Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse if human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and day they will do something about it. It's not personal.
I can recall when Michael Howard was roundly condemned for "over turning the law" on immigration.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
Who was in the right?
And we're in the same situation now, an elected politician is changing the law to make life more difficult for those lawyers the public loves to hate. This special pleading is them protecting their business model from a government with a large majority and wide public support to reform the immigration system and make it much easier to deport criminals, overstayers and failed asylum seekers.
There's not a lot else to it, the righteous indignation from Cyclefree is unwarranted. No one should be free from criticism, in the height of the financial crisis politicians were happy to criticise bankers at every opportunity. I'm sure the bankers felt as though they were also being unfairly targeted.
Two other examples, I can think of
- A large amount of effort was put into making large fraud trials impossible - by developing legal precedent and theory. At one stage, a few years back, it was basically impossible to get a conviction, provided the criminals were moderately clever and employed suitably skill representation. International frauds were engineered so that the UK would be prosecuting country, if any, to take advantage of this.
- A great deal of work was put into making the evidence of criminals against each other hard to use for prosecutions. This had the interesting result, in the mainland UK, that police used such information to ambush gangs of armed robbers at their targets.. since prosecuting their intent based on super grass testimony wouldn't work. This, perhaps ironically, led to the rapid extinction of armed robbery as a major* crime in the UK. In NI this led similar behaviour, directed against PIRA, largely.
Without the situation described in your first paragraph Private Eye would have to do a great deal more digging in other directions. TBH, I'm not sure whether it is not still basically impossible .......
I suppose, in a sense it's a disadvantage which stems from Adversarial procedures, as opposed to Inquisitorial ones. However, IANAL, so I'm willing to be told I've misunderstood something.
(1) Those who want to come to the UK and with the means to pay people smugglers aim to do so (2) This tends to be (80%+) men in their 20s & 30s from middle income countries, particularly Iran and Iraq (3) This is because it costs thousands of pounds (sometimes into five figures) to get here (4) Some are legitimate claimants, but many are not (5) The illegitimate ones know they need to fit the criteria, and need a story accordingly (6) They often destroy their travel documents if this might contradict it - and learn a new backstory instead (7) They know they mustn't claim asylum in any other Western country first, or they will be sent back there (8) That once they cross 50% of the way across the channel they'll be able to lodge a British claim (9) That the UK really struggles to deport failed asylum seekers; the process can take years with multiple appeal routes available (10) They know that once settled they may be able to exercise the "right to family life" to bring over immediate dependents - and can communicate their success back to those still at home too
I could add an (11) which is that there are millions of far poorer vulnerable women and children around the world who desperately need refuge, somewhere, who never get a look in.
This is what people object to - they know the system is open to abuse. Many are taking the piss. Moreover, they see a community of activists, charities and law firms conspiring to spring any and all deportees from planes using any grounds whatsoever at the last minute. When challenged, they don't address any of the above and merely call for more "safe routes" which, if applied worldwide, would potentially result in millions of claimants - just look at how broad the eligibility criteria are.
It's clear we need something fairer, that distinguishes genuine claimants from those looking to economically migrate, protects and priorities the most vulnerable, that balances those coming to the UK v. those being hosted in temporary camps closer to their homes (yes, there is a cap of how many we'd democratically accept), and that challenges vile regimes to change. We can't help everyone - and we must choose.
Activists and the law firms that work with them will start to get a fair hearing when they start to talk about real solutions rather than accusing those who criticise them as having base motives, or worse.
Comedy is one of the things that's kept me sane in 2020.
Lots of stand-up shows now on Youtube and Netflix, and comedians - especially in the US - being very creative in finding ways to keep us amused and earn some money while most of the comedy clubs are still closed, from podcasts to Cameo, selling T-shirts and making short online skits.
Good morning all. Last night I asserted that R has been above 1 since the pubs opened, and some PBers questioned this claim. I didn't have a chance to respond, as I wanted to go to bed!
So, looking at the "Cases by Specimen Date" data, the 7-day average reached a minimum on 1st July, and has been rising since then. Now doesn't that coincide with the reopening of pubs?
What do you recommend?
A complete closure unless and until we get a vaccine?
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
At the tail end of R4's Today this am there was a discussion of a reassessment of Nelson, no doubt soon to be another skirmish in the culture war. The director of the Greenwich Museums tended to the view that the abolition of slavery was more a pragmatic economic decision (to Britain's benefit) re-framed as a moral crusade by those 'great propagandists' the Victorians.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
At the tail end of R4's Today this am there was a discussion of a reassessment of Nelson, no doubt soon to be another skirmish in the culture war. The director of the Greenwich Museums tended to the view that the abolition of slavery was more a pragmatic economic decision (to Britain's benefit) re-framed as a moral crusade by those 'great propagandists' the Victorians.
