Mark J

Why do you say that, did you read it? It seemed like an honest piece of writing to me. " Asylum is a related but different issue. The Observer today reports that Home Office staff are being recruited to decide asylum cases in the UK who have no relevant experience and have come straight from working in supermarkets or cafes, being empowered to decide cases after three days of training. The report confirms that the grade of such staff has been reduced to Executive Officer, again to save money over using more senior staff. The UK does not receive disproportionate numbers of asylum applications. Asylum applications per head of UK population are just half the level of the EU average. This from a UK parliamentary library briefing: In 2020, 72% of all asylum applications were accepted as genuine at first decision by the Home Office. About one third of the remaining 28% were accepted on appeal. So 81% of all asylum applications are ultimately judged genuine. The Patel/Braverman line that most are “economic migrants” is a plain lie. The mass arrival of Albanian citizens by boat is a relatively new phenomenon. I am sceptical that the numbers are as large as being put out. It seems to me wildly improbable that 2% of the adult male population of Albania is crossing the Channel in small boats. But it is worth noting that over 40% of Albanian asylum applications are accepted as genuine at first decision by the Home Office. The shameful painting of all Albanians as criminal is plain wrong. Let me again upset some of my “own side” by saying that the Home Office is so denuded of well paid, expert staff that the bad decisions are not all one way. There are horrible instances of refugees being returned to torture and death after a bad asylum decision. But equally, there are bad decisions the other way, with frauds and criminals also gaining asylum. The government simply refuses to pay for the degree of knowledge and expertise to make good decisions. I represented (without fee) a number of asylum applications at Immigration Appeals Tribunals – and never lost a case. The reason that so many appeals succeed is that the tribunals are before a real judge, and the Home Office officers have an embarrassing lack of basic knowledge and expertise, often depending for country information on publications or – very frequently – denials of human rights abuse by the particular despotism in question. It just does not cut ice with a judge."

Rampant Deprofessionalisation WWW.CRAIGMURRAY.ORG.UK It is not controversial to say that the UK’s immigration system is utterly broken. The reason is very plain but seldom noted – decades of cuts in which the cheapness of the system is...

I didn't say I hated them, I just think that they're utterly pointless and completely out of touch with reality, much like many of their fans. Why do you like them so much?

Only if they're actively seeking work.

That's an often used but rarely verified statistic. The French make loads of tourist money from their palaces despite having no royals - 7 million visitors a year at 12 euro a ticket soon adds up. Keep the palaces for something, like tourism for example and get rid of the scroungers who live in them.

Try as I might, I just can't get over how backwards a monarchy is, they do nothing of purpose and cost a fortune, we should send them back to Germany.

I'd have taken France up on their suggestion in 2021 that we should be allowed to process asylum claims from within France itself. What would your solution be?

That doesn't look like Rwanda to me.

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-03-08/crane-follows-man-for-a-year-after-he-heals-its-broken-leg-with-mustard

I see loads of dead sea birds when out fishing, I reckon avian flu has the capacity to turn a bit naughty.

Perhaps they'd have asked better questions if they were privy to the communications of the Cabinet Office at the time. What do you think they should do better when the next pandemic comes along?

They keyword thing was more prevalent in days prior to digital communications and it still goes on. Encrypted messages on all platforms are likely to be stored, when they encryption key is revealed so are the messages. I agree that political figures' communications should be made public, I also think that their financial affairs should be in the public domain.

If 'the powers that be' wanted to they could access the phone records of anyone of us at any given time, I suppose that they just don't want to.

Blair and Starmer can hardly be called left-wing can they? It does seem that politicians are fond of a lie, which is a shameful state of affairs in my opinion.

Dave, how many more times do you want to ignore the fact that the opposition are just that, opposition, they had no real say in what went on.

Tories don't tend to admit they got things wrong.

You need to find out whether you're on clay soil or not; trees can be troublesome in clay soils when in close proximity to structures.

Therese Coffey filmed smoking turnips | The Daily Mash WWW.THEDAILYMASH.CO.UK THERESE Coffey has been secretly filmed shredding and smoking turnips for what she claims is the ultimate British high.

It came across that your were bitter about the fact you can't strike and that you seem to know how to fix the NHS.

Perhaps you should talk with your feet and work in the NHS instead.

I disagree, it's not all down to greed (money), it's down to having the necessary resources to do the job properly; the people I know who work in the NHS do it because they genuinely want to help people, they've all got degrees and could likely get a better paid job in a similar or even dissimilar field if they wanted to. It seems odd to me that nobody employs people who can do your job in your sector on a full-time basis, but I know very little about offshore gas/oil exploration. I've been on the books for a firm for six months now and it's because it's a business that functions, in a few months I'll probably go back to being self employed as I prefer the freedom self-employment allows me.

I agree that the NHS needs a shakeup. People are already losing their lives due to the state of the NHS, that's not going to get better without a significant improvement in things. Thankfully the last time I was in A&E was last year when I managed to skewer my calf on a tree, that was an 8hr wait but to be fair it was a Saturday and it was only an accident, not an emergency. I wouldn't say that unions are 'enjoying' this, I think it's shite that the majority of NHS staff round here support the strikes so there has to be something fundamentally wrong. If you'd like to be able to strike then perhaps you should go on the books and take advantage of all the *cough* advantages...

It does seem extreme but the odds are you'll die in an ambulance before you even make it to A&E, if you even get an ambulance... Strikes are supposed to be disruptive, hopefully this will get them better pay and conditions, it wasn't that long ago that people were writing murals on the streets in support of our NHS.