yes its stupid.

    Any policy like this has to start somewhere, it started with relatively small numbers in Australia then once the policy was up and running it was expanded to say everyone crossing by boats would end up offshore, and then the numbers crossing by boats dropped from tens of thousands to virtually zero.

    In the UK I expect the policy would be even more successful than in Australia if implemented like that, since in Australia people don't really have alternative destinations, but in Europe there's a plethora of European countries people could claim in instead of here if the Channel were closed to crossings.
    A key difference (apart from the geography of the Timor Strait) is that the arrivals were kept extraterratorial in Australia, not landed in the country.

    A better analogy with the current Rwanda policy might be Exodus 1947:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    I can’t really believe it needs saying but- if you’re prepared to rip up over a millennium of constitutional settlement in revenge for one grounded deportation flight then there is no meaningful way in which you are, in any sense, a ‘conservative’.
    https://twitter.com/_F_B_G_/status/1536965838644854784
  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    Of course courts should have the power to check ministers, and in this instance it went all the way to the Supreme Court already which should be the highest court in the land.

    Foreign courts that are not answerable to Parliament should have no say in our laws.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    All bar the final one on yesterday's flight were barred by our own courts. Presumably that is fine by you?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Jonathan said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    Jonathan said:

    Probably the best thing to stop migration, could be to provide a free, safe channel crossing. In one stroke you remove the financial incentives for trafficking.

    Not my solution, but the libertarians who advocate legalisation of drugs to tackle drug smuggling don't seem very keen on legalisation of crossings to takle people smuggling.
    Um, this is bonkers. If you ration free crossings you get illegal operations running in parallel. If you don't you get 100,000 a day entering the country.
    The current situation is what is bonkers.
    Funnily enough the one PM who I could see sorting this out is Tony Blair.

    I think he'd have the right mix of bridging left and right on it and negotiating with EU leaders.
    It's got nothing to do with left and right, fundamentally it's about wrong and right.

    Johnson looked furious yesterday. I wonder if he has things going on in private that are making him more irrational than usual at work?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
    You say that we do go after dodgy employers, but we don't. Which is why we have so many of them. You rightly recognise that people come here to be illegally employed. We COULD end this - as Switzerland and Norway have. But we don't.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited June 2022
    Thought. Yerevan and Tbilisi, two capital cities with million plus inhabitants, are both notably safe with low crime levels

    In some senses they feel more secure and civilised than any major capital city in Western Europe (Let alone the USA)

    Why is that? Where have we gone wrong?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Cabinet minister rejects calls to leave ECHR (being voiced by some Tory MPs after Rwanda flight block).

    Therese Coffey on R4: “I don’t think that’s a question.”

    https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1536971224307359746
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    Indeed, Scotland doesn't have an established Church, yet there are a few rare Scottish Tories.
  • tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
    You say that we do go after dodgy employers, but we don't. Which is why we have so many of them. You rightly recognise that people come here to be illegally employed. We COULD end this - as Switzerland and Norway have. But we don't.
    I would support going after dodgy employers, but not by doubling down on hostile environment policies which we already have.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    Oh, I reckon you can and will out-dumb it by noon
    Isn't it time this drunken sock puppet got retired like its predecessors? You could be reborn into a new persona who does more travel writing and less drunken abuse.

    Last night was not your finest hour.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    IshmaelZ said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    The risk of drowning is virtually nil

    I take it you have never been to Africa? Being destitute and stateless in an African country is a very big deal indeed. Those photos of the lovely hotel they will be in? Not after the first night they won't
    Yep, I was struck by the beautifully made up beds with brown sateen throws across them in the news piece last night from Hotel(s) Rwanda. Not to get too Godwinny but shades of Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    And I’m not imagining it


    https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1082281

    “Armenia among 10 countries with lowest crime rates in the world”
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,663
    Leon said:

    Thought. Yerevan and Tbilisi, two capital cities with million plus inhabitants, are both notably safe with low crime levels

    In some senses they feel more secure and civilised than any major capital city in Western Europe? (Let alone the USA)

    Why is that? Where have we gone wrong?

    Massive inequality after austerity and anemic trickle down economics. The rich got richer and the rest stayed put or went backwards.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Cabinet minister rejects calls to leave ECHR (being voiced by some Tory MPs after Rwanda flight block).

