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The next cabinet minister to go – politicalbetting.com

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  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Sandpit said:

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.

    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Welcome to big-government managerial declinism, accompanied by the failure to take advantage of the regulatory freedoms afforded by leaving the EU. Worst of all worlds.
    It is curious that the current approach is 180 degrees opposite to the approach Tories cheered a few weeks ago. The coalition against growth I think they used to call this. It’s amazing how a political party can pivot so quickly to argue that black is white.
    To be fair, that's why the Conservative Party is the most successful political party in the western world.
    It all sounds a little bit pointless. You're going nowhere if you march off in one direction and then march all the way back (repeat ad nauseam). Just a waste of everyone's time. No wonder the world is moving faster than us.
    I'm not necessarily proud of it, and it is a bit cynical.

    Just pointing out it often works. Because it's about responding to the mood of the electorate quickly when you get it wrong and that's what keeps you in the game.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839
    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    The problem, as I have said before, is the asylum system itself. It is not fit for purpose in a world where there are numerous mass movements of people from horrible and not so horrible places driven by a desire for a better life. We are, bluntly, judging the wrong things. We focus on where they have come from, whether they have evidence of oppression or hardship there, whether their story hangs together or it has holes.

    A proper immigration system would be focused on does this person have useful skills or are they willing to work in areas where we have labour shortages. In short, it should be about us not them.

    It would be impossible for us to make such a change on our own. It would need a large number of western governments to act together in essentially opting out of the UN Convention on Refugees. I think that we are a long way from this yet but it is coming.
  • Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    I'm now completely confused. Is the Rwanda policy a truth or an untruth? Like bloody moggies cooped up with Geiger-Mueller tubes in closed boxes.
    Since we were talking about Orwell yesterday, think of it like The War in 1984.

    It's necessary that the Rwanda plan exists, because of the psychological conditions it creates. That doesn't just mean that it doesn't matter if it goes well or badly. It would actually be a disaster for the government if they were to succeed in deporting anyone to Rwanda.

    Because the Rwandan government aren't idiots, they have agreed to take their choice of asylum seekers to the UK. They've not got capacity to do any more than that. So you can never get the odds of being deported high enough to really deter.

    And, beyond the "still rich country washing our hands of a global problem" thing, that's what's so evil about this plan. All the hype, all the shouting in the Mail and the Knappers' Gazette, to defend a con trick.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863

    IanB2 said:

    Lol! Zahawi’s explanation for Braverman coming back so soon is that “politics nowadays moves at breakneck speed”!

    Tbf Nads knows of what he speaks.


    At the beginning of the interview, Rajan congratulated him on his appointment to Minister without portfolio (tbh you could hear the slight smile as he did), and Zahawi's snort of contempt was audible. He clearly feels hard done by and perhaps doesn't fully appreciate the extent to which he's made a tit of himself.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    Quite. The benchmark for risk tolerance here is, people smoke. I would run a 10% risk for the chances which open up on a successful crossing. At 1 in 20 I would play Russian roulette for a decent payoff. It has to be a stone cold certainty which means recruiting and paying for at least 10s of 000s of new border force bods and buying them RIBs and helicopters and all sorts. And a whole new ministry of Information thinking about it because you have to successfully and simultaneously sell 2 messages: to the public and libs, Look at the light, bright, hygienic accommodation our deportees are welcomed to in Rwanda, and to potential crossers: you will pray for death after 24 hours of what Kigali has lined up for you.
    And your solution is?
    Nobody said all problems have solutions. Cooperating with other countries along the supply chain would slow it down, but we are fucked by geography, technology and ethics. It's in some ways like COVID: poor old contrarian was advocating laissez faire where the old gonna die and the poor gonna starve for a year or so and we emerge a leaner, fitter, richer and less indebted nation. It wasn't a non-solution, but it wasn't a possible solution in the art-of-the-possible sense.
    So, you have no solution. Brilliant
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Rwanda only works if we catch all the bats - which we don't. If Rwanda actually take anyone - which they won't. And the deterrent message deters migrants - which it hasn't.

    Instead of pursuing this BNP policy, why not engage with policies that will actually work:
    1 Create legal routes for people to claim asylum
    2 Go gangbusters on companies employing illegals
    3 Co-operate with the French and EU on managing the situation

    Foaming at the mouth dreaming of drowning people in the channel is not a policy. No matter how many semis it generates with Tory party members.
    God, you’re tediously predictable. And stupid
    Ad hominem attacks are always most revealing when, depending on your politics, they can apply equally to the person writing them as the person they're meant to be directed at.

    I think it was a truth hurts moment for @Leon.

    He has over the months and years had a few of them and never fails to lash out when confronted by one.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    .
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    That Piers Morgan interview about leaky Sue.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/PiersUncensored/status/1585361104062058508

    Regarding the Official Secrets Act, does a government minister have "lawful authority" to leak information if they subsequently resign for that leak ?

    Bernard Woolley would say no.
    Bernard predates the 1989 Act.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited October 2022
    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191
    The young albanian men must laugh their socks off at a system which allows them such easy access to one of the most lucrative cocaine markets in the world.
    They're not... they're not sending their best.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    Rishi needs to be careful with the EU.

    They'll probably take saying he's ready to do a deal over the NI protocol as a sign of weakness and take concessions off the table as a result - try and push him.

    He needs to be very clear: no means no. A good deal yes, on terms that work for the UK.

    You've got to play hardball with these ideological bureaucrats.

    A deal can be found as long as the ECJ is not removed from the NI protocol. The trade issues can be sorted if there’s trust.
  • ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    That Piers Morgan interview about leaky Sue.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/PiersUncensored/status/1585361104062058508

    Regarding the Official Secrets Act, does a government minister have "lawful authority" to leak information if they subsequently resign for that leak ?

    Bernard Woolley would say no.
    Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey told Bernard that leakers are immune thanks to their knowledge of leaks from Number 10. The ship of state is the only vessel that leaks from the top, and all that.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited October 2022
    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.
    The scope for being awarded asylum is not insanely broad. There are plenty of people who will be deportable if we had a vaguely functioning system to process them. Those deportations will then have a further deterrent effect.

    People who should be awarded asylum, meanwhile, are stuck in a system awaiting a decision where they are not allowed to work, costing the taxpayer money. Those who deserve asylum should be awarded asylum as soon as possible so that they can then establish their new life, including by giving back to the country by working and paying taxes.

  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    The problem, as I have said before, is the asylum system itself. It is not fit for purpose in a world where there are numerous mass movements of people from horrible and not so horrible places driven by a desire for a better life. We are, bluntly, judging the wrong things. We focus on where they have come from, whether they have evidence of oppression or hardship there, whether their story hangs together or it has holes.

    A proper immigration system would be focused on does this person have useful skills or are they willing to work in areas where we have labour shortages. In short, it should be about us not them.

    It would be impossible for us to make such a change on our own. It would need a large number of western governments to act together in essentially opting out of the UN Convention on Refugees. I think that we are a long way from this yet but it is coming.
    There are things that actually would work as deterrents: tow backs, interring people on Bangladeshi registered prison hulks in international waters beyond the reach of the UK courts while their asylum claims are processed with glacial slowness.

