Charlton Life is full of bright, intelligent, engaged Lifers, and this forum affords a huge array of topics. From football to films, music to mental health, holidays to horse racing and politics to Pot Noodle. So, while there are threads that concentrate on some areas of political life, there is not yet one on the biggest scandal to hit the UK, namely the WIndrush scandal.
So with apologies to those for whom "another" political thread is too much (and, to those people, as well as apologies, I will offer the suggestion, that you don't open this thread and, instead look at any of the others), this is a thread, posted for selfish reasons, on the debacle of the Windrush scandal. Why "selfish"? Because I want to understand the issue better - I have posted this thread in order to understand a few questions that are completely baffling me right now. Those questions are:
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get?
...and, sadly, the one that's worrying me the most...
4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
Most of us are lucky enough to live in the greatest country on Earth, of course. But this scandal impacts each and every one of us. It's so all-encompassing and dangerous that it can be summed up in a simple sentence. "The government is selecting some British citizens to persecute, terrorise, incarcerate and threaten with deportation". There are lots of questions that need answering and I can't answer them. Can any Lifers help out?
I never get involved in these kind of threads, but......@Chizz, for someone who is just trying to seek understanding, your OP is massively loaded against the current government. The road to understanding might be best travelled when starting from a more neutral position.
Pretend that you have only read the questions. @Davo55 .
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get? 4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
Charlton Life is full of bright, intelligent, engaged Lifers, and this forum affords a huge array of topics. From football to films, music to mental health, holidays to horse racing and politics to Pot Noodle. So, while there are threads that concentrate on some areas of political life, there is not yet one on the biggest scandal to hit the UK, namely the WIndrush scandal.
So with apologies to those for whom "another" political thread is too much (and, to those people, as well as apologies, I will offer the suggestion, that you don't open this thread and, instead look at any of the others), this is a thread, posted for selfish reasons, on the debacle of the Windrush scandal. Why "selfish"? Because I want to understand the issue better - I have posted this thread in order to understand a few questions that are completely baffling me right now. Those questions are:
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get?
...and, sadly, the one that's worrying me the most...
4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
Most of us are lucky enough to live in the greatest country on Earth, of course. But this scandal impacts each and every one of us. It's so all-encompassing and dangerous that it can be summed up in a simple sentence. "The government is selecting some British citizens to persecute, terrorise, incarcerate and threaten with deportation". There are lots of questions that need answering and I can't answer them. Can any Lifers help out?
I never get involved in these kind of threads, but......@Chizz, for someone who is just trying to seek understanding, your OP is massively loaded against the current government. The road to understanding might be best travelled when starting from a more neutral position.
Pretend that you have only read the questions. @Davo55 .
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get? 4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
What are your answers?
I have views which I'm not going to share on here. As I said, I don't participate in these kinds of threads - but just pointing out that your claim to simply seeking understanding doesn't stack with an OP which goes straight into attack mode. Take it or leave it.
Because the boarding cards were disposed of in 2009 - nothing to do with May or Rudd.
You mean "posted without thinking". The boarding cards were disposed of after Theresa May was appointed as Home Secretary. The whole scandal does not hinge on the destruction of the boarding cards (however, that was a terrible decision and should not have been enacted).
Charlton Life is full of bright, intelligent, engaged Lifers, and this forum affords a huge array of topics. From football to films, music to mental health, holidays to horse racing and politics to Pot Noodle. So, while there are threads that concentrate on some areas of political life, there is not yet one on the biggest scandal to hit the UK, namely the WIndrush scandal.
So with apologies to those for whom "another" political thread is too much (and, to those people, as well as apologies, I will offer the suggestion, that you don't open this thread and, instead look at any of the others), this is a thread, posted for selfish reasons, on the debacle of the Windrush scandal. Why "selfish"? Because I want to understand the issue better - I have posted this thread in order to understand a few questions that are completely baffling me right now. Those questions are:
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get?
...and, sadly, the one that's worrying me the most...
4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
Most of us are lucky enough to live in the greatest country on Earth, of course. But this scandal impacts each and every one of us. It's so all-encompassing and dangerous that it can be summed up in a simple sentence. "The government is selecting some British citizens to persecute, terrorise, incarcerate and threaten with deportation". There are lots of questions that need answering and I can't answer them. Can any Lifers help out?