    Therese Coffey on R4: “I don’t think that’s a question.”

    https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1536971224307359746

    People used to say that about leaving the EU too.

    We can keep the rights within the ECHR, but there is absolutely no need or reason for foreign courts to be ruling on it. Our domestic courts should be supreme, and answerable to Parliament.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited June 2022
    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    Thought. Yerevan and Tbilisi, two capital cities with million plus inhabitants, are both notably safe with low crime levels

    In some senses they feel more secure and civilised than any major capital city in Western Europe? (Let alone the USA)

    Why is that? Where have we gone wrong?

    Massive inequality after austerity and anemic trickle down economics. The rich got richer and the rest stayed put or went backwards.
    Lol, no

    Or rather. Lol, not really, no

    I can hazard a couple of guesses

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    I assume you want the human rights protected of you and yours. You were (rightly) affronted by the proposal to make RNLI volunteers criminals for doing their jobs.

    So if we downgrade human rights and it isn't your human rights you want downgrading, can you be more specific about which people are less deserving than you of these basic protections written by the UK into international law and ratified as UK law?
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,255
    Heathener said:

    Sandpit said:

    Jonathan said:

    Patel has screwed up, she should resign. She won’t. But she should.

    I'm not sure there's anyone who could get a grip on the Home Office.

    It's a fundamentally disfunctional organisation and institutionally incapable.
    As with the Metropolitan Police, there’s a good argument for disbanding the Home Office and starting again. It’s institutionally broken, and incapable of reform.
    Says the non-dom non-taxpaying expat living in the UAE ...

    You know that @Sandpit wants to move to the UK but Priti Patel says his wife can come?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    I assume you want the human rights protected of you and yours. You were (rightly) affronted by the proposal to make RNLI volunteers criminals for doing their jobs.

    So if we downgrade human rights and it isn't your human rights you want downgrading, can you be more specific about which people are less deserving than you of these basic protections written by the UK into international law and ratified as UK law?
    Nobody is less deserving of what is ratified as UK law.

    What is ratified as UK law should be determined by Parliament, and ruled upon by UK courts.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    Good morning everyone. I must say I'm conflicted by the Rwanda situation. I can see an argument for reducing channel crossings; indeed a strong argument. However sending people to a country where they had originally no intention whatsoever of going seems to me to be wrong. Even if they have arrived in this country 'illegally' they still have 'rights' as human beings.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    A sister airline of British Airways has put in the first big order for a new generation of helium airships from a venture backed by Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson.

    Valencia-based Air Nostrum, owned by British Airways’ holding company IAG, has struck a deal to buy ten airships from Bedfordshire-based Hybrid Air Vehicles.


    Telegraph
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    We abide by the will of a raft of international legal bodies. What you are proposing is we withdraw from polite international society like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

    Are you frustrated, like Johnson, that domestically, Lefty Lawyers are undermining the rule of law by our democratically elected Government? That being so, perhaps only judges loyal to the Government should preside over cases with political impacts, like Trump's America, and Putin's Russia.
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 882
    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    This Government is not a conservative one, in it's own way it is as radical as Corbyn's would have been way. Any institution that is critical of it must be silenced and any arm of the state with oversight of the Government must be rendered dumb and blind.

    Perhaps a radical, reactionary but nominally Conservative Government is a price you are willing to be pay in the unending struggle between the forces of right and left but then you must understand that your vote is only transactional and the Conservative Party will use it for radical ends.

    Imagine that the Queen had been caught in a moment, one of very few during her reign, of indiscretion with regards to this policy. What would this Conservative Government then say about her?

    If the Conservative Party are successful in their attacks on the judiciary, if they are successful in bringing the bishops, the lawyers, the Lord's, the civil servants and businesses to heel, then don't be surprised if Labour then play in this new playground. No Government rules forever.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    I assume you want the human rights protected of you and yours. You were (rightly) affronted by the proposal to make RNLI volunteers criminals for doing their jobs.

    So if we downgrade human rights and it isn't your human rights you want downgrading, can you be more specific about which people are less deserving than you of these basic protections written by the UK into international law and ratified as UK law?
    Nobody is less deserving of what is ratified as UK law.