    The tories simply don't have the fortitude to do them.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    Quite. The benchmark for risk tolerance here is, people smoke. I would run a 10% risk for the chances which open up on a successful crossing. At 1 in 20 I would play Russian roulette for a decent payoff. It has to be a stone cold certainty which means recruiting and paying for at least 10s of 000s of new border force bods and buying them RIBs and helicopters and all sorts. And a whole new ministry of Information thinking about it because you have to successfully and simultaneously sell 2 messages: to the public and libs, Look at the light, bright, hygienic accommodation our deportees are welcomed to in Rwanda, and to potential crossers: you will pray for death after 24 hours of what Kigali has lined up for you.
    And your solution is?
    Nobody said all problems have solutions. Cooperating with other countries along the supply chain would slow it down, but we are fucked by geography, technology and ethics. It's in some ways like COVID: poor old contrarian was advocating laissez faire where the old gonna die and the poor gonna starve for a year or so and we emerge a leaner, fitter, richer and less indebted nation. It wasn't a non-solution, but it wasn't a possible solution in the art-of-the-possible sense.
    So, you have no solution. Brilliant
    You prove or disprove the Riemann hypothesis, and then I will tell you what the answer is.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    @Roger would be claiming that is overly harsh with human rights implications, but yes. The whole Rwanda idea is absurd.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,270

    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    Quite. The benchmark for risk tolerance here is, people smoke. I would run a 10% risk for the chances which open up on a successful crossing. At 1 in 20 I would play Russian roulette for a decent payoff. It has to be a stone cold certainty which means recruiting and paying for at least 10s of 000s of new border force bods and buying them RIBs and helicopters and all sorts. And a whole new ministry of Information thinking about it because you have to successfully and simultaneously sell 2 messages: to the public and libs, Look at the light, bright, hygienic accommodation our deportees are welcomed to in Rwanda, and to potential crossers: you will pray for death after 24 hours of what Kigali has lined up for you.
    And your solution is?
    A couple of suggestions off the top of my head:

    1. ID cards

    2. Offer a route to citizenship in return for grassing on employers of illegal immigrants.
    2) plus a massive fine for the employers. Plus the migrants who give evidence against them get half the money.

    The ID cards aren’t needed. Employers ask for proof of identity for many, many jobs already.
  • Nigelb said:

    .

    IanB2 said:

    Lol! Zahawi’s explanation for Braverman coming back so soon is that “politics nowadays moves at breakneck speed”!

    Tbf Nads knows of what he speaks.


    Maybe Boris 2.0 actually meant Sunak ?
    Nice try but no. Hence Zahawi's follow-up, not without wit, that "a day is a long time in politics".
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,829
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Easier to deport people from Rwanda.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,406
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    How about a compromise?
    UK applicants apply in Rwanda, and, if successful, get to live in Denmark?
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    Jonathan said:

    Sandpit said:

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.

    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Welcome to big-government managerial declinism, accompanied by the failure to take advantage of the regulatory freedoms afforded by leaving the EU. Worst of all worlds.
    It is curious that the current approach is 180 degrees opposite to the approach Tories cheered a few weeks ago. The coalition against growth I think they used to call this. It’s amazing how a political party can pivot so quickly to argue that black is white.
    To be fair, that's why the Conservative Party is the most successful political party in the western world.
    Sunak in a nutshell. It doesn't matter what I have to promise or do, as long as I get an elite job.
  • MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Easier to deport people from Rwanda.
    Revolutionary idea but perhaps we could fund and organise our courts efficiently.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    🔺EXC: An independent Scotland will be denied entry to the EU unless Nicola Sturgeon commits to joining the euro, senior figures in Brussels have insisted

    A clear message per four separate sources, crystallised by one: "No euro, no membership"


    https://twitter.com/kieranpandrews/status/1585377295392735232

    If people are really keen to join the EU, is it really definite they would not pay that price?
    I really don't understand the logic that says they should give up rule from London (which I think they would be right to do) and replace it with rule from Brussels.

    Why does an independent Scotland need to tie itself to the EU? Join EFTA and the EEA and they get all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
    Well, the EU wouldn’t declare war on Scotland’s behalf or decide which Unions we could leave or remain in or decide how we utilise our resources.
    There would be the tyranny of collective standards on vacuum cleaners of course; that would be a cross which we would just have to bear.
    OR the EU could summon Holyrood to submit its budget to the Bundestag FIRST, before it goes before Scottish MSPs, as happened to the Irish. Or the EU Commission could simply depose your elected leader and inflict someone of their choosing, as happened to Italy and Greece. That kinda shit

    And Italy is a LOT bigger and more important than little ol Scotland
    And just to reiterate the point upthread, there would also be the requirement to join the Euro, in contradiction to the idea that Scotland could maintain a separate currency of its choosing.

    All this has quite a lot of implications for the wording of any future referendum. "Should Scotland be an independent country" can't be answered with "Yes" if leaving the UK is predicated on joining the EU. "Should Scots continue to live in an independent country" would be a more accurate question, with a "Yes" vote meaning that Scotland would stay in the UK.

    But it's also worth noting that the English national curriculum for GCSE requires pupils to understand that answers of "Yes" and "No" should be avoided in questionnaires (and by implication referenda) because "Yes" was a leading answer that biased results in its favour.

    So a more rigorous and less ambiguous wording would just leave out any reference to "independence" and avoid the bias of Yes/No answers. Maybe something like "Should Scotland remain in or leave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?", with answers of "Remain in the UK" and "Leave the UK". A question of that sort would be less likely to deliver Sturgeon the answer she craves, a point which seemed to elude David Cameron back in 2014, when the UK government rolled over like patsies and the SNP got the question they wanted.

    It's not really about independence.

    It's about Scotland choosing a different governance model that allows them to think they can stiff England.
    It’s all about England. How could it not be? The planet revolves around your arses.

    Australian independence was about Australia choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    Irish independence was about Ireland choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    American independence was about the USA choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom

    Independence is normal. Get over yourself.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Put it in Jaywick, it will improve the place overnight. Then offer successful applicants a grant to stay there and fix up the place. Everyone’s a winner.
  • algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Dunno, though part of the issue is the UK's inability to process asylum claims. From the same Select Committee hearing;


    The Home Office has only processed 4% of asylum claims from Channel migrants last year.

    85% of those completed claims were granted asylum.

    No wonder the asylum backlog has soared over 100,000


    https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1585195009606914050
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Easier to deport people from Rwanda.
    I'm sure if you totted up the cost of the scheme vs the airfare from LHR you would come up with a net saving for the latter option.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    edited October 2022
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    How about a third system? Have the processing centre in Rwanda for cross channel migrants and if successful they can live in Denmark? :D

    Edit: scooped by @dixiedean
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Indeed, most of them will probably not get refugee status and can be deported. We have long had a system in place for dealing with such cases. But it requires investment in processes to find people and in processes to handle the cases. The Government appears unwilling to do these things and prefers performative nonsense about Rwanda.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    Quite. The benchmark for risk tolerance here is, people smoke. I would run a 10% risk for the chances which open up on a successful crossing. At 1 in 20 I would play Russian roulette for a decent payoff. It has to be a stone cold certainty which means recruiting and paying for at least 10s of 000s of new border force bods and buying them RIBs and helicopters and all sorts. And a whole new ministry of Information thinking about it because you have to successfully and simultaneously sell 2 messages: to the public and libs, Look at the light, bright, hygienic accommodation our deportees are welcomed to in Rwanda, and to potential crossers: you will pray for death after 24 hours of what Kigali has lined up for you.
    And your solution is?
    Nobody said all problems have solutions. Cooperating with other countries along the supply chain would slow it down, but we are fucked by geography, technology and ethics. It's in some ways like COVID: poor old contrarian was advocating laissez faire where the old gonna die and the poor gonna starve for a year or so and we emerge a leaner, fitter, richer and less indebted nation. It wasn't a non-solution, but it wasn't a possible solution in the art-of-the-possible sense.
    So, you have no solution. Brilliant
    Unlike you, at least he's honest about it.

