Westminstenders: Throwing Boomerangs

[RedToothBrush]

British politics and media in a nutshell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_effect_(psychology)#Political_beliefs

No EU progress, no discussion. Just this. Keep everyone in line by bouncing boomerangs.

Disaster capitalism looms, they just have to get us to the edge of the cliff before the centre reforms. That's it.

If the legal roads to stop Brexit are closed as David Allen Green says, then how do you force the political flood gates to open, especially with both the far left and the far right using micro-aggression against the public to keep the centre ground weak?

Answers on a ballot paper on 3rd May.

Is part of it because that Windrush generation are now showing up in the system? Many are now of a vintage where maybe they have ailing health or are in receipt of pensions. So the HO have them on their radar. And you don't want the HO to have you on their radar. Certainly when a policy of guilty status, whereby you have to prove your innocence, is in train.

It is a bit we've destroyed your records, so good luck going up against our system.

I got a letter from the NHS saying I claimed I was entitled to free prescriptions and hadn't paid for my medicine. They were going to charge me or fine me. I had my credit card records showing I paid and I get a copy of the prescription printed out so was able to send that in. One bright spark told me that I was responsible even if someone else (such as a pharmacist) had erroneously ticked the exemption box even though it was an electronic prescription and the original prescription never passed into my custody. It went electronically from the surgery to the pharmacy.

It'll go to court and they will rule racial discrimination

Many are now of a vintage where maybe they have ailing health or are in receipt of pensions.

It is impossible for the elderly. My parents were Yorkshire born and bred going back to the arc. However you reach a point where passports and driving licences aren't renewed due to there being no need. Birth certificates are lost in a mountain of life's detritus. It is very hard to prove who they are.

The difference is if you look white there's an assumption of entitlement when you come up
against authority.

If you look or sound as though you might have been born elsewhere it becomes a whole other ball game. The govt have deliberately endorsed a hostile policy, so if there's a sliver of a chance there might be a 'some where' to send a dementia pensioner to, in a hostile environment people are at risk.

Guy Verhofstadt @ guyverhofstadt
We must avoid a post-Brexit bureaucratic nightmare for EU citizens. We need full guarantees in the light of the #Windrush scandal. The EP will discuss this with the Home Office in Brussels on Tuesday 24 April.

Surprised ico hasn't called out the spurious dpa 'excuse' - those landing cards would not have been able to identify a 'natural person' - name, port/town of origin and voyage detail doesn't do that - unless you have a very unique name. Even if those forms captured an address they would be staying at in the UK (unlikely) the chance of that address being unchanged 40-50 years on is minimal.
used the other way round, to verify that a name was recorded on a specific voyage is useful evidence of arrival - especially if coupled with medical age etc.
ie the data only becomes related to a natural person when the person provides other information.

sounds like the data was junked because there wasn't room in the new office - be interesting to know if it was even shredded - if there were any dpa considerations at all then there should be a record of secure disposal.

In 2012, we showed the world what kind of people we are, and it was a thing to be proud of.

Since 2016, we have again been showing the world what kind of people we are, and it's a thing of shame and ugliness.

The Windrush debacle shows just what a shit-storm is about to engulf the Home Office once the 3+ million EU citizens here are required to register for settled status.

Particularly interesting is the problem caused by the destruction of entry cards, thus making it impossible for those immigrants to prove when they came to the UK. With EU nationals, there isn't even an entry card, as people came here under FoM. As no records were kept (and why should there be, as entry was unrestricted), it's going to be impossible to prove the precise date of entry.

Also, as I've said previously, there's no cooperation between government departments. We provided a document from HMRC listing all NI contributions since the year of entry (1978 in our case), but this was not seen as valid evidence (we might have been paying NIC here while working abroad so as to ensure NHS treatment at a later date!).

Same with bank statements, which in my view are useless as residence records for the same reason: you might maintain a bank account here while living abroad.

In a way, it's good that the Windrush scandal has blown up now, although it must be harrowing for those involved. The Home Office can now be under no illusions as to the size of the task awaiting them after Brexit. Of course, they should have realised this already, but they just brush future problems under the carpet, hoping they'll somehow go away, until bombshells such as this force their hand.

I am a little puzzled as to why some of this is "news" ?

Well before the Referendum, I read an article - possibly in The Times (in which case it was no later than 2010) which highlighted that one of the reasons promises on immigration from any government were so much waffle was because the UK has never made a point of centrally recording who enters and leaves - and when. Which is basic information if you want to enforce things like the EU citizens residence etc.

I don't think the Windrush incident is going to "fix" anything. Just showup how much of the information you'd need to enforce a coherent immigration policy simply isn't there.

I suspect there's an element of historical parsimony involved. It's very hard to ge funding for projects that no one can see the point of ... especially against the default (and it has to be said "English") mindset of "we've always done it this way" which permeates the bureaucratic mindset.

sounds like the data was junked because there wasn't room in the new office - be interesting to know if it was even shredded - if there were any dpa considerations at all then there should be a record of secure disposal.

I though official government policy was to simply leave it on 2 DVDs on a train ?

(In actual fact there's a kernel of truth in that joke. It may be the data needed for some citizens has been leaked into the ether .....)

The Windrush debacle shows just what a shit-storm is about to engulf the Home Office once the 3+ million EU citizens here are required to register for settled status.

Yep.

I wonder if the PM is crapping herself about it yet, or if she's still got her head in the sand as she seems to about all other aspects of Brexit.