    What is ratified as UK law should be determined by Parliament, and ruled upon by UK courts.
    That is already the case.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    I thought bishops were famous for drinking sherry!
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677



    So, you’re saying that the Government’s policy is stupid and won’t work? (Given they always said only a small proportion would be sent.)

    One reason that the Australian solution worked is that they removed Christmas Island from the Australian migration zone so refugees could be interned there for processing and removal without resort to the legal system. This is where the 'Hotel Rwanda' scheme falls apart. They should be stacking them on prison hulks outside the UK EEZ in the Atlantic with the ships flagged in some corrupt shit hole like Ukraine. They owe us a favour.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,913
    There was a very attractively shot commercial by a director called Howard Guard in the 90's which showed a series of images of young children who then turned out to be famous adults. All were refugees. One that I remember was Einstein and there there was a scene on a Penny Farthing bicycle. I can't remember who the ad was for other than that it was for a refugee service.

    I don't suppose anyone can remember the ad or who it was for?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
    You say that we do go after dodgy employers, but we don't. Which is why we have so many of them. You rightly recognise that people come here to be illegally employed. We COULD end this - as Switzerland and Norway have. But we don't.
    I would support going after dodgy employers, but not by doubling down on hostile environment policies which we already have.
    The route is pretty clear:
    1. Anyone legally permitted to work in the UK issued with an NI number. Managed securely centrally.
    2. All employers have to register the NI details of their employees
    3. No NI number no job.
    4. Regular database checks between employers and HMRC. Which we all have to do for anything to do with taxes (VAT etc) already
    5. Massive fines and punitive prison sentences for people employing people without the requisite NI number

    This isn't a hostile environment. This is management of taxes. Employees need to personally register. Onus on the individual. Employers need to input correct information - onus on the employer. If the NI number given isn't approved by the HMRC computer they can't be employed. Done.

    Of course that means spending money. And Patel has slashed the Border Force whilst screeching about securing the borders.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Roger said:

    There was a very attractively shot commercial by a director called Howard Guard in the 90's which showed a series of images of young children who then turned out to be famous adults. All were refugees. One that I remember was Einstein and there there was a scene on a Penny Farthing bicycle. I can't remember who the ad was for other than that it was for a refugee service.

    I don't suppose anyone can remember the ad or who it was for?

    World Refugee Council perhaps
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Armenia Inequality Index: ~32%

    UK Inequality Index: ~34%

    World average: ~30%

    So, no, Armenia’s markedly low crime rate is nothing to do with that
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited June 2022
    Unpopular said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    This Government is not a conservative one, in it's own way it is as radical as Corbyn's would have been way. Any institution that is critical of it must be silenced and any arm of the state with oversight of the Government must be rendered dumb and blind.

    Perhaps a radical, reactionary but nominally Conservative Government is a price you are willing to be pay in the unending struggle between the forces of right and left but then you must understand that your vote is only transactional and the Conservative Party will use it for radical ends.

    Imagine that the Queen had been caught in a moment, one of very few during her reign, of indiscretion with regards to this policy. What would this Conservative Government then say about her?

    If the Conservative Party are successful in their attacks on the judiciary, if they are successful in bringing the bishops, the lawyers, the Lord's, the civil servants and businesses to heel, then don't be surprised if Labour then play in this new playground. No Government rules forever.
    Ironically on some things Starmer is actually more conservative than Johnson, he has also met with Welby for instance and backs a reformed monarchy now unlike the republican Corbyn.

    If the Tories went down this route it will only drive traditional small c Conservatives further to the LDs and Starmer Labour, especially in London and the South
  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    We abide by the will of a raft of international legal bodies. What you are proposing is we withdraw from polite international society like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

    Are you frustrated, like Johnson, that domestically, Lefty Lawyers are undermining the rule of law by our democratically elected Government? That being so, perhaps only judges loyal to the Government should preside over cases with political impacts, like Trump's America, and Putin's Russia.
    What "polite international society" courts rule over domestic laws of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan and other polite civilized nations?

