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 Da Boss wrote:
What baffles me is how little work the UK seems to be doing to get ready for these disruptions to trade.

Not at all baffling if you live here sadly. It doesn't matter what disruptions there will be, it doesn't matter how much it will cost -

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/18/each-brexit-scenario-will-leave-britain-worse-off-study-finds

It doesn't matter if food and energy supplies are threatened, it doesn't matter that every foreigner hating gak bag now feels they have government approval for whatever foulness the want to spout, it doesn't matter that the government are trying every which way to grab as much power as they can, from parliament, the regions, anywhere they can take it from, with as little oversight as possible, with the papers accusing anyone from private individuals to the High Court bench of being TRAITORS if they try and get in the way, and it certainly doesn't matter that it deflects from all the actual problems the poorest in out country face .... it will all be worth it, because Union Jack and blue passports.

"sovereignty" has nothing to do with it. That was just the sop sold to the electorate to allow the Rees-Moggs and de Pfeffel Johnstones and the Murdochs to orchestrate their right-wing coup. It's so much easier these days - no need to go to all that tedious effort of actually shooting people in the streets.

Bright side?

We may very well be seeing the Tory party as we know it in it's death throes.

As I've said before, they've utterly failed to pass the buck on Brexit, and the last General Election result was everything they didn't want. Either win big, or lose was their ideal.

Win Big, and you can force through whatever you wish. Lose? Oh well, it's all Labour's fault actually - all of it. Even the decision to call the referendum. That was them that was....

But now, they've done themselves out of a scapegoat. They allowed their right wing rag masters to drum up anti-EU sentiments via outright lies. They called the referendum. They then lied through their teeth throughout, leading to the Leave outcome. And now? Now they're stuck with it.

They've flipped, they've flopped. They've promised we'll get all we want or more - and then acquiesced entirely to the EU's demands - either because our demands were patently ludicrous (membership but not membership, all the perks, none of the fees twaddle), or through incompetent negotiating.

Much as I want to see Jeremy Corbyn become PM, now is not the time. Now is the time to bear down on that leather strap, and take the pain. Because watching the Tories sign their own political death warrant, and that of neo-liberalism in the UK is absolutely worth it.

Everything they've done, can be undone. Everything they've undone, can be re-done.

All we need is for them to take an absolute kicking in the forthcoming council elections, and lose some 'safe' seats - but for May to do what she does and refuse to vacate the job she wants, but doesn't actually want to do. She wants the title, not the responsibility. Same when she was Home Secretary if you look at her record....

Hot take of the week :

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/esther-mcvey-rape-survivors-benefits-access-dwp-talk-sex-attack-universal-credit-a8307301.html

Forcing rape survivors to recount their ordeal in order to access benefits will give them an “opportunity to talk”, the work and pensions secretary has said.

Esther McVey claimed women who have a child as a result of rape would be helped by being made to speak to a charity worker or health professional because it means they could receive “double support”.


She replied: “What we're doing is providing extra help where people have got more children that they couldn’t have planned, and we're providing that extra support.

“This could give them an opportunity to talk about something that's happened that maybe they've never had before, so it is potentially double support there: them getting the money they need and maybe [also] an outlet which they might possibly need."

Ms McVey said the policy was evidence of the “extra support the government has put in place for people who didn’t or weren’t able to make decisions over how many children they've had”, adding: “They have indeed got extra children, so more support will be put there and we've said we'll make allowances in those instances."

One appreciates that , if we are apparently limiting tax credits/similar to 2 children only with exceptions for A/B/C etc then there will have to be some burden of proof to show A/B/C is indeed true.

But I'm not sure this is quite the way to go about it -- and the reaction of the various 3rd parties suggests this further.

..I'm not really sure one could describe this as being indicative of " extra support" in order to help people.

