Here in Ghana people are stunned by the announcement that a bond of £3,000 will have to be submitted by visa applicants to the UK, redeemable on return.
It is unpleasant for a nation to be singled out as comprised of particularly untrustworthy individuals against whom special measures are needed. Theresa May appears quite deliberately to be singling out countries whose citizens are normally black or brown – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria. They are all citizens with extremely close ties to the UK. For example, all of those countries supplied large numbers of men to British armed forces in two World Wars; with little resulting gratitude.
The true level of Britain’s regard for the Commonwealth is disclosed in all its arrogance; citizenship of the Commonwealth countries with the longest link to the UK will become a positive disadvantage in visa application. Israeli settlers living in Occupied Palestine on the West Bank, incidentally, will still be allowed to enter the UK without any visa at all, despite membership of neither Commonwealth nor EU. Paradoxical, isn’t it?
The measure shows the arrogant British disdain for these countries – of which India pre-eminently but also Ghana are fast growing and important trading partners. Undoubtedly Ghana will retaliate with measures which hurt British businesses; many of my good friends are senior Ghanaian politicians, and they are all furious. The rhetoric the British employ about transformation from colonial status to a modern partnership of equals is exposed for the tissue of lies it has always been. This is a straightforward racist measure, aimed at securing the racist vote to the Tories.
Not does it make any sense. If you are intending to enter the UK under false pretences, and have the intent illegally to settle and start a new life there, then £3,000 is scarcely a deterrent given the substantial economic gains you intend to make over the long period you intend to stay. It will rather seem a good investment; people will find the money. The people it will deter are those who never intended to overstay. The extra cash upfront, to the businessman for a business trip, for the student coming to study, for the tourist will drive them to go elsewhere, to the UK’s net loss.
More cruelly it will deter decent middle class people from coming to see grandchildren in the holidays, from going to the niece’s wedding, from going to graduation. Those things will become the prerogative of the wealthy, those with plenty of cash to spare.
This does nothing to deter illegal immigration. It merely demonstrates populist racism, demonstrates contempt for some of the UK’s best-disposed friends, and demonstrates that the government thinks the right to travel is only for the rich. It is contemptible.
So is Habba a “Yorkshire Methodist” or a “good catholic boy (or girl)”, as he tells us, or just another hasbarista khazar shill posting from a free apartment in the WB, and paid via Hillarys annual $400m CIA internet budget. They MUST have a dedicated agent assigned to this influential blog, Jon? He may even be a retired dual loyalty Spurs supporter like Lady Porter, trolling with the trannies on Tel Aviv beach for all we know !
@hasbarista
“So is Habba a “Yorkshire Methodist” or a “good catholic boy (or girl)”, as he tells us, or just another hasbarista khazar shill posting from a free apartment in the WB, and paid via Hillarys annual $400m CIA internet budget?”
No hes just a barnacle on the ship of humanity.
Israel’s GDP per capita in 2011 was $31,005: Ghana’s was $402. Is it that hard to work out which country’s visitors might decide the economic grass is greener and decide to stay on?
Habba you say.
“But I must say I’m still doubtful. Disinformation and false claims are perhaps not a monopoly of the evil West or the satanic Israelis; perhaps the wily Arab is also a practicioner of these dark arts.“
Even your doubts are social constructs.
Simpliciy and avoidamce aren’t.
“NHS budget for this year is £109 billion.
ANNUAL cost of wars in Afghanistan etc is nowhere near £20 bn although the total spent since 2002 is closer to £40 bn. “Military Subsidies”; figure a guess, plucked from thin air.”
_________
A thank you to Kempe for these figures. It would be interesting also to have the figures for annual UK spending on pensions and on social security as compared to that on defence.
Special delivery.
Do not even think of parking there. By royal decree.
http://news.sky.com/story/1109911/kates-royal-baby-parking-ban-outside-hospital
~~
Grandpa-to-be was in the news last week.