    The fact we are in Europe is nothing more than an accident of geography, there is absolutely no reason for us to be bound to any European institutions as opposed to global standards.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    We abide by the will of a raft of international legal bodies. What you are proposing is we withdraw from polite international society like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

    Are you frustrated, like Johnson, that domestically, Lefty Lawyers are undermining the rule of law by our democratically elected Government? That being so, perhaps only judges loyal to the Government should preside over cases with political impacts, like Trump's America, and Putin's Russia.
    And people objected to my posting of Mhairi Black opining that we are sliding towards fascism. DThe proposal is to dismantle legal processes to remove "human rights" of people we decide aren't worthy of them to whip up a populist frenzy...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    In more important news:

    Federal Reserve are meeting today, the expectation is for a 75bp rise in US interest rates, but there are thoughts that they might go for the full percentage point.

    European Central Bank’s governing council are holding an emergency meeting this morning, to discuss the sell-off in Euro bond markets over the past few days.

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/dollar-towers-over-peers-markets-bet-large-fed-rate-hike-2022-06-15/

    Bitcoin is at $21k, and falling rapidly.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,219

    Scott_xP said:

    Indeed the ECHR most certainly have given the green light to intensified people smuggling across the channel

    That is most certainly the dumbest thing anybody will post on here today. Or any day.
    The removal of any deterrent to crossing the channel will see an increase in crossings

    And as far as your declaration pot calling the kettle black comes to mind

    And Sky are just making the same point
    But, as virtually everyone here has said, Priti's Plan doesn't even work on its own terms. To get to even a 10% risk of deportation, you need something 100 times bigger, meaner and more expensive.

    Even if you think the bare bones of the plan are fine, doing it to 0.1% and not the other 99.9% is cruel and simply won't work as a deterrent.

    If you must get the Daily Mail, stick to the puzzles and cartoons. Do they still run Fred Bassett?
  • theakestheakes Posts: 930
    In the meantime and much more imprtantly Ukraine burns and we let it.
    Surely NATO must intervene.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901
    Roger said:

    There was a very attractively shot commercial by a director called Howard Guard in the 90's which showed a series of images of young children who then turned out to be famous adults. All were refugees. One that I remember was Einstein and there there was a scene on a Penny Farthing bicycle. I can't remember who the ad was for other than that it was for a refugee service.

    I don't suppose anyone can remember the ad or who it was for?

    We don't want the forrin. What part of that isn't clear? Remember that every single forrin who gets let in and turns out to be a genius is taking the job of some bloke called Dave living in Barnsley who would have growed up to be clevver had it not been for refugees making him bunk skool and smoke all those fags instead.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    Yes well we know you are no Tory and never have been, you are a radical libertarian Brexiteer former Farage voter
  • tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
    You say that we do go after dodgy employers, but we don't. Which is why we have so many of them. You rightly recognise that people come here to be illegally employed. We COULD end this - as Switzerland and Norway have. But we don't.
    I would support going after dodgy employers, but not by doubling down on hostile environment policies which we already have.
    The route is pretty clear:
    1. Anyone legally permitted to work in the UK issued with an NI number. Managed securely centrally.
    2. All employers have to register the NI details of their employees
    3. No NI number no job.
    4. Regular database checks between employers and HMRC. Which we all have to do for anything to do with taxes (VAT etc) already
    5. Massive fines and punitive prison sentences for people employing people without the requisite NI number

    This isn't a hostile environment. This is management of taxes. Employees need to personally register. Onus on the individual. Employers need to input correct information - onus on the employer. If the NI number given isn't approved by the HMRC computer they can't be employed. Done.

    Of course that means spending money. And Patel has slashed the Border Force whilst screeching about securing the borders.
    That's pretty much all done already, except that a temporary NI number can be used for new starters. RTI information already does that style of regular database checks for PAYE employees.

    Illegal employees tend to be paid cash in hand and aren't registered on PAYE databases. No database based system will ever resolve that issue.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Old Big Ears better watch his step too. There is only room for one king, and King Boris is in the driving seat. Who'd have thought Bozza a republican?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,838
    edited June 2022
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    Indeed, Scotland doesn't have an established Church, yet there are a few rare Scottish Tories.
    Fun fact: this is the 101st anniversary of the disestablishment of the Kirk, even though it was still a time when the Unionist ascendancy was strongly anti-RC and anti-Irish. And 330+ years since the bishops were jettisoned. So it is possible to be an estasblished church without a bishop in sight. Or indeed to have a disestablished kirk where HMtQ is a member of exactly the same standing as any other.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    I thought bishops were famous for drinking sherry!
    That as well, but outside the posher London Anglo Catholic strongholds (early service followed by gin with breakfast) they have to become expert in appreciating instant coffee (it still exists, contrary to reason) and weak tea, all bought in support of that terrible, economically illiterate organisation 'Fairtrade'.