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    dixiedean said:

    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    How about a compromise?
    UK applicants apply in Rwanda, and, if successful, get to live in Denmark?
    Which of course reminds me of this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593

    IanB2 said:

    Lol! Zahawi’s explanation for Braverman coming back so soon is that “politics nowadays moves at breakneck speed”!

    Tbf Nads knows of what he speaks.


    Hah!

    Are we reaching the point where you can draft a single letter to offer your resignation and accept reinstatement.

    The first half contains all the barely concealed vitriol and hatred for your old boss who has forced you into this position, and the second half contains all the praise for and eternal devotion to your new boss (same as the old boss).
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    The problem, as I have said before, is the asylum system itself. It is not fit for purpose in a world where there are numerous mass movements of people from horrible and not so horrible places driven by a desire for a better life. We are, bluntly, judging the wrong things. We focus on where they have come from, whether they have evidence of oppression or hardship there, whether their story hangs together or it has holes.

    A proper immigration system would be focused on does this person have useful skills or are they willing to work in areas where we have labour shortages. In short, it should be about us not them.

    It would be impossible for us to make such a change on our own. It would need a large number of western governments to act together in essentially opting out of the UN Convention on Refugees. I think that we are a long way from this yet but it is coming.
    The thing is, it is impossible to make the call anyway. Jews started leaving Germany very early in the 1930s, and we wouldn't have them. Hence after the fact the Asylum Convention. But how bad did Germany look in say 1935? No Wannsee, no camps, no Solutions yet. I believe we ask for evidence of the *individual* having suffered persecution, so what about say professors and doctors who had seen what was happening to the shopkeepers and felt they might be next? We can't rewrite asylum law on the basis there are no more Hitlers. There are.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    TOPPING said:

    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Rwanda only works if we catch all the bats - which we don't. If Rwanda actually take anyone - which they won't. And the deterrent message deters migrants - which it hasn't.

    Instead of pursuing this BNP policy, why not engage with policies that will actually work:
    1 Create legal routes for people to claim asylum
    2 Go gangbusters on companies employing illegals
    3 Co-operate with the French and EU on managing the situation

    Foaming at the mouth dreaming of drowning people in the channel is not a policy. No matter how many semis it generates with Tory party members.
    God, you’re tediously predictable. And stupid
    Ad hominem attacks are always most revealing when, depending on your politics, they can apply equally to the person writing them as the person they're meant to be directed at.

    I think it was a truth hurts moment for @Leon.

    He has over the months and years had a few of them and never fails to lash out when confronted by one.
    Lol
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    But does rather undermine the argument that the EHRC was “becoming a tool of the Tories”:

    https://www.ier.org.uk/news/the-ehrc-is-becoming-a-political-instrument-former-chair-says/
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Are they claiming to be from Albania? I thought the game was to dump all paperwork and claim to be Syrian?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.


    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Gosh, now there's a surprise.
    That's interesting, but is it a genuine change, or merely not creating a new unit? Slowing down the "Anything from the EU that you've not revised by Dec 31 2023 is no longer law" bandwagon would be a very important concession to civil service overload, and would allow Sunak's team to do more (good or bad). Currently, important parts of the Civil Service are facing a year where they do very little more than review regulations that nobody has actually questioned and which may or may not benefit from revision. Merely extending the deadline to Dec 31 2024 would make a real difference and literally nobody in industry is demanding faster action.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    The problem, as I have said before, is the asylum system itself. It is not fit for purpose in a world where there are numerous mass movements of people from horrible and not so horrible places driven by a desire for a better life. We are, bluntly, judging the wrong things. We focus on where they have come from, whether they have evidence of oppression or hardship there, whether their story hangs together or it has holes.

    A proper immigration system would be focused on does this person have useful skills or are they willing to work in areas where we have labour shortages. In short, it should be about us not them.

    It would be impossible for us to make such a change on our own. It would need a large number of western governments to act together in essentially opting out of the UN Convention on Refugees. I think that we are a long way from this yet but it is coming.
    There should be different tests for different types of asylum claims.

    We give the benefit of the doubt to known political dissidents fleeing a very nasty regime.

    We drop the "I'm from Iran and I'm gay. and lost my papers" crap.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839
    Dura_Ace said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    The problem, as I have said before, is the asylum system itself. It is not fit for purpose in a world where there are numerous mass movements of people from horrible and not so horrible places driven by a desire for a better life. We are, bluntly, judging the wrong things. We focus on where they have come from, whether they have evidence of oppression or hardship there, whether their story hangs together or it has holes.

    A proper immigration system would be focused on does this person have useful skills or are they willing to work in areas where we have labour shortages. In short, it should be about us not them.

    It would be impossible for us to make such a change on our own. It would need a large number of western governments to act together in essentially opting out of the UN Convention on Refugees. I think that we are a long way from this yet but it is coming.
    There are things that actually would work as deterrents: tow backs, interring people on Bangladeshi registered prison hulks in international waters beyond the reach of the UK courts while their asylum claims are processed with glacial slowness.

    The tories simply don't have the fortitude to do them.
    International waters are not beyond the reach of the British courts because the UK government is here and accountable.

    But the more fundamental problem is that literally hundreds of millions of people around the world qualify for refugee status in this country under the current rules. Their lives may well be in danger if they had to return because they were unfortunate enough to be born into a dysfunctional society of which the world has so many. The current system is granting asylum (when it eventually gets around to making a decision) in 2/3rds of cases. This has driven the Rwanda lunacy: ok we have to give them asylum but not necessarily here.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    maxh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Rwanda only works if we catch all the bats - which we don't. If Rwanda actually take anyone - which they won't. And the deterrent message deters migrants - which it hasn't.

    Instead of pursuing this BNP policy, why not engage with policies that will actually work:
    1 Create legal routes for people to claim asylum
    2 Go gangbusters on companies employing illegals
    3 Co-operate with the French and EU on managing the situation

    Foaming at the mouth dreaming of drowning people in the channel is not a policy. No matter how many semis it generates with Tory party members.
    God, you’re tediously predictable. And stupid
    Ad hominem attacks are always most revealing when, depending on your politics, they can apply equally to the person writing them as the person they're meant to be directed at.

    I think it was a truth hurts moment for @Leon.

    He has over the months and years had a few of them and never fails to lash out when confronted by one.
    Lol
    Lol indeed, Leon, Lol indeed.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.


    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Gosh, now there's a surprise.
    That's interesting, but is it a genuine change, or merely not creating a new unit? Slowing down the "Anything from the EU that you've not revised by Dec 31 2023 is no longer law" bandwagon would be a very important concession to civil service overload, and would allow Sunak's team to do more (good or bad). Currently, important parts of the Civil Service are facing a year where they do very little more than review regulations that nobody has actually questioned and which may or may not benefit from revision. Merely extending the deadline to Dec 31 2024 would make a real difference and literally nobody in industry is demanding faster action.
    That’s how I read it “we have bigger fish to fry” .
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,134

    ~How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.

    It's not like the people in Calais look at the length of the queue for processing when deciding whether to set out or not -- how long it takes us to handle any given application does not affect the number of people arriving. What shorter processing times would do is reduce the period when we support the applicants (NHS, schooling, housing assistance) but don't permit them to work, which should cost us less and be better for successful applicants (who can get on with their lives sooner). It probably also gives less time for people who know their claim is unlikely to succeed to quietly vanish.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191
    edited October 2022

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    It's the toilet arrangements I'm going to have a row with the school about if the local one is anything like how my niece is telling me hers is. Some time and distance between her school and my daughter's future one though.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,568
    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    “the solution is to process asylum claims promptly”

    They all dump their documents. There is no way of sorting them “promptly” that does not involve simply accepting their claims to asylum. Your proposal therefore = “let them all in quickly”. Thus inviting millions more

    You are a cretin
    Take a hair sample and DNA it.