Perhaps we could go further and suggest that being homeless is a great way to get out and meet people, or that being interviewed by the police could also act as a form of therapy.
Dying is a great way to both save money and help pass something onto one's family whilst also losing weight and really cutting back on ones carbon footprint.






https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/cambridge-analytica-chief-refuses-appear-12379775

The CEO of data firm Cambridge Analytica has refused to appear before MPs for questioning on his firm's use of personal data harvested from Facebook .

He was ordered to face questions from Parliament's 'fake news' inquiry for a second time tomorrow, after MPs grew concerned about "inconsistencies" in his previous evidence.


It follows allegations his firm harvested personal data from some 87 million Facebook profiles, which were analysed to help clients win elections.

Committee chair Damian Collins is considering whether to issue a formal summons for him to appear.

A spokeswoman for the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee said Mr Nix is "refusing" to appear before the committee's public session on Wednesday April 18, as he had been scheduled to, citing an ongoing investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

..surely he should be seeing this as the Govt. providing "extra support" for him in these troubling times.

... this of course comes after Wetherspoons recently announced they'll be closing and deleting all their social media.

... one wonders if, maybe, the owner of wetherspoons -- who campaigned for brexit and donated £200K odd and so forth -- might be feeling a it jumpy.

http://metro.co.uk/2018/04/17/whats-really-going-on-behind-wetherspoons-deleting-twitter-7473728/


.... I wonder who -- if anyone -- saw the emailling list, facebook and twiiter data and so forth of those who followed the brand.

 Da Boss wrote:
What baffles me is how little work the UK seems to be doing to get ready for these disruptions to trade.

Partially because no-one has any idea what disruptions there will be. Our negotiating team still don't seem to know what they want, and give the impression that they think there will be no disruption.

The public on the Leave side seem pretty adamant there will be no disruption either, because "they need us more", or something.

We'll figure it out once the details are on the table. It's not going to be pretty.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

The issue is well covered in Laura Kuennsberg's piece on the subject.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43804308

That was an interesting article, thank you.

Although unfortunately, it seem events would appear to have overtaken it. Corbyn threw down dialogue of a similar vein to the article above today in Parliament, which turned into him shooting himself in the foot. From the BBC feed and article:

Jeremy Corbyn says "all the evidence suggests" that it was her government's policy of "a really hostile environment for immigrants" and it was her government which introduced the 2014 Immigration Act.

He adds that Parliament needs "absolute clarity" on the destruction of the landing cards.... Corbyn said "vital historical records" were shredded and suggested the PM was trying to "blame officials", suggesting Theresa May's government had shown itself "callous and incompetent".

May then turned around and snarkily informed him that 'the decision to destroy the landing cards' was actually in fact taken in 2009 and overseen by the Labour Government. Which killed that one stone dead.

I mean. Ouch. She must have been sitting on that little tidbit for days, waiting for him to say something along those lines. She might not be able to run an election worth a damn, but she laid that one out and he walked right into it.

There are various reasons for the lack of preparation.

The key one is that the government has done nothing to help anyone make any preparations, and they haven't given any realistic idea of the end state that people need to prepare for.

This means whatever you do to prepare is likely to be wrong and an expensive waste of effort.

The mitigating factor is that whatever finally is decided, except for a car crash Brexit on 29th March, there will be about two years of transition during which everyone can prepare.

It's too late to prepare for a car crash Brexit anyway.

 Ketara wrote:


He adds that Parliament needs "absolute clarity" on the destruction of the landing cards.... Corbyn said "vital historical records" were shredded and suggested the PM was trying to "blame officials", suggesting Theresa May's government had shown itself "callous and incompetent".

May then turned around and snarkily informed him that 'the decision to destroy the landing cards' was actually in fact taken in 2009 and overseen by the Labour Government. Which killed that one stone dead.

I mean. Ouch. She must have been sitting on that little tidbit for days, waiting for him to say something along those lines. She might not be able to run an election worth a damn, but she laid that one out and he walked right into it.

 Whirlwind wrote:
It was the decision of the Home Office during Tory years to destroy the records. Knowing that they had done this they proceeded to change the law to allow them to be deported. Corbyn was right, again, the Tories lied, again.