  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901
    theakes said:

    In the meantime and much more imprtantly Ukraine burns and we let it.
    Surely NATO must intervene.

    Yes. If you want NATO to burn as well.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    theakes said:

    In the meantime and much more imprtantly Ukraine burns and we let it.
    Surely NATO must intervene.

    They let it get boring so we've lost interest. We've moved on to cricket and Rwanda now.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,913

    Roger said:

    There was a very attractively shot commercial by a director called Howard Guard in the 90's which showed a series of images of young children who then turned out to be famous adults. All were refugees. One that I remember was Einstein and there there was a scene on a Penny Farthing bicycle. I can't remember who the ad was for other than that it was for a refugee service.

    I don't suppose anyone can remember the ad or who it was for?

    World Refugee Council perhaps
    I can't see it there but thanks. I thought perhaps the UNHCR or maybe OXFAM? I'll keep looking.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,901

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    The problem with this policy was that it was not serious, it was just a stupid gesture to show that the government was supposedly getting a grip on a very difficult problem. As @rcs1000 and @BartholomewRoberts have pointed out, the Australian policy worked because it applied to all the potential asylum seekers. This is, at best, more of a lucky dip.

    And that, for me, is what makes it pernicious. Why should some unlucky souls get sent to a country with which they have no connection and where they don't want to be on what is being presented as a one way ticket just to allow the Home Secretary to pretend that she is up to the job? It is deeply immoral and wrong, using human beings as a gesture. I find such callousness nauseating.

    We desperately need a new Home Secretary. Her actions bring shame on to this government or at least would if it was capable of shame.

    I agree with the view that this policy is likely to be ineffective. But I don't give a toss about people potentially ending up in Rwanda. These are people that are happy to risk drowning, so ending up in Rwanda should be no big deal.

    If I were in charge, I would do the following. Let them come over, but don't go near them. Let them make their own way on to shore and, again, just ignore them. And then only accept asylum claims from people who have entered the country via a legal route.

    I think things have got worse since we've effectively been providing a taxi service across. It would be a lot less attractive if you got here and then were completely ignored by the state.
    Though as @rcs1000 says they want to be ignored by the state. They want to be working in the black economy.
    So why don't we just go after the companies who employ people in the black economy? We know this strategy works as other countries demonstrate. But we don't - is it because too many friends of this government make money off it (as happens with the GOP in America), or because the Home Office led by Patel are incapable, or what?

    Also worth noting - yesterdays boats were full of Afghans. Who this country abandoned. Who don't have a legal working route to get here and claim asylum. So if we actually did asylum properly like the Dutch that would be another big step forward.

    There are solutions. Its just that this government aren't interested.
    We do, for decades we have done. HMRC does it because of the taxes lost, people can go to jail for employing illegal migrants, its called the hostile environment policy and was introduced by Tony Blair.

    And it just makes life more difficult for people who are here legally. How much more hostile of an environment do you want?

    The people in yesterday's boats were coming from France, which is not a third world wartorn nation. We have schemes to resettle people from Afghanistan and other refugees, but not France, we should never allow queue jumping from France.
    You say that we do go after dodgy employers, but we don't. Which is why we have so many of them. You rightly recognise that people come here to be illegally employed. We COULD end this - as Switzerland and Norway have. But we don't.
    I would support going after dodgy employers, but not by doubling down on hostile environment policies which we already have.
    The route is pretty clear:
    1. Anyone legally permitted to work in the UK issued with an NI number. Managed securely centrally.
    2. All employers have to register the NI details of their employees
    3. No NI number no job.
    4. Regular database checks between employers and HMRC. Which we all have to do for anything to do with taxes (VAT etc) already
    5. Massive fines and punitive prison sentences for people employing people without the requisite NI number

    This isn't a hostile environment. This is management of taxes. Employees need to personally register. Onus on the individual. Employers need to input correct information - onus on the employer. If the NI number given isn't approved by the HMRC computer they can't be employed. Done.