    You can probably get down to which Albanian town they came from. Can also check if they have close relatives on the police database. Have a working assumption that anybody who has thrown all their papers away is not a legitimate asylum seeker. Anyone who has some (non-forged) papers to show where the have come from has the assumption reversed - they are legitimate asylum seekers.

    The assumed not legitimate asylum seekers should be treated in a way that shows how much contempt we hold them in for debasing the asylum system. Put them in basic wooden shacks on the Isle of Sheppey. Really bad English food. A TV in each shack, only showing the Parliament channel. No opportunity for working. No books to read. No radios. A really dull, dull, dull life looking out over Kent mudflats.

    Give Nigel Farage the job of overseeing these shacks. He'd relish making their life awful. Plenty of visits by Nigel Farage should ensure that.

    And a big red buzzer to press, to say you want to go back home please. It will get plenty of use after a visit by the Kommandant.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Are they claiming to be from Albania? I thought the game was to dump all paperwork and claim to be Syrian?
    That seems implausible. It would take a couple of minutes to establish whether they are fluent in Levantine Arabic or not.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    Which is basically an excuse to ignore the problem.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,190

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    Why on earth would a school have a problem with children having long hair or pony tails? Sounds bizarre.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457

    Rishi needs to be careful with the EU.

    They'll probably take saying he's ready to do a deal over the NI protocol as a sign of weakness and take concessions off the table as a result - try and push him.

    He needs to be very clear: no means no. A good deal yes, on terms that work for the UK.

    You've got to play hardball with these ideological bureaucrats.

    Cos that's worked really well to date.
    It has actually.

    They were ready to do a deal under Truss, and had finally made some concessions with red/green channels.

    I don't want any backsliding on that.
  • Another election in NI?
    Will the DUP reap the electoral rewards for being obstructive, petulant rsoles, ie a violent kick up the hoop?

    I don't get DUP voters. Is having no functioning government what they want?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,406
    edited October 2022

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    Personally, I am sick of hearing about uniforms and hairstyles.
    It's been a two decade long distraction from the problems in education.
    And an excuse for Senior Leadership and the authorities to be seen to be doing something about discipline. Whilst avoiding the real issues.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.
    The scope for being awarded asylum is not insanely broad. There are plenty of people who will be deportable if we had a vaguely functioning system to process them. Those deportations will then have a further deterrent effect.

    People who should be awarded asylum, meanwhile, are stuck in a system awaiting a decision where they are not allowed to work, costing the taxpayer money. Those who deserve asylum should be awarded asylum as soon as possible so that they can then establish their new life, including by giving back to the country by working and paying taxes.

    Except something like over three-quarters always qualify.

    So, yes, it is I'm afraid.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Unfortunately, much as I love him, @rcs1000 has lost the right to be heard on this subject because he came out with some nonsense about how all these crossings would stop as soon as Covid was over and the airports and ports reopened.

    They doubled.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Rishi needs to be careful with the EU.

    They'll probably take saying he's ready to do a deal over the NI protocol as a sign of weakness and take concessions off the table as a result - try and push him.

    He needs to be very clear: no means no. A good deal yes, on terms that work for the UK.

    You've got to play hardball with these ideological bureaucrats.

    Cos that's worked really well to date.
    It has actually.

    They were ready to do a deal under Truss, and had finally made some concessions with red/green channels.

    I don't want any backsliding on that.
    Truss had backed away from playing hardball. She’d switched to playing softball. So if her strategy was working, that disproves your earlier contention.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    With hair, just enjoy it while you have it.

    *sighs*
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    🔺EXC: An independent Scotland will be denied entry to the EU unless Nicola Sturgeon commits to joining the euro, senior figures in Brussels have insisted

    A clear message per four separate sources, crystallised by one: "No euro, no membership"


    https://twitter.com/kieranpandrews/status/1585377295392735232

    If people are really keen to join the EU, is it really definite they would not pay that price?
    I really don't understand the logic that says they should give up rule from London (which I think they would be right to do) and replace it with rule from Brussels.

    Why does an independent Scotland need to tie itself to the EU? Join EFTA and the EEA and they get all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
    Well, the EU wouldn’t declare war on Scotland’s behalf or decide which Unions we could leave or remain in or decide how we utilise our resources.
    There would be the tyranny of collective standards on vacuum cleaners of course; that would be a cross which we would just have to bear.
    OR the EU could summon Holyrood to submit its budget to the Bundestag FIRST, before it goes before Scottish MSPs, as happened to the Irish. Or the EU Commission could simply depose your elected leader and inflict someone of their choosing, as happened to Italy and Greece. That kinda shit

    And Italy is a LOT bigger and more important than little ol Scotland
    And just to reiterate the point upthread, there would also be the requirement to join the Euro, in contradiction to the idea that Scotland could maintain a separate currency of its choosing.

    All this has quite a lot of implications for the wording of any future referendum. "Should Scotland be an independent country" can't be answered with "Yes" if leaving the UK is predicated on joining the EU. "Should Scots continue to live in an independent country" would be a more accurate question, with a "Yes" vote meaning that Scotland would stay in the UK.

    But it's also worth noting that the English national curriculum for GCSE requires pupils to understand that answers of "Yes" and "No" should be avoided in questionnaires (and by implication referenda) because "Yes" was a leading answer that biased results in its favour.

    So a more rigorous and less ambiguous wording would just leave out any reference to "independence" and avoid the bias of Yes/No answers. Maybe something like "Should Scotland remain in or leave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?", with answers of "Remain in the UK" and "Leave the UK". A question of that sort would be less likely to deliver Sturgeon the answer she craves, a point which seemed to elude David Cameron back in 2014, when the UK government rolled over like patsies and the SNP got the question they wanted.

    It's not really about independence.

    It's about Scotland choosing a different governance model that allows them to think they can stiff England.
    It’s all about England. How could it not be? The planet revolves around your arses.

    Australian independence was about Australia choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    Irish independence was about Ireland choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    American independence was about the USA choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom

    Independence is normal. Get over yourself.
    Ah, so you agree with me.

    Thanks!
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    Which is basically an excuse to ignore the problem.
    No, it is a reason to ignore point of entry and make it harder for all illegals once they get here. Biometric id cards would be a start.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Dunno, though part of the issue is the UK's inability to process asylum claims. From the same Select Committee hearing;


    The Home Office has only processed 4% of asylum claims from Channel migrants last year.

    85% of those completed claims were granted asylum.

    No wonder the asylum backlog has soared over 100,000


    https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1585195009606914050
    That means that the UK would end up shipping a lot of genuine asylum seekers to Rwanda .

    Albania clearly isn’t a war torn country so I don’t think it’s controversial for those to be deported back there quickly . The problem with this debate is it becomes very black and white .

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    I think that a school is entitled to specify that hair is neat, tidy and clean. But not that it conforms to some particular criteria. If a boy wants a pony tail, fine, but it should be properly kept. As for applying criteria that other races find it difficult to comply with- to me that is a complete no brainer and it is remarkable that anyone thought otherwise.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397

    Another election in NI?
    Will the DUP reap the electoral rewards for being obstructive, petulant rsoles, ie a violent kick up the hoop?