Language is important and no-one should either be or feel threatened. However, the existing asylum system is widely abused and full of loopholes. Far too many in the legal profession seem sanguine about this and are as quick to defend themselves as they are criticise those in the general public who object to this.
So, at present, it's ending up as a plague on both your houses. As with so many issues around asylum/immigration there is no real sensible conversation going on.
The government could, you know, do their job and close the loopholes?
They could do that without attacking anyone. It's just not necessary.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
At the tail end of R4's Today this am there was a discussion of a reassessment of Nelson, no doubt soon to be another skirmish in the culture war. The director of the Greenwich Museums tended to the view that the abolition of slavery was more a pragmatic economic decision (to Britain's benefit) re-framed as a moral crusade by those 'great propagandists' the Victorians.
The "right" will attack "activist lawyers" for exploiting loopholes for human rights purposes whilst simultaneously supporting corporations for exploiting tax loopholes, claiming that if people want them to pay tax, they need to change the tax system.
Like it or not, there's an awful lot of change in society happened in a short space of time this year. A lot of the trends, such as home working, are not going to go back to their previous state once the pandemic is over.
There's going to be huge numbers of people made unemployed who won't ever be able to find a job in their current industry again. There's also a lot of people currently sitting idle on one scheme or another, who could be using this time to learn something different.
Good morning all. Last night I asserted that R has been above 1 since the pubs opened, and some PBers questioned this claim. I didn't have a chance to respond, as I wanted to go to bed!
So, looking at the "Cases by Specimen Date" data, the 7-day average reached a minimum on 1st July, and has been rising since then. Now doesn't that coincide with the reopening of pubs?
What do you recommend?
A complete closure unless and until we get a vaccine?
- Rapid, cheap, ubiquitous testing, concentrated on high-dispersal situations (where super-spreading could be possible) would be the biggest single factor - Sticking with a simple set of restrictions and policing them properly - Supporting sectors that are unavoidably badly hit (pubs, clubs, cinemas, airlines, etc) in order to preserve them for when we can use them fully again and to enable them to continue operating under stringent restrictions
This very much suggests we are shutting down entire regions, and ruining their economies, to defend the health of kids who will never get sick
No it does not. That is a significant rise in the orange graph and the escalating case numbers in hospital are not kids.
If the orange graph was a flat line you'd be right. It isn't.
And it would also need for students to be all-but-immune to the virus, as well.
People have segued straight from “less likely to get so ill they’d need hospital treatment and far more likely to recover if they do, but can end up with long-term issues” to “it does nothing to them.”
Is it a case of really wanting that to be true? Because I can fully understand that - my second daughter is a first year student right now. But wanting it to be true doesn’t change that most students who catch it get ill and some less lucky ones will end up in hospital, and quite a few will have issues lasting a long time.
Looking at the regional admissions figures, it does look as if it breaks through to an older population in time, following on from the students.
Why do we think there was no stand out epidemic amongst students first time around?
How about this. First time round university students were in the middle of their (final) term (of the year). There wasn't necessarily a route for significant base infection of the population, and at the end of the year many students are spending their time in established social groups.
Second time around thousands of students descended on the campuses from all over the country - some with high areas of infection and some not. In the first weeks there is widespread mixing in large groups as students get to meet their new compatriots in student domitories and on courses. This is some of the most cramped and overcrowded accommodation in the country. There was nothing to resist the spread.
And... first time around there was zero testing. So it may well have been all over campuses and the question is based on a false premise.
The last is probably the main reason. As students on the whole did not need hospitalisation, they never featured as positive cases in the way they are now. Its striking how many are asymptomatic (at point of test, where mass testing has occurred). Of course some may develop symptoms, but many may not, and would not know they had had it if not for the test.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
At the tail end of R4's Today this am there was a discussion of a reassessment of Nelson, no doubt soon to be another skirmish in the culture war. The director of the Greenwich Museums tended to the view that the abolition of slavery was more a pragmatic economic decision (to Britain's benefit) re-framed as a moral crusade by those 'great propagandists' the Victorians.
Going to be b*&&%r taking that statue down!