    Of course that means spending money. And Patel has slashed the Border Force whilst screeching about securing the borders.
    That's pretty much all done already, except that a temporary NI number can be used for new starters. RTI information already does that style of regular database checks for PAYE employees.

    Illegal employees tend to be paid cash in hand and aren't registered on PAYE databases. No database based system will ever resolve that issue.
    You keep saying never. So how have the Swiss and Norwegians managed it?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    We don't want the forrin. What part of that isn't clear? Remember that every single forrin who gets let in and turns out to be a genius is taking the job of some bloke called Dave living in Barnsley who would have growed up to be clevver had it not been for refugees making him bunk skool and smoke all those fags instead.

    Priti Patel and Nadhim Zahawi approve this message...
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,838

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    We abide by the will of a raft of international legal bodies. What you are proposing is we withdraw from polite international society like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

    Are you frustrated, like Johnson, that domestically, Lefty Lawyers are undermining the rule of law by our democratically elected Government? That being so, perhaps only judges loyal to the Government should preside over cases with political impacts, like Trump's America, and Putin's Russia.
    What "polite international society" courts rule over domestic laws of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan and other polite civilized nations?

    The fact we are in Europe is nothing more than an accident of geography, there is absolutely no reason for us to be bound to any European institutions as opposed to global standards.
    I think you'll find that distances have a rather powerful effect on communications and trading.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    The greatest Briton that ever lived must be spinning in his grave after part of his legacy, the ECHR, is being so enthusiastically shat upon by nominal Conservatives.

    BoZo expelled Churchill's grandson. He has no qualms about trashing his legacy.
  • The greatest Briton that ever lived must be spinning in his grave after part of his legacy, the ECHR, is being so enthusiastically shat upon by nominal Conservatives.

    The ECHR is a total failure, like the League of Nations. The Council of Europe is a failure that bent over backwards to incorporate Russia and unsuspended its voting privileges even after Crimea was invaded and until the Ukraine war started.

    Its well past time to move on from it. The Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights etc are just bureaucratic self-serving institutions now, not part of the liberal international global order.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Throughout Trump era unworkable policies would be unveiled that were popular with his base - but then blocked by Congress, Pentagon or Supreme Court. And his supporters would blame the ‘deep state’.
    Are we seeing something similar now with @BorisJohnson gov’t?#RwandaDeportation

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1536976452004024320
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,219

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    I thought bishops were famous for drinking sherry!
    Gin, from what I've seen of Theological College.
  • MalcolmDunnMalcolmDunn Posts: 139
    I suspect yesterday's farce will help the Conservative party.A line up of lefty lawyers,Starmer and a bunch of lefty Bishops are batting for the other side. It would be hard to pick a better opposition from the Conservative party point of view.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Sir Roger Gale MP told me the proposed bill does “a great deal of damage to our reputation in world politics and sends out a message we cannot be trusted …I cannot see how any Conservative can sign up to a piece of legislation that is breaking international law” @SkyNews
    https://twitter.com/amandaakass/status/1536977088334512130
  • MalcolmDunnMalcolmDunn Posts: 139
    Rochdale Pioneers your comment below is worthy of Lady Nugee. No wonder Labour have lost so much of the English working class.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,838
    edited June 2022
    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    The bishops are a mediaeval hangover from the times when the Roman Church was the only permitted religion in ENgland, modified by Henry VIII's hostile takeover. No provision for the modern multi- and no-faith world, or the fact that the UK is a lot more than "England". Even Burke might blench at that. And now we have the ECHR being jettisoned, some of us can now freely campaign for burning heretics at the stake. Which I do not approve of.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,663
    Either the government wants to solve the immigration problem or it wants political headlines to energise its base. It can’t have both.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Roger said:

    There was a very attractively shot commercial by a director called Howard Guard in the 90's which showed a series of images of young children who then turned out to be famous adults. All were refugees. One that I remember was Einstein and there there was a scene on a Penny Farthing bicycle. I can't remember who the ad was for other than that it was for a refugee service.

    I don't suppose anyone can remember the ad or who it was for?