Prince Charles aide to be quizzed by MPs over Duchy of Cornwall tax affairs
Private secretary to defend tax status of estate from which prince received record personal income of £19m last year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/28/prince-charles-duchy-of-cornwall-tax-status
Charles’s £35,000 choo choo drain
He blows a fortune on Royal Train trip
htp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4989122/Charless-35000-choo-choo-drain.html
Sorry it’s a Sun link.
Austerity? What austerity?
@ Jay
“Even your doubts are social constructs.”
____________
Even if that were so, would it matter? It might explain why I have the doubts, but would it invalidate them?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4989122/Charless-35000-choo-choo-drain.html
There are many links to anti-royal pieces on that page. I thought the Australian ex-pat Murdoch (now a US citizen) liked the royals. Perhaps he’s miffed because he has never been given one of those honorary gongs.
@ Exexpat
““So is Habba a “Yorkshire Methodist” or a “good catholic boy (or girl)”, as he tells us, or just another hasbarista khazar shill posting from a free apartment in the WB, and paid via Hillarys annual $400m CIA internet budget?”
No hes just a barnacle on the ship of humanity”
_________________
If so, get scraping 🙂
(Advice for those seeking a career in barnacle-scraping : use a hard tool and not a feather duster)
What is a better and more useful concept?
A greenhouse or The whitehouse;
@ Technicolour :
“The background truth is that, all around the world, young people ( I think younger than the people on this blog) are rising up in horror, backed by large numbers of everyone else, of whatever age. It doesn’t matter where they live: the issues of environmental pollution, corporate control, totalitarian spying, threats of violence, evidence of murder and torture, are the same.”
_____________
That is an eloquent general exposition of what young people might
be demonstrating (etc) about.
But to come back to the (sort of) subject : is it unreasonable to think that most of the signers of the petition against President Morsi are somewhat less exercised by these than by economic conditions in Egypt?
Basic state pension costs £80 bn per year with another £12 bn for Winter Fuel Allowance and Pension Credits. Benefits: JSA, Disabilty Allowance, Income Support etc is another £20 bn. Add that to the NHS bill and we have £221 bn spent on welfare of one sort or another.
That’s a lot of aircraft carriers and enough to replace Trident ten times over.
According to this:
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2011UKbn_12bc1n_30#ukgs302
UK defence spending for 2011 was £45.7 Bn.
According to this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10359548
Professor Malcolm Chalmers, a defence analyst for the Royal United Services Institute, said about 30% of the UK’s defence budget* went on operations in Afghanistan.
and yet –
In March, former Chancellor Alistair Darling said he had set aside £4bn of the 2010-11 Treasury reserve for military operations in Afghanistan.
Something doesn’t quite add up. So I guess we can take the usual unsubstantiated assertion by the usual suspect as being gospel truth, rather than asking any questions of our own.
*Maybe he meant the military defence (sic) budget: £33.0Bn. Of which 30% would be, errr…£9.9Bn.
“I thought the Australian ex-pat Murdoch (now a US citizen) liked the royals. Perhaps he’s miffed because he has never been given one of those honorary gongs.”
After the phone hacking scandal he must know he’s never going to get one either so any way he can get back at the British establishment he will. A bit sad really.
And now, for the last one of the morning, back to the subject of this thread (sorry about that).
Alan Campbell’s two posts have great merit and are persuasive. As I pointed out at the near-beginning of this thread (oh! it seems so long ago..), it is likely that the choice of the first six countries to whose nationals the proposed bond scheme will be applied has been based on evidence and/or a careful risk-assessment. There are several fairly obvious push and pull factors to explain this first choice identification of high risk countries wrt over-stayers : the difference in economic conditions, traditional links between those countries and the UK, the ease with which visitors can ‘disappear’ (linked to the absence of identity cards), the existence of large communities of those nationals in the UK, language and so on and so on.
Advocates of “devil take the hindmost” privatised healthcare will find food for thought here.
“Why More Equal Societies
Almost Always Do Better.”
Richard Wilkinson, Ph.D. &
Kate Pickett, Ph.D.