Errr......hate to burst your bubble, but that latest update actually shows that both sides are talking rubbish, not that 'Corbyn was right' or that 'The Tories lied'. They're all slinging mud and trying to blame each other, when really, it's sod all to do with any of them for the most part.

The time line is thus:-

-Landing cards were filled in when the immigrants got here. They were stored in a basement for a number of decades.
-In 2009, a bunch of managers in the Border Agency got together and filed a business case for disposing of old records to save cash. It was approved.
-This was then enacted over the following year, with these specific landing card records binned in late 2010 because nobody involved in the weeding thought them important.
-Nobody bothered to tell May afterwards; because some decades old docket slips being shredded by an intern called Jules two hours a week every Friday afternoon last year isn't exactly the kind of update you forward to the Home Secretary.

So yes. The decision was taken under the Labour Government (which is what May said) in 2009. But it had nothing to do with them. The records were physically disposed of in 2010, under the Tory Government. But none of the Tories were down in the basement doing the weeding.

So Corbyn blathering on the incompetency of the government in destroying the files is just as much pointless misleading muckraking as May trying to palm it off on Labour. It had sweet sod all to do with either party in reality, and it's just a political football. Speaking as someone who spends more time than they'd like buried in the National Archives, weeding of this nature is a routine occurrence with government files. My initial assessment of 'crap like this happens in big organisations' would appear to have been right on the money.

 Ketara wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
It was the decision of the Home Office during Tory years to destroy the records. Knowing that they had done this they proceeded to change the law to allow them to be deported. Corbyn was right, again, the Tories lied, again.

Errr......hate to burst your bubble, but that latest update actually shows that both sides are talking rubbish.

No Corbyn was right.

As there seems to be a lack of understanding what a business case is I'll expand. In summary it puts forward a proposal which in this case was likely to save money. It is a broad principle document that looks at the pro's and con's of a certain choice. It makes an assessment of how much saving is likely to be achieved given different scenarios. It is unlikely they knew exactly what was down in the basement at the time and it is not for the business case to find out. So for example it might give examples of if we cleared 25% of the space it would save £X, 50% it would save £Y and so forth. They would then make an assessment on what is the likely scenario and what the risks to this were. One of these could be "There is more confidential information we need to keep than we expect, that will lower our savings as we need to keep these.". What it does not do is specify in detail what should be disposed of, that is not the purpose of the business case. It may indicate that items that need to kept should be scanned for example. The business case is there to provide sign off that the activity can commence under the conditions of the business case. If all the documents identified did not meet the criteria then the business case would have also been to keep them. The business case is there to instigate the project and determine it's boundaries, nothing more.

Now today in PMQ categorically state that " “the decision to destroy the landing cards was taken in 2009 under a Labour government”.

Which is a lie. There was no decision in the Business Case to destroy landing cards undertaken. No. 10 stated later " The position is as follows, and this is from the Home Office: in June 2009, the business case was approved by UKBA to dispose of the paper records. That work started in December 2009." The business case to dispose of paper records does not mean landing cards should be destroyed. Subsequently we have:-

"“In October 2010, the operational decision was taken in relation to the specific registry slips themselves. The Prime Minister was not involved in this process, this was an operational decision taken by UKBA.”

Although noting at the time TM was not Prime Minister so there is a potential double meaning in this sentence. However giving the benefit of the doubt to TM then UKBA decided to destroy these, but this would have been under the Tory government.

Hence May's comment in parliament is a lie. She misled MPs by stating that it was under a Labour government that made that decision. What the decision that was made was to destroy paper records (noting scanning them would have achieved that as well) likely for savings as it costs a fortune to heat/air condition paper.

It was definitely under the Tory government however that the decision was made to actually destroy the specific landing cards. It would have been quite easy to say "These fall outside the scope of the Business Case" and not action the destruction of those items.