    We don't want the forrin. What part of that isn't clear? Remember that every single forrin who gets let in and turns out to be a genius is taking the job of some bloke called Dave living in Barnsley who would have growed up to be clevver had it not been for refugees making him bunk skool and smoke all those fags instead.
    “Clevver”

    “Skool”

    Sweet Jesus cringeing Christ
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191
    Scott_xP said:

    Throughout Trump era unworkable policies would be unveiled that were popular with his base - but then blocked by Congress, Pentagon or Supreme Court. And his supporters would blame the ‘deep state’.
    Are we seeing something similar now with @BorisJohnson gov’t?#RwandaDeportation

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1536976452004024320

    What's Sopel on about ?

    SCOTUS is sewn up by the GOP for a generation, and whether or not a president gets stuff through congress ALWAYS depends on having the POTUS-House-Senate trifecta.
    His most meaningful and lasting decision which he did get through was in replacing one moderate, one liberal and one very conservative justice with three fully paid up federalist society conservative ones.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    Carnyx said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    The bishops are a mediaeval hangover from the times when the Roman Church was the only permitted religion in ENgland, modified by Henry VIII's hostile takeover. No provision for the modern multi- and no-faith world, or the fact that the UK is a lot more than "England". Even Burke might blench at that. And now we have the ECHR being jettisoned, some of us can now freely campaign for burning heretics at the stake. Which I do not approve of.
    There are former rabbis in the Lords, I would have no problem with a few imams and Hindu priests too. The Vatican bans Roman Catholic bishops from being in the Lords now as it is a challenge to the supremacy of Rome in their view. There are also scientists, lawyers, business people, journslists, sportsmen and women, ex politicians in the Lords, it encompasses a wide spectrum
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    I suspect yesterday's farce will help the Conservative party.A line up of lefty lawyers,Starmer and a bunch of lefty Bishops are batting for the other side. It would be hard to pick a better opposition from the Conservative party point of view.

    Indeed.

    Labour needs to learn to mostly ignore stories like this, which energise the Guardian readers but matter little in the grand scheme of things, and concentrate all their efforts on cost of living.

    Petrol is still £1.80 a litre, and what will the government do about it?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Last night’s scores:
    England 0-4 Hungary
    Priti Patel 0-7 ECHR

    https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1536960493801422850
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191

    I suspect yesterday's farce will help the Conservative party.A line up of lefty lawyers,Starmer and a bunch of lefty Bishops are batting for the other side. It would be hard to pick a better opposition from the Conservative party point of view.

    It's not going to help them much if Oppenheimer's LBC interview was representative of the rounds this morning.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    I thought bishops were famous for drinking sherry!
    Gin, from what I've seen of Theological College.
    Another example of "it's amazing what you can learn on Pb"!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191
    edited June 2022
    Sandpit said:

    I suspect yesterday's farce will help the Conservative party.A line up of lefty lawyers,Starmer and a bunch of lefty Bishops are batting for the other side. It would be hard to pick a better opposition from the Conservative party point of view.

    Indeed.

    Labour needs to learn to mostly ignore stories like this, which energise the Guardian readers but matter little in the grand scheme of things, and concentrate all their efforts on cost of living.

    Petrol is still £1.80 a litre, and what will the government do about it?
    €1.15 and $1.20!! won't help.

    Sterling is in the toilet. Almost as bad as crypto :D
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Dura_Ace said:

    theakes said:

    In the meantime and much more imprtantly Ukraine burns and we let it.
    Surely NATO must intervene.

    They let it get boring so we've lost interest. We've moved on to cricket and Rwanda now.
    Some truth in this. “Defeat to a more powerful yet evil enemy” is a less interesting story than “plucky underdog triumphs against brute!”

    But also: media

    The eastern front is much more bloody than even the Kiev and Kherson stuff. It is - by all accounts - attritional trench warfare with lots of artillery and some street fighting. It’s too dangerous for cameras to go in and even if they do they’d maybe just get pics of shell bursts and the like

    The lack of images - especially powerful images - does not make for good compelling TV stories, so the war slips down the agenda

    The Ukes need to up their media game. Get some more shelled hospitals. Get the tv crews in there
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,158

    A sister airline of British Airways has put in the first big order for a new generation of helium airships from a venture backed by Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson.