    I don't get DUP voters. Is having no functioning government what they want?
    Well, they didn't have one for over fifty years from 1922 to 1973, so I suppose they're used to it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    Which is basically an excuse to ignore the problem.
    The combined libertariat will contrive to ignore the problem, for fear of appearing BNP-ish - out of some bizarre social status anxiety - until it gets so bad the only solution is drastic and deeply painful

    It is quite reminiscent of the EU issue in British politics. Indeed there may be an underlying law at work which might furnish a Gazette article
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    “the solution is to process asylum claims promptly”

    They all dump their documents. There is no way of sorting them “promptly” that does not involve simply accepting their claims to asylum. Your proposal therefore = “let them all in quickly”. Thus inviting millions more

    You are a cretin
    Take a hair sample and DNA it.

    You can probably get down to which Albanian town they came from. Can also check if they have close relatives on the police database. Have a working assumption that anybody who has thrown all their papers away is not a legitimate asylum seeker. Anyone who has some (non-forged) papers to show where the have come from has the assumption reversed - they are legitimate asylum seekers.

    The assumed not legitimate asylum seekers should be treated in a way that shows how much contempt we hold them in for debasing the asylum system. Put them in basic wooden shacks on the Isle of Sheppey. Really bad English food. A TV in each shack, only showing the Parliament channel. No opportunity for working. No books to read. No radios. A really dull, dull, dull life looking out over Kent mudflats.

    Give Nigel Farage the job of overseeing these shacks. He'd relish making their life awful. Plenty of visits by Nigel Farage should ensure that.

    And a big red buzzer to press, to say you want to go back home please. It will get plenty of use after a visit by the Kommandant.
    *MM rocks up in Tirana and demands access to the rozzer database, DNA records, and so on ...*
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    It's the toilet arrangements I'm going to have a row with the school about if the local one is anything like how my niece is telling me hers is. Some time and distance between her school and my daughter's future one though.
    The urinals are round the back of the science block, against the wall?

    (Genuine true story - in the 90's I went to Reading to watch footy in the away end. The urinals were essentially peeing against the concrete wall which ran down into a floor level gutter. Still not the worst urinal. At Gloucester rugby around the same time they had large plastic creations with four stations for chaps to pee into. The pee collected inside, and I suspect was never emptied all season. Certainly smelled like it.)
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593
    edited October 2022
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    The real issue, I think, is being unable to define "the problem".

    There are two ways of looking at "the problem", as I see it:

    Way of looking 1: understanding, monitoring, costing, and managing overall immigration into this country from all sources, while trying to shut down the illegal and unsafe routes that fund organized crime.
    Way of looking 2: stop foreigners from coming and taking our jobs, housing, healthcare, benefits etc

    The problem is that (whether or not you agree with the reality behind it) I don't think you *can* address the problem in 2, because it so hard to measure, and includes a lot of things that people who are otherwise minded to support the view, when pushed, are forced to agree that we *should* be doing to deliver a growing economy.

    The headline issue of the truly desperate coming in boats is, as you say, such a small percentage of the problem (whether 1 or 2) that finding a solution is disproportionately expensive ("we could have paid for 'n' nurses on that waste of money") - not least because the level of desperation required to do something so dangerous means that most deterrents simply do not deter.
  • nico679 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.

    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Welcome to big-government managerial declinism, accompanied by the failure to take advantage of the regulatory freedoms afforded by leaving the EU. Worst of all worlds.
    It’s not that easy to just get rid of a bunch of laws overnight . And hardly a vote winner to tell workers you’re going to lose some of your protections. Anyway just file this under politician says something to try and get elected and then dumps it ! Pretty much everything promised by Vote Leave has never seen the light of day .

    Some in the ERG have spent four decades fighting for Brexit and still had established no consensus on where it should lead. When Jacob Rees-Mogg was challenged on the benefits of our new regulatory freedoms, he could suggest only that emergency exit signs could be moved slightly closer together (and it turns out that would have been legal anyway).
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1540247376866295809

    This is like Trussanomics, a decade-old set of slogans masquerading as a plan, never seriously examined, that is suddenly pulled off the shelf to become government dogma. Corbynite foreign policy was much the same.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,134
    On the topic, do we think that Sunak and Wallace would have discussed defence spending before Sunak kept him on? If you're Sunak presumably you'd prefer "I appointed somebody else to Defence" over "Defence minister resigns three weeks into my administration" so I guess better to be clear in advance ("I'd like you to remain in post but I must be clear that I cannot guarantee that we'll be able to raise defence spending etc etc" and Wallace either agrees or doesn't stay on). Or maybe 3% on defence, like the Braverman appointment, is just a price Sunak has agreed to pay to keep his party together...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,270

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    There is another issue. Some schools are being strict on the uniform policies to push back at gang stuff. At the local free school, some middle class parents were a bit surprised when some of the parents from poor ethnic minority backgrounds defended the uniform and discipline.
  • algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Dunno, though part of the issue is the UK's inability to process asylum claims. From the same Select Committee hearing;


    The Home Office has only processed 4% of asylum claims from Channel migrants last year.

    85% of those completed claims were granted asylum.

    No wonder the asylum backlog has soared over 100,000


    https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1585195009606914050
    Imagine how bad it would be if we had a Home Secretary who did not make this issue her priority......or perhaps she really is just terrible. And no deflecting onto the courts please, this govt have been in charge for 12 years, plenty of time to amend legislation and the funding and process of the courts. The government, and specifically a succession of authoritarian Home Secretaries more interested in press headlines than hard work have failed.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    dixiedean said:

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    Personally, I am sick of hearing about uniforms and hairstyles.
    It's been a two decade long distraction from the problems in education.
    And an excuse for Senior Leadership and the authorities to be seen to be doing something about discipline. Whilst avoiding the real issues.
    Such as, for example, senior leadership and the authorities!
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.
    The scope for being awarded asylum is not insanely broad. There are plenty of people who will be deportable if we had a vaguely functioning system to process them. Those deportations will then have a further deterrent effect.

    People who should be awarded asylum, meanwhile, are stuck in a system awaiting a decision where they are not allowed to work, costing the taxpayer money. Those who deserve asylum should be awarded asylum as soon as possible so that they can then establish their new life, including by giving back to the country by working and paying taxes.

    Except something like over three-quarters always qualify.

    So, yes, it is I'm afraid.
    We don’t know if that figure applies to those coming over at present because the backlogs are so large!

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526

    Sunak slashes Labour's lead with YouGov from 37% to 28%.



    [Sunak] trailed Starmer by 34 to 30 when voters were asked who would make the best prime minister, with 33 per cent saying they were not sure.

    After the implosion of her mini-budget, Truss had trailed Starmer by 42-13 on the same measure.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-pm-rishi-sunak-gets-polls-bounce-h9hxl7rss

    Best PM ratings point to a hung parliament with Labour as largest party at the next election, IMHO.
    I dunno about that. I try to avoid false Labour optimism, but this poll IS the Sunak bounce, taken at a time of peak coverage, generally favourable, with Starmer largely out of the news. Clearly he's less unpopular than Truss, but the 28-point deficit and continuing lack of confidence in Sunak's handling of the economy or (by a huge margin) the NHS suggests that much of the electorate has provisionally decided not to vote Tory. Naturally that could change in two years, but it's not a promising start.
  • Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    5% chance of ending in Africa? So 95% chance of success? People are shit at probability anyway, so I think that would not stop them. Besides, a lot of those in Calais seem to believe untruths about the UK as it is, Why should they believe they will end in Rwanda, when no-one has ended up in Rwanda?
    Quite. The benchmark for risk tolerance here is, people smoke. I would run a 10% risk for the chances which open up on a successful crossing. At 1 in 20 I would play Russian roulette for a decent payoff. It has to be a stone cold certainty which means recruiting and paying for at least 10s of 000s of new border force bods and buying them RIBs and helicopters and all sorts. And a whole new ministry of Information thinking about it because you have to successfully and simultaneously sell 2 messages: to the public and libs, Look at the light, bright, hygienic accommodation our deportees are welcomed to in Rwanda, and to potential crossers: you will pray for death after 24 hours of what Kigali has lined up for you.
    And your solution is?
    Nobody said all problems have solutions. Cooperating with other countries along the supply chain would slow it down, but we are fucked by geography, technology and ethics. It's in some ways like COVID: poor old contrarian was advocating laissez faire where the old gonna die and the poor gonna starve for a year or so and we emerge a leaner, fitter, richer and less indebted nation. It wasn't a non-solution, but it wasn't a possible solution in the art-of-the-possible sense.
    So, you have no solution. Brilliant
    You also have no solution:
    1. We can't catch all the boats. We don't have the resources
    2. We can't deport the ones we do catch to Rwanda. The Rwandan government refuses to let us
    3. We can't just sink the boats. No matter how much some Tory voters want it
    4. The economic drivers remain. Despite asylum seekers getting fuck all when they get here and tret like shit by the communities they get dumped into. Its still better than what they had, and asylum seekers get lied to - by the British press - about the riches they will be given when they get here.