I never get involved in these kind of threads, but......@Chizz, for someone who is just trying to seek understanding, your OP is massively loaded against the current government. The road to understanding might be best travelled when starting from a more neutral position.
Pretend that you have only read the questions. @Davo55 .
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned? 2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign? 3. How much worse is this going to get? 4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
What are your answers?
I have views which I'm not going to share on here. As I said, I don't participate in these kinds of threads - but just pointing out that your claim to simply seeking understanding doesn't stack with an OP which goes straight into attack mode. Take it or leave it.
OK, thanks for that. It's an interesting stance to take, merely criticising a post that asks some questions, while keeping your answers to yourself. You seem to be saying "you don't really want to know the answers, so I am not going to tell you".
Because the boarding cards were disposed of in 2009 - nothing to do with May or Rudd.
Wrong. One small item that was used by civil servants when they were allowed to use "discretion". Even if they hadn't been destroyed, May's "hostile environment" policy would have seen them ignored.
Government policy was never to deport the "Windrush" people though, they arrived here legally.
Deporting illegal immigrants is hardly a novel policy, every country on the planet does it.
Good to see old Diane Abbot banging on about it and blaming all and sundry saying this had been known about for years. Begs the question then why did Labour not sort it out when last in Government. Easy to blame others eh Diane.
Find it all a bit strange to be honest. I mean how did they get National Insurance numbers without the proper paperwork?
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
This is a highly emotive topic. It deserves a good airing. On the face of it the problem is straightforward enough but the various underlying issues soon begin to emerge.
What also soon develops is the familiar party political skirmishing. Sad but inevitable, there is already the onset of the default trench warfare. Same old, same old, just a different battleground with a different set of victims caught in the cross-fire.
Does anyone really expect that any opinions are going to be changed in the course of this new discussion? Is it beyond the wit of all you smart and caring folks just for once to have a bi-partisan approach and avoid the usual stale rhetoric? If only for the sake of the indisputably deserving subjects of the debate, could you all at least try this once to find points of agreement and not difference?
Because the boarding cards were disposed of in 2009 - nothing to do with May or Rudd.
Wrong. One small item that was used by civil servants when they were allowed to use "discretion". Even if they hadn't been destroyed, May's "hostile environment" policy would have seen them ignored.
Government policy was never to deport the "Windrush" people though, they arrived here legally.
Deporting illegal immigrants is hardly a novel policy, every country on the planet does it.
I'm not saying it was govt policy to deport them. It was govt policy to deport anyone who couldn't prove they were here legally. Many of that generation arrived on their parents' passports. They were British at the time, this was only changed later from the 70s onwards. Do you have documents that prove where you were for every year you've lived here?
Good to see old Diane Abbot banging on about it and blaming all and sundry saying this had been known about for years. Begs the question then why did Labour not sort it out when last in Government. Easy to blame others eh Diane.
Find it all a bit strange to be honest. I mean how did they get National Insurance numbers without the proper paperwork?
There was never an issue when Labour were last in charge because they weren't deporting people using the same criteria. So these people probably have NI numbers, etc. What current government policy requires is documented proof of continued residence, i.e. paperwork for each and every year they've been in the country. Now the destroyed documents could have proved they were exempt for that condition, but that is far from certain.
At the end of the day it is current government policy that has caused the issue, going back a decade and trying to blame a previous government for decisions made before those policies existed in illogical and dishonest. What's happening now is that people are rightly turning on the government for trying to force out honest people who are legally here. There answer has been not to hold their hands up and make things right, but to try and shift the blame. Your post hints you are quite happy for that to happen as long as you can join them in blaming somebody of a different political persuasion.
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
When you're asked for records and provide them, only to be told that they're incomplete, or don't cover the full period over which you've been resident, what do you do?
If you're told to keep papers, you do. If you're not told to keep them, then you're asked to prove where you were 60 years ago, when you were 6 years old, that can be a struggle. No?
I'm not criticizing anyone, I just think there must be other checkable records and / documentation in existance to not let this be a problem for those affected
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
When you're asked for records and provide them, only to be told that they're incomplete, or don't cover the full period over which you've been resident, what do you do?
If you're told to keep papers, you do. If you're not told to keep them, then you're asked to prove where you were 60 years ago, when you were 6 years old, that can be a struggle. No?
Good to see old Diane Abbot banging on about it and blaming all and sundry saying this had been known about for years. Begs the question then why did Labour not sort it out when last in Government. Easy to blame others eh Diane.