    Valencia-based Air Nostrum, owned by British Airways’ holding company IAG, has struck a deal to buy ten airships from Bedfordshire-based Hybrid Air Vehicles.


    Telegraph

    They have a crowdfunding page for investors...

    Interesting also to note that ARM may be listed in London.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,632
    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    The monarchy will be next.

    Hurrah for Prince Charles and when he becomes King.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Old Big Ears better watch his step too. There is only room for one king, and King Boris is in the driving seat. Who'd have thought Bozza a republican?
    On current polls it will be PM Starmer before Charles becomes King
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,913
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    Yes well we know you are no Tory and never have been, you are a radical libertarian Brexiteer former Farage voter
    You make him sound repulsive!
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,439

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    There is no point in Govt blaming anyone else but themselves.

    Ministers are pursuing a policy they know isn’t workable & that won’t tackle criminal gangs.

    But they still paid Rwanda £120m & hired a jet that hasn’t taken off because they just want a row & someone else to blame.

    https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1536837314122551296

    The wider issue who will the voters blame when more illegal and dangerous crossings have been given the green light by the EHCR over UK courts
    Have they ?
    I must have missed that judgment. Can you point me to it, and explain ?
    I would suggest you monitor the activity in the channel this summer
    I suggest that it's highly unlikely this policy would make any difference, and that you are ignorant of what the judgment said.

    In any event, government bothered to legislate, this particular case wouldn't have arisen. If you do something by administrative fiat, then you invite judicial scrutiny; that is how our system works.
    If you're happy to see ministers to exercise powers unchecked by the courts, then you invite authoritarianism.
    I believe our Courts should have jurisdiction over our laws
    I assume you want the human rights protected of you and yours. You were (rightly) affronted by the proposal to make RNLI volunteers criminals for doing their jobs.

    So if we downgrade human rights and it isn't your human rights you want downgrading, can you be more specific about which people are less deserving than you of these basic protections written by the UK into international law and ratified as UK law?
    Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.

    This stuff isn't hard.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,838
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    One of the questions is whether this is a real policy (just implemented by clowns) or a bizarre postmodern game. And I don't know the answer to that.

    This seems pretty petulant though;

    Retribution, it appears, is coming for the 26 bishops who said the Rwanda policy “shames Britain”. Cabinet ministers openly talking about expelling them from the Lords now. “Only Iran also has clerics that sit in their legislature”, one tells me. “They’ll go”.

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1536838184360894464?

    Appalling. I can support and tolerate most things this government is doing but disestablishment of the Church of England is too far.

    You cannot be a Tory and not support the Church of England as the established church and this idiot of a Cabinet Minister should know that. If this government even tried such a thing I as a Tory branch chairman would back an open revolt.

    I may not agree with everything the Bishops say and wish they would talk about reducing the number of abortions more too but they are entitled to their views and make up less than 10% of the Lords anyway
    Oh cut the crap.

    Somehow every other country on the planet apart from Iran and the Vatican manages to have centre-right parties without having established Churches within the legislature.
    I am perfectly happy with bishops in the HoL on Burkean grounds - they are a part of the way in which the past continues into the present in fruitful ways. Comparison with Iran fails with a moment's inspection. I look forward to the secular establishment suddenly finding reasons to keep them as a tea drinking bulwark against much worse forms of the exercise of power.

    The bishops are a mediaeval hangover from the times when the Roman Church was the only permitted religion in ENgland, modified by Henry VIII's hostile takeover. No provision for the modern multi- and no-faith world, or the fact that the UK is a lot more than "England". Even Burke might blench at that. And now we have the ECHR being jettisoned, some of us can now freely campaign for burning heretics at the stake. Which I do not approve of.
    There are former rabbis in the Lords, I would have no problem with a few imams and Hindu priests too. The Vatican bans Roman Catholic bishops from being in the Lords now as it is a challenge to the supremacy of Rome in their view. There are also scientists, lawyers, business people, journslists, sportsmen and women, ex politicians in the Lords, it encompasses a wide spectrum
    None of what you say is in the least relevant to the basic point. Which is that the bishops are appointed ex officio whereas the others* are not. Eric Wakefield+ liked trains, for instance, but he was not appointed for his knowledge of steam locomotives.

    *Apart from the hereditaries. Another unacceptable blot on a modern state.
This discussion has been closed.