They managed it in Dublin in an albeit dramatic fashion. They should have kept the column and stuck someone else at the top of it. Oscar Wilde would have been my choice. Instead it was eventually replaced with a monstrosity called the Dublin Spire.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
At the tail end of R4's Today this am there was a discussion of a reassessment of Nelson, no doubt soon to be another skirmish in the culture war. The director of the Greenwich Museums tended to the view that the abolition of slavery was more a pragmatic economic decision (to Britain's benefit) re-framed as a moral crusade by those 'great propagandists' the Victorians.
Once you include the 6% for Traditional Unionist Voice though Unionists will still have more Assembly seats than Nationalists as Stormont uses STV not FPTP, overall the Unionist vote is on 41% and the Nationalist vote on 37% with the Alliance on 16%
If you add alliance and SDLP to the SF alphabet soup, you are over the 50% for the Nationalists. Now I accept that is a more than spurious statement, but then so is yours.
What an absurd statement, only 30% of Alliance voters back a united Ireland compared to 70% who support the Union.
The DUP, UUP and TUV are the main Protestant Unionist parties in NI however and SF and the SDLP the main Catholic Nationalist parties, the Alliance is non sectarian and has both Catholic and Protestant voters but most of its vote comes from soft Unionists ie its current Westminster seat is North Down which was held by Lady Hermon until 2019 who was first elected as an Ulster Unionist.
Comments
I suppose, in a sense it's a disadvantage which stems from Adversarial procedures, as opposed to Inquisitorial ones.
However, IANAL, so I'm willing to be told I've misunderstood something.
We know what happens is the following:
(1) Those who want to come to the UK and with the means to pay people smugglers aim to do so
(2) This tends to be (80%+) men in their 20s & 30s from middle income countries, particularly Iran and Iraq
(3) This is because it costs thousands of pounds (sometimes into five figures) to get here
(4) Some are legitimate claimants, but many are not
(5) The illegitimate ones know they need to fit the criteria, and need a story accordingly
(6) They often destroy their travel documents if this might contradict it - and learn a new backstory instead
(7) They know they mustn't claim asylum in any other Western country first, or they will be sent back there
(8) That once they cross 50% of the way across the channel they'll be able to lodge a British claim
(9) That the UK really struggles to deport failed asylum seekers; the process can take years with multiple appeal routes available
(10) They know that once settled they may be able to exercise the "right to family life" to bring over immediate dependents - and can communicate their success back to those still at home too
I could add an (11) which is that there are millions of far poorer vulnerable women and children around the world who desperately need refuge, somewhere, who never get a look in.
This is what people object to - they know the system is open to abuse. Many are taking the piss. Moreover, they see a community of activists, charities and law firms conspiring to spring any and all deportees from planes using any grounds whatsoever at the last minute. When challenged, they don't address any of the above and merely call for more "safe routes" which, if applied worldwide, would potentially result in millions of claimants - just look at how broad the eligibility criteria are.
It's clear we need something fairer, that distinguishes genuine claimants from those looking to economically migrate, protects and priorities the most vulnerable, that balances those coming to the UK v. those being hosted in temporary camps closer to their homes (yes, there is a cap of how many we'd democratically accept), and that challenges vile regimes to change. We can't help everyone - and we must choose.
Activists and the law firms that work with them will start to get a fair hearing when they start to talk about real solutions rather than accusing those who criticise them as having base motives, or worse.
Comedy is one of the things that's kept me sane in 2020.
Lots of stand-up shows now on Youtube and Netflix, and comedians - especially in the US - being very creative in finding ways to keep us amused and earn some money while most of the comedy clubs are still closed, from podcasts to Cameo, selling T-shirts and making short online skits.
A complete closure unless and until we get a vaccine?
I would also direct this question to @Andy_Cooke
If you try Five Thirty Eight, you'll get these on the day they appear rather than 24 hours later.
Useful for betting purposes.
https://twitter.com/ladyhaja/status/1315570650195648513?s=20
They could do that without attacking anyone. It's just not necessary.
☢️ Hypocrisy alert. Hypocrisy alert. ☢️
There's going to be huge numbers of people made unemployed who won't ever be able to find a job in their current industry again. There's also a lot of people currently sitting idle on one scheme or another, who could be using this time to learn something different.
- Rapid, cheap, ubiquitous testing, concentrated on high-dispersal situations (where super-spreading could be possible) would be the biggest single factor
- Sticking with a simple set of restrictions and policing them properly
- Supporting sectors that are unavoidably badly hit (pubs, clubs, cinemas, airlines, etc) in order to preserve them for when we can use them fully again and to enable them to continue operating under stringent restrictions