Based on thirty years’ research, they demonstrate that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them ‐ the well‐off as well as the poor.
pdf here: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/wilkinson-and-pickett-poster.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2sSXjS-nqUULV-eBk4CqmCRvLsow&oi=scholarr
……………
@Villager.
I checked out Mr Krisnamurti and found, as I had half expected, a wonderful man. More Buddha than Sai Baba.
“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Maybe in thoughts like these lies the olive branch we need?
Truly thankful for the school masterly care from our perfect couple, spiritually balanced by all that rots within.
ding ding dong, dindongdongding goes the wind chime.
“Is there a collective noun for trolls?”
I believe it is a distraction of trolls.
By flicking it’s tongue out of it’s mouth, the Komodo Dragon is able to “taste” scent particles in the air to locate both live and dead prey up to 8km away.
Hence the insight.
@ Komodo
I have the feeling you don’t know what the Treasury reserve is. To help you: it is a reserve. To be drawn on if annual estimates for any given expenditure area are or are likely to be exceeded.
For those advocating free medical care for people who can afford to holiday in Europe, what have you to say for those who do not have the wherewithal to make the journey? Where is the compassion and clever soultions to their healthcare plight? Out of sight, out of mind huh?
Kibo:
‘Maybe in thoughts like these lies the olive branch we need?’
Agreed. I was trying to say the same thing earlier. To the effect of ‘be a light unto one’s self’. If we actually each did that we would change the content of human consciousness and find ourselves/humanity/the world in a better place. Its an inward process, while being aware of whats going on outside.
Atm, we are going through a phase which is more a focus on the outside — seeing the same ‘narrative’ play out, signing petitions enjoining protests etc etc while their there is no real attention to the inside. So conflict continues.
Good you checked out K. I think he was one of the greatest ‘thinkers’ of the last century, if not to ever have walked the earth. As you say, more like the Buddha than all the fake gurus. In fact he has gone a step further by ensuring there is no ‘ism formed around his teachings so that we can all figure things out for ourselves in Freedom. Which is the only way it works. While we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, given that he figured everything out, we still need to absolutely understand what he says for ourselves and not merely at an intellectual level. Hence our understanding must come from our inner ear, at our deepest level of being and become part of one’s dan so to speak. Then we can call it our own — that is real understanding. And the actions that spring from that are completely different in their effect of changing the world and moving it and our lot in a positive direction.
Enjoy the journey!
Kibo: dan = dna
Of course it is, troll. What you said. It appears under “other spending”, in 2012 and is in addition to the military budget, I assume, until you provide supported evidence otherwise, rather than merely pontificating. But that wasn’t the point, was it?. Annual spending in Afghanistan is ~£10 Bn, Ten years ago (on the “33%” basis, it was ~£7Bn. It has been over £10 Bn annually since 2007. So the total decade spend is significantly higher than you assert. Without a source, as usual. Just blustering.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2012UKbn_12bc1n_30#ukgs302
-and follow the links-
The fact that HMG needs to set aside 40%-worth of contingency cash IN ADDITION to this indicates that the true cost is probably being concealed elsewhere.
Memo to self, must be more careful about including supplementary info in quoted material. Hubba only does one concept at a time.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2012UKbn_12bc1n_30#ukgs302
For information
‘I’ve got a little list
He never will be missed…..
Lord High Executioner – The Mikado – Sir William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honorary_British_knights_and_dames
I believe Bratton whom May and Camerom lined up to run the Met was given a gong. Yes. Just checked. A CBE. Amazing that our Evil EmPyre extends to New York and to all the countries in the first list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Bratton
Portrait of a vulture.
New trade minister Ian Livingston’s £20m of BT shares ‘a conflict of interest’
David Cameron criticised over handling of telecom boss’s appointment
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-trade-minister-ian-livingstons-20m-of-bt-sharesa-conflict-of-interest-8680618.html
Good to be reminded of how ‘privatisation’ would usher in competition a la Thatcher.