    If you haven't noticed, migration is a pan-European problem and we take only a fraction. We could choose to co-operate with the existing European mechanisms. But you supported us pulling out of them. So many asylum seekers disappear into the black economy, but you don't support a crack-down on employers exploiting them...
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Predictable:

    So why oh why is the government still refusing to impose a proper windfall tax on these windfall profits?

    https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1585538048816717824

    Now it’s a “proper” windfall tax (details unspecified).
  • Another election in NI?
    Will the DUP reap the electoral rewards for being obstructive, petulant rsoles, ie a violent kick up the hoop?

    I don't get DUP voters. Is having no functioning government what they want?
    They want to be angry. And furious.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,662
    Carnyx said:

    kamski said:

    moonshine said:

    Whatever happened to that story about Zahawi being under fraud investigation?

    I don't know, but there is this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/26/charity-founded-by-jeremy-hunt-patient-safety-watch-chief-executive-adam-smith

    "A charity founded by the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, paid more than £110,000 – two-thirds of its income – to his former political adviser Adam Smith, who lost his job over a lobbying scandal."
    That summary does not mention the very germane point that Mr Hunt is reportedly (in the same piece) still involved with the charity, as a trustee.
    As a charitable Truste
    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    Rwanda ticks them off its numbers, then let's them go to Albania, with the bill to the UK.

    Rwanda doesn't keep them prisoner, they are free to move on.

    Perhaps speak to Albania about how to deport people.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Here's the problem: at various times in the past century there have been whole decades where the entire population of Russia, China, Cambodia etc bar a few 100,000 nomenklatura would have had a cast iron case for asylum elsewhere, including here. The honest answer is: sorry guys, shit happens, we overreacted to our failure to accommodate a few thousand Germans in the 1930s and did the whole Asylum thing. Best we forget it and you stay at home and defeat your oppressors from inside the system.
  • TOPPING said:

    On Rwanda, @rcs1000 had it (half) right yesterday.

    The Danish system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Denmark.

    The UK system is to have a processing centre in Rwanda and if successful the applicant will be able to live in Rwanda.

    @rcs1000 is in favour of the former.

    The logical conclusion of which, of course, is for UK applicants why on earth have the processing centre in Rwanda. It could just as well be in Hartlepool.

    Better still, just wall off Hartlepool and ship asylum seekers there. Would improve the place.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    It's the toilet arrangements I'm going to have a row with the school about if the local one is anything like how my niece is telling me hers is. Some time and distance between her school and my daughter's future one though.
    The urinals are round the back of the science block, against the wall?

    (Genuine true story - in the 90's I went to Reading to watch footy in the away end. The urinals were essentially peeing against the concrete wall which ran down into a floor level gutter. Still not the worst urinal. At Gloucester rugby around the same time they had large plastic creations with four stations for chaps to pee into. The pee collected inside, and I suspect was never emptied all season. Certainly smelled like it.)
    More the seeming collective punishments because a few pupils are misusing them tbh.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,406

    Sunak slashes Labour's lead with YouGov from 37% to 28%.



    [Sunak] trailed Starmer by 34 to 30 when voters were asked who would make the best prime minister, with 33 per cent saying they were not sure.

    After the implosion of her mini-budget, Truss had trailed Starmer by 42-13 on the same measure.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-pm-rishi-sunak-gets-polls-bounce-h9hxl7rss

    Best PM ratings point to a hung parliament with Labour as largest party at the next election, IMHO.
    I dunno about that. I try to avoid false Labour optimism, but this poll IS the Sunak bounce, taken at a time of peak coverage, generally favourable, with Starmer largely out of the news. Clearly he's less unpopular than Truss, but the 28-point deficit and continuing lack of confidence in Sunak's handling of the economy or (by a huge margin) the NHS suggests that much of the electorate has provisionally decided not to vote Tory. Naturally that could change in two years, but it's not a promising start.
    Two weeks before you can call it peak bounce I reckon.
    Will have to be kangaroo on a bungee cord, mind.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    mwadams said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    The real issue, I think, is being unable to define "the problem".

    There are two ways of looking at "the problem", as I see it:

    Way of looking 1: understanding, monitoring, costing, and managing overall immigration into this country from all sources, while trying to shut down the illegal and unsafe routes that fund organized crime.
    Way of looking 2: stop foreigners from coming and taking our jobs, housing, healthcare, benefits etc

    The problem is that (whether or not you agree with the reality behind it) I don't think you *can* address the problem in 2, because it so hard to measure, and includes a lot of things that people who are otherwise minded to support the view, when pushed, are forced to agree that we *should* be doing to deliver a growing economy.

    The headline issue of the truly desperate coming in boats is, as you say, such a small percentage of the problem (whether 1 or 2) that finding a solution is disproportionately expensive ("we could have paid for 'n' nurses on that waste of money") - not least because the level of desperation required to do something so dangerous means that most deterrents simply do not deter.
    It’s the fucking English Channel not the Roaring Forties. It’s not that dangerous. And these people are being transported to Calais in advertised minivans, from Tirana. With a nice stop in Düsseldorf for bratwurst
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    The population of Albania is 2.80-2.9 m. About 1.4 m will be male. 1% of 1.4 m is 14,000. If you exclude under 18s the figure is not far off, though exaggerated. It's in the ball park.

    Albania appears to be a multi party democracy and a recognised applicant to join the EU. What possible grounds can there be for refugee status?

    Are they claiming to be from Albania? I thought the game was to dump all paperwork and claim to be Syrian?
    That seems implausible. It would take a couple of minutes to establish whether they are fluent in Levantine Arabic or not.

    Fine, so on what grounds are Albanians being accepted at rate of 95%? Are they claiming to be homosexual and persecuted?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,662

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The problem is that our system is very slow.

    I know some asylum seekers via my church, they are kept in limbo for years, one for a decade, and not through stringing it out themselves, but rather a Home Office that doesn't do its job. Perhaps that is where Suella should start, though probably requires some investment in case workers.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    kamski said:

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    Why on earth would a school have a problem with children having long hair or pony tails? Sounds bizarre.
    A while ago now but my grammar school had quite strict requirements. I don't agree with them, and tbh it may well be different now.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    edited October 2022

    Sunak slashes Labour's lead with YouGov from 37% to 28%.



    [Sunak] trailed Starmer by 34 to 30 when voters were asked who would make the best prime minister, with 33 per cent saying they were not sure.