However this is semantics when compared to the fact that, having known they destroyed this information they then proceeded to implement legislation to allow them to easier kick these people out because they would no longer have these records available to them.

Theresa May is a liar, and by the looks of things also a bigot and a racist.

I don't think May is a bigot and a racist. However, it was May who warned the Tories they had the reputation of being the "nasty party". May hasn't done anything to shed that, since her tenure as Home Secretary and PM fully covers the period of introducing the "hostile" climate for immigrants.

OTOH it must be admitted that the Tories were responding to the wave of anti-immigration opinion spawned by their supporters and UKIP.

At this point, the fact the 2/3rds of the UK public see the Labour Party as anti-semitic speaks volumes about the health of the body politic.

Jesus H Christ.

Did you actually just waste twenty minutes of your life making a multi-paragraph argument that deciding to destroy a batch of documents in 2009 and physically doing it in 2010 is technically different to a statement saying that 'the decision to destroy specific document X was taken in 2009'? Because it's a general decision as opposed to specifically naming the documents to be binned?

I mean, for real?



Mate, if you make a decision to throw a big ass ring binder with Documents A, B, and C in the rubbish in 2009, but don't get around to it until 2010; I don't think most people would call me out for being inaccurate if I said in 2018, 'Yeah, Whirlwind decided to throw document A out back in 2009'. Let alone go on a foaming at the mouth rant dubbing me a 'a liar, and by the looks of things also a bigot and a racist.'

Jesus. There's partisanship, and then there's just abso-bloody-lutely ridiculous.

 Ketara wrote:
Jesus H Christ.

Did you actually just waste twenty minutes of your life making a multi-paragraph argument that deciding to destroy a batch of documents in 2009 and physically doing it in 2010 is technically different to a statement saying that 'the decision to destroy specific document X was taken in 2009'? Because it's a general decision as opposed to specifically naming the documents to be binned?

I mean, for real?

Yes it is for real. And that's because you don't understand the difference between a business case and the action. As I've pointed out before a business case is about initiating the project what it's remit is and what the boundaries are and what the end points are. To reiterate again as I obviously wasn't clear - it is not about the decision as to what to dispose of in detail. That is not it's role. There's a huge difference in actuality even if from the uninitiated it just seems like that they are saying the same thing. To bring it into a simpler context its a a bit like saying "Lets make a cook book where all the recipes includes vegetables". It doesn't tell you which ones to include or exclude just what the boundaries are (there must be a hundred recipies and each must have a vegetable in). If a year later someone decides to destroy any spouts that are suggested to be used then that is a separate specific decision, however it's not a business case decision.

However then turning round and saying the initial idea is to destroy any brussels intended to be used in a recipe is because of the business case is a lie. Just as May did today in Parliament.

Also apparently I type a lot quicker than you do...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't think May is a bigot and a racist. However, it was May who warned the Tories they had the reputation of being the "nasty party". May hasn't done anything to shed that, since her tenure as Home Secretary and PM fully covers the period of introducing the "hostile" climate for immigrants.

OTOH it must be admitted that the Tories were responding to the wave of anti-immigration opinion spawned by their supporters and UKIP.

That in my mind makes you a bigot and a racist. If you really disagreed with the policy then you wouldn't implement it. There is too much suggestive information that infers may actively perpetrated trying to get rid of anyone that is not white, not Christian and/or not British.

 Whirlwind wrote:

Yes it is for real. And that's because you don't understand the difference between a business case and the action.

'Yes, I am doing what you're asking if I'm doing. But you clearly can't understand it (even if you're outlining it for me to agree with), or you'd grasp why I have to make this distinction. Let me explain it a second time...'

No, I get it. I'm just incredulous at the lengths you've gone to here to split an ultra-fine hair in order to make a political attack. You might find it difficult to come to terms with the idea someone comprehends you but still marvels at the lengths of obsessive nitpicking some people will go to, yet there you are....

You could feed a family for a week with Whirlwind's word spaghetti.

 Whirlwind wrote:


No Corbyn was right.