Find it all a bit strange to be honest. I mean how did they get National Insurance numbers without the proper paperwork?
Good old selective protester Diane, the woman who asked a member of the IRA Birmingham pub bombing family/campaigners for justice “what do you people want....money?”
There’s no hiding from the fact that everybody who has had anything remotely to do with this scandal are culpable and complicit in the problem faced for all those impacted
Both parties to blame both parties playing politics with peoples lives
Both parties seemingly happy to be associated with issues that leave more questions than answers on where they sit with certain racisit undertones and neither party willing to defend themselves and move them selves away from the criticism
Just does go to show that they are all self serving cnuts and neither party are actually a full representation of the general public
I suggest few people get out there and actually speak to some of the people affected by this cock up, instead of attempting to be righteous on a football forum.
Claiming you 'care', and dressing up your ill thought out blame game as seeking to 'understand', doesn't hold any water.
Once the truth came out about where and how the cock up started, a lot of the Windrush generation that I know of laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Labour party.
The posturing and attempt at heightened morality from some quarters is ridden with an awful stench.
The Tories are rightly derided in most cases. It's a shame that political activism doesn't subside in cases where it's completely unjustified.
Has anyone noticed how Corbyn has kept quiet on this scandal? Yet he is nearly always first to criticise and promise the world for free at such times
Corbyn was the first to raise it in parliament directly to May at PMQs was he not?
I believe David Lammy was the first, and most vocal person to question May in Parliament, then Corbyn asked 1 question during PMQ and has said nothing since.
There’s no hiding from the fact that everybody who has had anything remotely to do with this scandal are culpable and complicit in the problem faced for all those impacted
Both parties to blame both parties playing politics with peoples lives
Both parties seemingly happy to be associated with issues that leave more questions than answers on where they sit with certain racisit undertones and neither party willing to defend themselves and move them selves away from the criticism
Just does go to show that they are all self serving cnuts and neither party are actually a full representation of the general public
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
Have you got those records going back 50 years?
What about the 10-yearly Census?
They're not made available to the public for something like 100-years after collection yet surely someone can read them?
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
When you're asked for records and provide them, only to be told that they're incomplete, or don't cover the full period over which you've been resident, what do you do?
If you're told to keep papers, you do. If you're not told to keep them, then you're asked to prove where you were 60 years ago, when you were 6 years old, that can be a struggle. No?
Do you keep all your bank statements?
No. And that's my point. I have never been told they're a requirement for my continual citizenship, so I haven't.
If, at some point in the future I'm required to show them in order to continue to be allowed to live here, I'll have a problem that would be both unfair and unpredictable.
If these people came over as children, surely their schools would have records. The education authorities, councils etc. Then when they started work, they would have had to get an NI number etc
Maybe if all had ID cards, none of this would have been an issue. They would have been issued with one on arrival
Why do these people beed that one piece of documentation to prove who they are and whrn they arrived in the UK? Surely they've been in the system since, so there must be more, more reliable paperwork (rent book, council tax, and income tax numbers) than that that's been binned?
Have you got those records going back 50 years?
What about the 10-yearly Census?
They're not made available to the public for something like 100-years after collection yet surely someone can read them?
I think you've missed the point about the burden of proof being on the person suspected of being here illegally. Can they access the census records?
Good to see old Diane Abbot banging on about it and blaming all and sundry saying this had been known about for years. Begs the question then why did Labour not sort it out when last in Government. Easy to blame others eh Diane.
Find it all a bit strange to be honest. I mean how did they get National Insurance numbers without the proper paperwork?
Good old selective protester Diane, the woman who asked a member of the IRA Birmingham pub bombing family/campaigners for justice “what do you people want....money?”
There are loads of other threads on which to vent your dislike of specific politicians. So, in order not to drag this one - about a present issue - can you confine comments to the Windrush scandal specifically and what should be done to rectify and atone for the issue in general?
The Home Office can be ruthless, that's nothing new. At work in the late 2000s (i.e. under Labour) we had a white South African contractor working for us (a reasonably paid graduate type office job) until one day he didn't turn up, as he had been deported due to overstaying his work permit.
Not sure the scandal impacts on "each and every one of us" to be honest. I feel sorry for them and I hope they get what they want but I am not losing sleep over it.
As long as you're alright.