    After the implosion of her mini-budget, Truss had trailed Starmer by 42-13 on the same measure.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-pm-rishi-sunak-gets-polls-bounce-h9hxl7rss

    Best PM ratings point to a hung parliament with Labour as largest party at the next election, IMHO.
    I dunno about that. I try to avoid false Labour optimism, but this poll IS the Sunak bounce, taken at a time of peak coverage, generally favourable, with Starmer largely out of the news. Clearly he's less unpopular than Truss, but the 28-point deficit and continuing lack of confidence in Sunak's handling of the economy or (by a huge margin) the NHS suggests that much of the electorate has provisionally decided not to vote Tory. Naturally that could change in two years, but it's not a promising start.
    He has two really good assets - the baseline comparisons with Boris and especially Truss should work in his favour particularly with professional Tory voters who have been appalled at where the Tory party have gone to. The bar is set very low.

    The other advantage is he nullifies a lot of Starmers boring but efficient game plan, by (potentially) being boring but efficient himself.

    The downsides are bigger though, the Tory party hates itself and is divided. Berry is already creating havoc as payback for removing Truss. And worst of all, the numbers simply don't add up and any potential solution breaks a red line.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    🔺EXC: An independent Scotland will be denied entry to the EU unless Nicola Sturgeon commits to joining the euro, senior figures in Brussels have insisted

    A clear message per four separate sources, crystallised by one: "No euro, no membership"


    https://twitter.com/kieranpandrews/status/1585377295392735232

    If people are really keen to join the EU, is it really definite they would not pay that price?
    I really don't understand the logic that says they should give up rule from London (which I think they would be right to do) and replace it with rule from Brussels.

    Why does an independent Scotland need to tie itself to the EU? Join EFTA and the EEA and they get all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
    Well, the EU wouldn’t declare war on Scotland’s behalf or decide which Unions we could leave or remain in or decide how we utilise our resources.
    There would be the tyranny of collective standards on vacuum cleaners of course; that would be a cross which we would just have to bear.
    OR the EU could summon Holyrood to submit its budget to the Bundestag FIRST, before it goes before Scottish MSPs, as happened to the Irish. Or the EU Commission could simply depose your elected leader and inflict someone of their choosing, as happened to Italy and Greece. That kinda shit

    And Italy is a LOT bigger and more important than little ol Scotland
    And just to reiterate the point upthread, there would also be the requirement to join the Euro, in contradiction to the idea that Scotland could maintain a separate currency of its choosing.

    All this has quite a lot of implications for the wording of any future referendum. "Should Scotland be an independent country" can't be answered with "Yes" if leaving the UK is predicated on joining the EU. "Should Scots continue to live in an independent country" would be a more accurate question, with a "Yes" vote meaning that Scotland would stay in the UK.

    But it's also worth noting that the English national curriculum for GCSE requires pupils to understand that answers of "Yes" and "No" should be avoided in questionnaires (and by implication referenda) because "Yes" was a leading answer that biased results in its favour.

    So a more rigorous and less ambiguous wording would just leave out any reference to "independence" and avoid the bias of Yes/No answers. Maybe something like "Should Scotland remain in or leave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?", with answers of "Remain in the UK" and "Leave the UK". A question of that sort would be less likely to deliver Sturgeon the answer she craves, a point which seemed to elude David Cameron back in 2014, when the UK government rolled over like patsies and the SNP got the question they wanted.

    It's not really about independence.

    It's about Scotland choosing a different governance model that allows them to think they can stiff England.
    It’s all about England. How could it not be? The planet revolves around your arses.

    Australian independence was about Australia choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    Irish independence was about Ireland choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    American independence was about the USA choosing a different governance model that allowed them to think they could stiff England.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom

    Independence is normal. Get over yourself.
    Ah, so you agree with me.

    Thanks!

    Rishi needs to be careful with the EU.

    They'll probably take saying he's ready to do a deal over the NI protocol as a sign of weakness and take concessions off the table as a result - try and push him.

    He needs to be very clear: no means no. A good deal yes, on terms that work for the UK.

    You've got to play hardball with these ideological bureaucrats.

    Cos that's worked really well to date.
    It has actually.

    They were ready to do a deal under Truss, and had finally made some concessions with red/green channels.

    I don't want any backsliding on that.
    Truss had backed away from playing hardball. She’d switched to playing softball. So if her strategy was working, that disproves your earlier contention.

    No she hadn't the hardball got to the deal.

    You've got to understand: you need to stand up hard and firm to these buggers.
  • IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Lol! Zahawi’s explanation for Braverman coming back so soon is that “politics nowadays moves at breakneck speed”!

    Tbf Nads knows of what he speaks.


    At the beginning of the interview, Rajan congratulated him on his appointment to Minister without portfolio (tbh you could hear the slight smile as he did), and Zahawi's snort of contempt was audible. He clearly feels hard done by and perhaps doesn't fully appreciate the extent to which he's made a tit of himself.
    The weird, deformed thing that is now the Conservative party has only two modes, no real appreciation of the tits they've made of themselves or it's someone else's fault that they made tits of themselves.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.
    Can you give an example of what is currently grounds for asylum that you would exclude from a new definition?

    Also, what sort of evidence would you expect someone to be able to provide?
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    mwadams said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    The real issue, I think, is being unable to define "the problem".

    There are two ways of looking at "the problem", as I see it:

    Way of looking 1: understanding, monitoring, costing, and managing overall immigration into this country from all sources, while trying to shut down the illegal and unsafe routes that fund organized crime.
    Way of looking 2: stop foreigners from coming and taking our jobs, housing, healthcare, benefits etc

    The problem is that (whether or not you agree with the reality behind it) I don't think you *can* address the problem in 2, because it so hard to measure, and includes a lot of things that people who are otherwise minded to support the view, when pushed, are forced to agree that we *should* be doing to deliver a growing economy.

    The headline issue of the truly desperate coming in boats is, as you say, such a small percentage of the problem (whether 1 or 2) that finding a solution is disproportionately expensive ("we could have paid for 'n' nurses on that waste of money") - not least because the level of desperation required to do something so dangerous means that most deterrents simply do not deter.
    Let's not overstate the danger, it is a slight variation on what thousands of people do regularly for fun. Compared to say a bus journey in mountainous rural India it's a doddle.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    Pupils should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural Afro styles at school, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says in new guidance today.

    Uniform and appearance policies that ban certain hairstyles, without the possibility for exceptions to be made on racial grounds, are likely to be unlawful.

    Race is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, which means a person must not be discriminated against because of their hair or hairstyle if it is associated with their race or ethnicity.



    https://tinyurl.com/2munshfp


    Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
    Yes and no. What about long hair for white boys? Pony tails?

    Personally I would say anything goes for hair, but you must wear the school uniform (whatever that is).
    With hair, just enjoy it while you have it.

    *sighs*
    Amen to that. My mental image of my appearance is not consistent with that presented by the mirror on the wall. One of us is wrong,
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Here's the problem: at various times in the past century there have been whole decades where the entire population of Russia, China, Cambodia etc bar a few 100,000 nomenklatura would have had a cast iron case for asylum elsewhere, including here. The honest answer is: sorry guys, shit happens, we overreacted to our failure to accommodate a few thousand Germans in the 1930s and did the whole Asylum thing. Best we forget it and you stay at home and defeat your oppressors from inside the system.

    That’s a start. But only halfway there

    If they are refused, where do you deport them? Given that they have destroyed their documents?

    Again, the only humane solution is one of deterrence. Rwanda
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    pm215 said:

    ~How does processing asylum claims quickly help if the scope for claiming asylum is insanely broad?

    We'd just be compelled to admit a lot of people very quickly.