*snip*

.

I work in government, this is typical of the sort of response you get when you ask *and I have to go because I think someone's house just blew up, bbl*

edit: ok, back, was just two trucks colliding outside.


Anyway, this is more or less standard political snow being blown.

Nitpicking about the time of the decision to bin the landing cards versus the time it was done, ignores the larger issue, which is the "hostile immigration environment" which the Tory government built from 2010 onwards.

As I understand it, the business case was a general "we should get rid of the paper in the basement because it costs a fortune to maintain and part of that included digitizing it. That was proposed under Labour.

The actual details of the destruction; what records would go, and the decision not to bother digitizing them, was done under the Tories and coincides with May (home secretaries) hostile government policy. The law change with this in mind was also done under the Tories and May.

So whilst May is technically right if you saying hard enough; destroying the paper copies was their idea. The blame still lies with the Tories for doing it in a hostile way


Automatically Appended Next Post:
He's splitting hairs here because the details are important

..from Nick Timothy's column

( former chief of staff to May , advised her in/with regards to the election)




I'm not really sure that claiming that May was unable to control her own department is quite the defense he was trying for.

.. which one could argue is largely emblematic of his entire career with regards to May no ?

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/986725387584528384

"There were some who saw it, I shan't name them, as almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the way it's working" - former head of the civil service @SirBobKerslake on the hostile environment policy"

uh huh.

Meanwhile today Gove stated on the radio that GB has "the most liberal attitude towards non-EU immigration in the EU"...

.. given things like the number of refugees Germany took in, the number of Syrian refugees we actually took in and the current debacle with the windrush generation is a bold claim indeed.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/18/mother-of-windrush-citizen-blames-passport-problems-for-his-death?CMP=share_btn_tw

Dexter Bristol, who was 57 when he died, moved from Grenada to the UK when he was eight in 1968, to join his mother who was working as an NHS nurse, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He was sacked from his cleaning job last year because he had no passport, and was denied benefits because officials did not believe he was in the country legally.

He spent the last year of life trying to untangle his immigration situation, repeatedly attempting and failing to get the Home Office to acknowledge that he was not an illegal immigrant. Until he was sacked, he had no idea there was any problem with his immigration status.


He was born a British subject in Grenada, but had never been able to get a British passport, and struggled to gather the extensive documentation required by officials to prove that he was not an overstayer. On 31 March he collapsed in the street outside his home and died. Ahead of an upcoming inquest, the cause of death is unknown

don't get much more liberal than that eh ?

and best of all :

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/uk-refused-to-raid-lycamobile-citing-its-tory-donations?utm_term=.kvR677oJDv#.ljBjEEbJ7y

The British government refused to assist a French investigation into suspected money laundering and tax fraud by the UK telecoms giant Lycamobile – citing the fact that the company is the “biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party” and gives money to a trust founded by Prince Charles.

French prosecutors launched a major probe into the firm and arrested 19 people accused of using its accounts to launder money from organised criminal networks two years ago, after BuzzFeed News revealed its suspicious financial activities in the UK. But the Conservatives continued taking Lycamobile’s money – and it can now be revealed that the British authorities stonewalled a formal request from French prosecutors to carry out raids in London as part of the ongoing investigation.

Confidential correspondence between British government officials and their French counterparts, shown to BuzzFeed News by a source in the UK, reveals that the French wanted British authorities to raid Lycamobile’s London headquarters last year and seize evidence as part of their investigation into money laundering and tax fraud by the company.

In an official response dated 30 March 2017, a government official noted that Lycamobile is “a large multinational company” with “vast assets at their disposal” and would be “extremely unlikely to agree to having their premises searched”.

The letter, from the team at HMRC that handles law enforcement requests from foreign governments, continued: “It is of note that they are the biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party led by Prime Minister Theresa May and donated 1.25m Euros to the Prince Charles Trust in 2012.”