I bet no GPO or Post Office Telephones, as it was, senior executive gathered a fraction of this carrion seeking bird. Disgusting – our nation’s carcase being picked clean to be carried to havens abroad.
PS You might remember the BT ads with Maureen Lipman and the ‘…ologies’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEfKEzX9QLE
and the privatisation ad campaign
http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/?service=asset&action=show_preview&asset=42170
And what of Cameron’s visit to lovable teddy bear Nazarbayev?
It’s all part of a pattern. Not only has the aforementioned soft toy thing hired Blair – for millions – to advise him on how to tickle the West’s tits, but also :
It’s not just Blair but some of his closest confidents who are working in Kazakhstan: Alastair Campbell has been spotted by the FT flying back from the capital Astana, Jonathan Powell (appropriately the author of a book on Machiavelli) is also apparently involved. Former BAE systems Chair Sir Richard Evans is now Chairman of the state enterprise Samruk, worth a staggering £50 billion that in turn has hired Lord Mandelson for speeches.
Cosy, innit?
Forget the pantomime villains, like deceased murderer Kim Jong-Il, the majority of despots are not household names – for a reason. Well paid lobbyists tempt journalists over to write puff pieces on the burgeoning tourism trade. Or outfits like the European Azerbaijan Society use MPs like Mark Field or Mike Gapes to help promote the country’s interests with little reference to human rights violations. Any association, however tangential with our politicians, is hugely symbolic for authoritarian regimes in helping them legitimise their rule within their countries. That Blair is involved is deeply depressing, and should be of concern.
Labour is having a tough time rebuilding its foreign policy. Tony Blair’s legacy should be anchoring the party as social democratic and internationalist to the core. Instead, Blair is making the case for his detractors – that his foreign policy was guided by self-interest. As one senior member of Blair’s government told me, “towards the end Tony just got too enthralled by wealth”. Since his deal in Astana, it’s a hard case to argue against.
Mind you, that Cameron is involved is pretty nauseating too, but it is the Telegraph, after all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9102135/Why-is-Tony-Blair-lending-credibility-to-Kazakhstans-dictator.html
Factual error earlier, sorry. I commented that Cameron had visited Kazakhstan last year, but my reference was in fact to a telephone conversation between Cameron and Nazarbayev then. The BBC is at some pains to emphasise that this is the first visit to Kazakhstan by a serving PM. Only just. Blair got in there pdq after relinquishing his role.
An oath should fix everything, so the MPs maintain:
Policing ‘Hippocratic Oath’ will fix bent coppers, MPs hope
It is evident that at long last, there is the realization that bent coppers are a serious and major challenge, and they ought to be tackled, hence the oath (an expensive enquiry, hours of cops investigating cops, the money spent on their trials, what would public think if they found out about the levels of corruption and its extent) would just do fine, if it is associated with Hippocrates.
This measure solves two problems: cures the bent coppers and guides them to the righteous path, also undermines the bald, hairy, toga wearing Greek do gooder’s reputation, and thus paves the Way for the Drs and Surgeons to see the light and stop being so hung up on code of ethics and all that nonsense. The health professionals ought to start thinking on the economics of the health business. What is good for corporates is good for the nation.
Although curios as to when are they going to auction off the Police to some privateer in the name of transparency and economic progress? Just think of it, the shareholders could also be the criminals who are raking in enormous funds through their criminal activities. Although there are those who would point out; banksters have not been showing any interest in buying up the Police, it has been only the Murdoch “editors” who had a preference for a private Police force.
4,000 ‘bent coppers’
Although the article has lots of tertiary “offences” but also points to more substantive crimes such as; “drug peddling”, “intent to supply arms and munitions” (the farmers ought to have moved on from shotguns, and require machine guns), Perverting course of justice”???, “drink driving”, “theft”.
Certainly it should be understood; all of these criminal activities would cease once the police recruits start swearing their Hippocratic oath. A clear example of why our esteemed politicians need a ten thousands pounds rise in their salary (the what’sit said so, and not the MPs remember), for their wise guidance and counsel , and making our lives a much more miserable experience.