Not quite what I said, however I can have little impact on the outcome. If I vote I vote Conservative and I agree with everything DA9 said above. Why should May & Rudd resign over something the Labour Party did.
If these people arrived via the system the way they claim and have been working and paying taxes here for the last 40 years then they have every right to stay and be given papers.
I don't think you've grasped what went on here. Destroying the records is a side show, it's not helpful that it happened but I don't think it's the main story. The Home Office went out of their way under May from about 2012 to create a hostile environment for anyone who couldn't prove they ought to be here. It means showing proof to get a job, get healthcare, rent a flat. There's a separate argument to be had about whether these policies would work, but the whole point of a hostile environment is for it to be hostile. Now, obviously, some people who can't prove that may be illegal migrants, some won't. But people have lost jobs, homes and been denied access to healthcare because they couldn't prove they had been here for 50 something years. At the same time as this new regime came in, experienced people in the Home Office were taking redundancy because they felt the new system didn't give them any leeway to use their discretion. Baroness Warsi, former Tory govt minister, has said that there was "an unhealthy obsession with numbers". How many of us have documents proving where we were for the last 50 years?
The Home Office can be ruthless, that's nothing new. At work in the late 2000s (i.e. under Labour) we had a white South African contractor working for us (a reasonably paid graduate type office job) until one day he didn't turn up, as he had been deported due to overstaying his work permit.
They like to go after the easy ones. Catching the criminal illegals they're trying to frighten us about is actual hard work.
Comments
1. Why has Theresa May not resigned?
2. Why has Amber Rudd not either been sacked or had the decency to resign?
3. How much worse is this going to get?
4. If the government is going after British subjects who have lived in, worked in, paid taxes to and contributed to the United Kingdom for decades, who will they go after next?
What are your answers?
Oh well.
Deporting illegal immigrants is hardly a novel policy, every country on the planet does it.
Good to see old Diane Abbot banging on about it and blaming all and sundry saying this had been known about for years. Begs the question then why did Labour not sort it out when last in Government. Easy to blame others eh Diane.
Find it all a bit strange to be honest. I mean how did they get National Insurance numbers without the proper paperwork?
This is a highly emotive topic. It deserves a good airing. On the face of it the problem is straightforward enough but the various underlying issues soon begin to emerge.
What also soon develops is the familiar party political skirmishing. Sad but inevitable, there is already the onset of the default trench warfare. Same old, same old, just a different battleground with a different set of victims caught in the cross-fire.
Does anyone really expect that any opinions are going to be changed in the course of this new discussion? Is it beyond the wit of all you smart and caring folks just for once to have a bi-partisan approach and avoid the usual stale rhetoric? If only for the sake of the indisputably deserving subjects of the debate, could you all at least try this once to find points of agreement and not difference?
At the end of the day it is current government policy that has caused the issue, going back a decade and trying to blame a previous government for decisions made before those policies existed in illogical and dishonest. What's happening now is that people are rightly turning on the government for trying to force out honest people who are legally here. There answer has been not to hold their hands up and make things right, but to try and shift the blame. Your post hints you are quite happy for that to happen as long as you can join them in blaming somebody of a different political persuasion.
Both parties to blame both parties playing politics with peoples lives
Both parties seemingly happy to be associated with issues that leave more questions than answers on where they sit with certain racisit undertones and neither party willing to defend themselves and move them selves away from the criticism
Just does go to show that they are all self serving cnuts and neither party are actually a full representation of the general public
May
Corbyn
Both as bad as each other
Claiming you 'care', and dressing up your ill thought out blame game as seeking to 'understand', doesn't hold any water.
Once the truth came out about where and how the cock up started, a lot of the Windrush generation that I know of laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Labour party.
The posturing and attempt at heightened morality from some quarters is ridden with an awful stench.
The Tories are rightly derided in most cases. It's a shame that political activism doesn't subside in cases where it's completely unjustified.
They're not made available to the public for something like 100-years after collection yet surely someone can read them?
If, at some point in the future I'm required to show them in order to continue to be allowed to live here, I'll have a problem that would be both unfair and unpredictable.
That's what's happening here.
NEVER FEAR. The 'equivocation' method will STILL APPLY. Here's what to do.
1. State that Labour and the Tories are as bad as each other (don't really attempt to justify this).
2. Success! You can now support the Tories again with a clean conscience.
Maybe if all had ID cards, none of this would have been an issue. They would have been issued with one on arrival