The HMRC response went on to say that Lycamobile would be likely to challenge any raids on its properties in court and may succeed because the French request did not contain enough “solid information”. The request stalled, and Lycamobile’s UK offices were never searched.

uh huh.

I'm sure it's perfectly normal behaviour for multinational companies to deposit money in person, in cash carried in back packs, in various post offices across the city.

Herzlos wrote:
As I understand it, the business case was a general "we should get rid of the paper in the basement because it costs a fortune to maintain and part of that included digitizing it. That was proposed under Labour.

The actual details of the destruction; what records would go, and the decision not to bother digitizing them, was done under the Tories and coincides with May (home secretaries) hostile government policy. The law change with this in mind was also done under the Tories and May.

So whilst May is technically right if you saying hard enough; destroying the paper copies was their idea. The blame still lies with the Tories for doing it in a hostile way


Automatically Appended Next Post:
He's splitting hairs here because the details are important

The thing is, he's splitting hairs that don't even necessarily exist, he's making huge assumptions to even reach that stage. I'll elaborate, because sometimes you gents here in OT like to hear historical stuff.

I know the details of a number of government documents weedings going from the 1880's up to the 1990's, from the WO papers, the SUPP papers, the T/TS papers, the ADM papers, the FO papers, and so on. I quite literally handle these things directly, it's my historical bread and butter. I'm going in to the NA immediately after finishing writing this to try and track down the titles of some destroyed files (because that's sometimes possible with a lot of tiresome work if you know the right correspondence register).

In all my time and reading on the matter, I've never seen two document weedings handled in exactly the same way. The 'business case' can consist of an outstation writing in to say 'Hey, we've got a basement full of supply documents, can we chuck them?' with no further details or discussions beyond one senior management bod going 'Yeah sure, don't think they'll be of use to anyone' (a profound irritation when they would have been). Other times, they'll go into great detail about what there is straight off the bat, and try and figure out if they should be donating them to a museum or keeping them for reference purposes. Other times still they'll go into huge details through the course of the weed itself without a 'business case' beyond 'ditch stuff we don't want anyone seeing' (usually called a targeted weed) where loads gets referred back to higher ups and it's overseen by one. The point I'm making is that there's considerable irregularity at that stage of the game, and to even call it a 'business case' is laughable for a large number of them, including more modern decisions.

That's without even going into the truly vast number of decisions made on the basis whereby they don't even know what the documents they're holding were for. State departments hold gigantic amounts of paperwork. You get a lot of cases where departments have moved location, archivists have begun refiling under different headings but left halfway through without anyone else knowing their system, etcetc. It takes historians literally years to dig through these things file by file, busy managers under pressure to get work done don't usually have the staff to commit to spending years cataloguing.

So even on what's on the 'operational' level here, more likely than not for some weird looking dockets forty years old? I would actually bet money that one bloke will have taken one look at an item or two at either end to see where the run began and left off, realised he knew nothing about the dockets, made a snap assessment that they didn't seem important and just shredded the lot. That's the procedure more often than it isn't. I wasn't really joking about an intern called Jules doing it for two hours every Friday afternoon over a year. It's vastly frustrating the simple lack of interest taken in document weeds in most cases, and the amount of valuable material destroyed.

There was one case literally a few years back where a guy doing a weed at the MOD actually sent a friend of mine at the NMM the ship plans for a type of nuclear submarine. Full schematics of the reactor and everything, proper top secret stuff. They'd been chucking out documents to make room, and rather than bin them, some gent (a bit of a naval enthusiast) thought they'd be better suited going to a happier place. Thing is, upper brass would never have sanctioned binning that kind of material in the first place, but the vagueness with which most weeds are undertaken (aka, clear that room over there) meant that it happened anyway.

My friend notified the MOD entertainingly enough and had the secret service turn up to collect them the next day! I have another similar story involving files regarding a closed down mental institute dated about ten years ago. That's without going into the cases I know from last century.