    It's not like the people in Calais look at the length of the queue for processing when deciding whether to set out or not -- how long it takes us to handle any given application does not affect the number of people arriving. What shorter processing times would do is reduce the period when we support the applicants (NHS, schooling, housing assistance) but don't permit them to work, which should cost us less and be better for successful applicants (who can get on with their lives sooner). It probably also gives less time for people who know their claim is unlikely to succeed to quietly vanish.
    Yes, I think it helps at the margins - but it's not a serious solution to the problem itself.

    Which requires a rewrite of the rules and conventions.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,220
    edited October 2022

    nico679 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister, has toned down his zeal for the speedy axing of EU legislation, amid warnings that such an exercise could tie up hundreds of civil servants at a time of national crisis.

    Sunak promised in August, during his first bid for the Conservative leadership, that he would create a new “Brexit delivery unit”, a pledge illustrated by a video of an official shredding EU laws to the strains of “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem.

    But Sunak’s aides admitted on Wednesday that the new unit would not be created. “The time for changes in the machinery of government has passed,” said one ally.

    https://www.ft.com/content/ec7142e5-6798-4a2b-901a-b3d583fea2b2

    Welcome to big-government managerial declinism, accompanied by the failure to take advantage of the regulatory freedoms afforded by leaving the EU. Worst of all worlds.
    It’s not that easy to just get rid of a bunch of laws overnight . And hardly a vote winner to tell workers you’re going to lose some of your protections. Anyway just file this under politician says something to try and get elected and then dumps it ! Pretty much everything promised by Vote Leave has never seen the light of day .

    Some in the ERG have spent four decades fighting for Brexit and still had established no consensus on where it should lead. When Jacob Rees-Mogg was challenged on the benefits of our new regulatory freedoms, he could suggest only that emergency exit signs could be moved slightly closer together (and it turns out that would have been legal anyway).
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1540247376866295809

    This is like Trussanomics, a decade-old set of slogans masquerading as a plan, never seriously examined, that is suddenly pulled off the shelf to become government dogma. Corbynite foreign policy was much the same.
    Another example of Orwell's "The War has to exist, so it would be a disaster if it were ever won" theory.

    (Actually, the same is true for Trussonomics and Corbynism. In each case, they ask questions that should be asked, if only to keep the political mainstream on their toes. But once they made it into power, they turned out pretty shambolic pretty quickly.)
  • Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    “the solution is to process asylum claims promptly”

    They all dump their documents. There is no way of sorting them “promptly” that does not involve simply accepting their claims to asylum. Your proposal therefore = “let them all in quickly”. Thus inviting millions more

    You are a cretin
    Take a hair sample and DNA it.

    You can probably get down to which Albanian town they came from. Can also check if they have close relatives on the police database. Have a working assumption that anybody who has thrown all their papers away is not a legitimate asylum seeker. Anyone who has some (non-forged) papers to show where the have come from has the assumption reversed - they are legitimate asylum seekers.

    The assumed not legitimate asylum seekers should be treated in a way that shows how much contempt we hold them in for debasing the asylum system. Put them in basic wooden shacks on the Isle of Sheppey. Really bad English food. A TV in each shack, only showing the Parliament channel. No opportunity for working. No books to read. No radios. A really dull, dull, dull life looking out over Kent mudflats.

    Give Nigel Farage the job of overseeing these shacks. He'd relish making their life awful. Plenty of visits by Nigel Farage should ensure that.

    And a big red buzzer to press, to say you want to go back home please. It will get plenty of use after a visit by the Kommandant.
    *MM rocks up in Tirana and demands access to the rozzer database, DNA records, and so on ...*
    Perhaps sporting a solar topee and a swagger stick..

    'I say, you there'
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,568
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    “The Home Affairs Committee was told that "one to two percent" of the entire male population of Albania - around 10,000 men - arrived on small boats this year alone”

    https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1585362210523648009?s=46&t=MR0RvTp-dCr-GHWMb65iDw

    This is actually an exaggeration. It’s 1-2% of YOUNGER Albanian males. But it gives a scale

    And this is why Rwanda will work. These are not asylum seekers from Sudan or Syria. They are European men gaming the system. Offer them a 5% chance that their game will end in central Africa and they will stop coming

    Surely simply deport them back to Albania?
    Then they simply repeat the process of trying to get back to the UK.
    If they claim asylum then it's not easy to quickly deport them and they just disappear into the Deliveroo economy. There was an article in the Guardian (I think) recently about a couple of stupid arseholes who didn't claim asylum and they found themselves on Jet2 back to Mother Theresa International in Tirana very quickly. When they do get deported they get a Schengen Zone ban which makes a second attempt much more expensive and difficult.
    Then, the rules for claiming asylum need to be tightened so its more than just "because I say so".

    It's a massive gaping loophole.
    The solution is to process asylum claims promptly, but that doesn’t happen any more because the Government starved the process of money, preferring instead its “Potemkin” policy (as per Ishmael) of Rwanda. As with the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives are more interested in how things look than in actually solving a problem.

    “the solution is to process asylum claims promptly”

    They all dump their documents. There is no way of sorting them “promptly” that does not involve simply accepting their claims to asylum. Your proposal therefore = “let them all in quickly”. Thus inviting millions more

    You are a cretin
    Take a hair sample and DNA it.

    You can probably get down to which Albanian town they came from. Can also check if they have close relatives on the police database. Have a working assumption that anybody who has thrown all their papers away is not a legitimate asylum seeker. Anyone who has some (non-forged) papers to show where the have come from has the assumption reversed - they are legitimate asylum seekers.

    The assumed not legitimate asylum seekers should be treated in a way that shows how much contempt we hold them in for debasing the asylum system. Put them in basic wooden shacks on the Isle of Sheppey. Really bad English food. A TV in each shack, only showing the Parliament channel. No opportunity for working. No books to read. No radios. A really dull, dull, dull life looking out over Kent mudflats.

    Give Nigel Farage the job of overseeing these shacks. He'd relish making their life awful. Plenty of visits by Nigel Farage should ensure that.

    And a big red buzzer to press, to say you want to go back home please. It will get plenty of use after a visit by the Kommandant.
    *MM rocks up in Tirana and demands access to the rozzer database, DNA records, and so on ...*
    The UK database, you idiot. (Although no doubt someone in Tirana would flog it you for a grand.....)
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Here's the problem: at various times in the past century there have been whole decades where the entire population of Russia, China, Cambodia etc bar a few 100,000 nomenklatura would have had a cast iron case for asylum elsewhere, including here. The honest answer is: sorry guys, shit happens, we overreacted to our failure to accommodate a few thousand Germans in the 1930s and did the whole Asylum thing. Best we forget it and you stay at home and defeat your oppressors from inside the system.

    Then, as we've just done for Ukraine, we make exceptions on a case-by-case basis to respond to the realpolitik.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,457
    Leon said:

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Leon said:

    We are so pathetic we have allowed 10,000 Albanian men to just sail the Channel and ‘claim asylum’, from a European country. This is desperate and pitiful

    It also laughs hard in the face of the many many thousands of people who spend years and money trying to claim citizenship - legally. Fuck it. Just cross the Channel and dump your passport. Sorted. The French will wave you on your way. Why take the legal route?

    This scandal is only going to get bigger until a government gets tough

    On top of everything there's the @rcs1000 point that these guys are only 5-10% of the problem anyway, the rest being legal enterers/overstayers. So you could spend an awful lot tackling the problem, and not actually tackle the problem.
    Which is basically an excuse to ignore the problem.
    The combined libertariat will contrive to ignore the problem, for fear of appearing BNP-ish - out of some bizarre social status anxiety - until it gets so bad the only solution is drastic and deeply painful

    It is quite reminiscent of the EU issue in British politics. Indeed there may be an underlying law at work which might furnish a Gazette article
    Yep, exactly this.
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