The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that trying to split hairs over what decision was taken where and when in disposing of state files is utterly pointless speculation if you weren't involved in that specific weed. Trying to sling insults at political figures based off that speculation is a bigger jump still. It's just the way things work, and it sucks that these people got caught in the middle of one. They weren't the first, and they won't be the last. But it isn't really anyone's fault in that way, politician, senior civil servant, or anyone. It's....just how things work in a world of less than infinite administrative resources.

Another conclusion to be drawn is that it's ironic that a major department of government can be so slack about its paperwork and simultaneously expect some chap who came to the UK in 1968 when he was 6 years old to have kept four items of official documentation for every year from then until the present day, to satisfy immigration rules that weren't even created until 2012.

Oh aye. That too.

 Ketara wrote:

The thing is, he's splitting hairs that don't even necessarily exist, he's making huge assumptions to even reach that stage. I'll elaborate, because sometimes you gents here in OT like to hear historical stuff.

I think your explanation just confirms our point - the decision on what to destroy without archiving was done by whoever did the destruction, not whoever proposed it.
Maybe May wasn't aware of it, but I'd have thought it the files were accessed regularly, and they were advised against, people further up the tree would have some awareness.

May's Home Office still insisted on impossible records from those whose only records were destroyed by the home office, though.

Errrr....I literally stated that these things are done on an as hoc case by case basis. Maybe it was. Maybe it was a targeted weed and the docket numbers were predetermined by series in 2009. Maybe nobody took a specific decision at all as regards things. No way to know, is the point.

Herzlos wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

The thing is, he's splitting hairs that don't even necessarily exist, he's making huge assumptions to even reach that stage. I'll elaborate, because sometimes you gents here in OT like to hear historical stuff.

I think your explanation just confirms our point - the decision on what to destroy without archiving was done by whoever did the destruction, not whoever proposed it.
Maybe May wasn't aware of it, but I'd have thought it the files were accessed regularly, and they were advised against, people further up the tree would have some awareness.

May's Home Office still insisted on impossible records from those whose only records were destroyed by the home office, though.

I doubt any sort of elected Politician had any knowledge of the decision, much less involvement. Kilkrazy is right, this is a petty, trivial argument that only distracts from the wider issue.

You are right too however, that it was very hypocritical of the Government to demand documentation from immigrants when those documents had been destroyed.

Anyone catch the load gumph that vile Toad Gove came out with?

Apparently, Brexit has made the UK the most immigration friendly country in the EU.

Which is funny, because I thought his entire campaign was a xenophobic shriek fest designed to prey upon the 'us v them' mentality carefully culture over a few decades by Das Daily Heil, with the promise of being able to stop anyone coming in.

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really hate that man.

He's just chasing political opinion, doing (clumsy) damage control. I pay gakkers like him no more heed than Johnson.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Anyone catch the load gumph that vile Toad Gove came out with?

Apparently, Brexit has made the UK the most immigration friendly country in the EU.

Which is funny, because I thought his entire campaign was a xenophobic shriek fest designed to prey upon the 'us v them' mentality carefully culture over a few decades by Das Daily Heil, with the promise of being able to stop anyone coming in.

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really hate that man.

I don't agree with all your sentiments or tone of voice in expressing them, however, it seems to me a logical backflip for Gove to say that a campaign based on excluding foreigners makes the country more foreigner friendly when successfully completed.

I think Gove based his comments on some set of opinion polling stats that says the UK is now the country with the fewest people who say they would be worried if a foreigner moved in next door to them.

This might be because the xenophobes among us have been reassured by the prospect of Brexit meaning that far fewer foreigners will be moving in next door, so they aren't worried.

It's an odd world we live in!

This was mentioned in the spectator recently. The theory basically goes that people are more open to immigration when it’s precieved to be controlled. That they feel more relaxed about the immigrants they see when it’s believed that they had to pass some sort of test to be here, rather than simply coming in unhindered.

You mean it's not numbers but quality that matters.

That certainly would chime with the Nigel Farage "rivers of brown" poster which was so influential during the referendum campaign.