It would be richly ironic if the biggest stumbling block to the Brexit that some have have been dreaming of - possibly the fatal blow - is a Home Office that can't manage immigration despite having had years to get it right

The Brexit I've been Dreaming Of

sounds like a chart topper there. Back by the frog faced Farage chorus.

Definite sense of "leaver unease" (if that phrase hasn't been used before, I want to claim it for my own. MNHQ know where to send the cheque) in the various fora I inhabit. It's so obvious the trollbots have been stood down. The only question is "Why ?"

the UK has never made a point of centrally recording who enters and leaves - and when.

Not strictly true. Back in the early 90s when I first moved to the UK, for foreigners there were landing cards and "leaving" cards (these were issued when you entered the country, kept them with your passport, and surrendered them to border control when you exited the country). Even those who had residence visas such as student visas had them.

Then at some point (can't remember when), they discontinued the "leaving" cards.

Now do they even have the landing cards? Maybe I should ask my mum whether she had to write one on her last visit...

Not strictly true. Back in the early 90s when I first moved to the UK, for foreigners there were landing cards and "leaving" cards (these were issued when you entered the country, kept them with your passport, and surrendered them to border control when you exited the country). Even those who had residence visas such as student visas had them.

But was the information on them moved to a central point, so that someone who might be interested - maybe a passing home secretary - could ask such things as "How many non UK, EU citizens are currently legitimately residing in the UK under FoM, as opposed to Non UK EU citizens who are not legitimately residing in the UK under FoM ?????????"

No, it wasn't. And that is the absolutely minimum level of data you need before you start with Non UK+Non EU citizens you're recording.

You can have a stab at trying to assimilate that data from other - secondary sources (like school admissions , and NHS records). But then you'll just make a terrible mess of it because you're still driven by the same incompetence that decided you didn't need the data in the first place.

But was the information on them moved to a central point

Ah yes, good point. I have no idea what they did with those cards. Origami, perhaps?

Strap in for more irony (from where I sit, leastways).

So why was/is the UK so pisspoor at handling immigration details ?

(Brief interlude here - did anyone watch the excellent Ian Hislop documentary last year on the History of Immigration into Britain ? It will help with the next links in the chain).

Going back to the heyday of Empire (putting it in bold will attract a certain Brexiteer who salutes the lowering of the Union Jack at the bottom of their garden every night) then Britain had no limit, and saw no need for a limit on immigration. In fact the idea of turning foreigners away was seen as "foreign" and definitely not British.

And that's the underlying mindset which was in government up until 1945 - if not beyond. The reason Britain can't deliver the Brexit Brexiteers want is because the Britain the Brexiteers idolise with misty eyes was actually pro-immigration.

These records are valuable. Similar ones generate a lot of money for family history.

In terms of data protection, I can go on ancestry and search for someone living and come up with an address from after 2000 from the electoral roles. The windrush documents, I don't necessarily believe could be available like that but I do think there are certain justifications which would be very valid to get around Data Protection issues.

Firstly as a historical document of significance to the country: why are shipping records leaving the uk as late as the 1960s available on ancestry? Surely these would also fall under data protection as they cover the same period? If you can keep one, why can't you keep the other?

You can apply to the MOD for the service records of someone who served in WW2 if you are next of kin and can prove the person is deceased. The records are not freely available, though are likely to be in the future. Records for prisoners of war are in the process of being indexed at the moment. Its a project which is going to take several years. The intention is to make them available online.

The 1921 census does seem to fall foul of data protection law but its by no means certain as to what will happen. The 1911 census was available to the public after 100 years, but the 1921 census has different laws which relate to its release and are affected by people living beyond 100 years. There is talk that records will not be released to the public in 2021.

That said there was a register in 1939 relating to rationing cards which makes it almost a mini census with names and addresses. Obviously there are lots of people who are still alive who are on those records. These ARE being released publicly if the persons DOB is over 100 years ago or that person has died. Anyone still living is redacted.

To me it reads almost as if there is an attempt here to erase black people from our national history or to see no value in their history. Given the money in the family history business I find their destruction sinister.

I wonder if the Home Office will be forced to made to treat people who can't rebut them in the same way financial services firms are on the hook unless they can disprove a customers assertion ?

Does anyone recall the fucking ludicrous proposal from a few years ago that immigrants would be issued with ID cards that they would have to show to prove they were here legally. The fucking ludicrous part being that it meant illegal immigrants (carrying no ID) would be equivalent to natural citizens (carrying no ID) ...

Just listening to TM on PMQs blaming the Labour Government for the destruction of the landing cards as the decision to do so was made in 2009.

She'd better be bloody sure of her facts, as I'm sure as hell that if that's not the case, a paper trail will be leaked to embarrass her.

There is a school of thought that says the civil service can get away with murder, as every 5 years, there's the chance to switch'n'bait to a new scapegoat.

Ancestry have the rights to inward passenger lists that were held by the Board of Trade, which are owned and housed by the national archives. The exact title of the collection is the 'Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists 1878-1960'.

The National Archives description of this collection is as follows:
Passenger lists of people arriving in the United Kingdom by sea kept by the Board of Trade's Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors.
The information given in these lists includes the age, occupation, address in the United Kingdom and the date of entering the country of passengers entering the United Kingdom by sea from ports outside Europe and the Mediterranean.

Included in this collection are people who arrived from Jamaica on 21st June 1948 onboard a ship called 'Windrush'....

I can see the actual passenger list for it. It has full names, addresses and occupations.

NONE of it is redacted and its original source is a government department.

The ancestry indexing is interesting in that it only lists the person's first name not their surname so is difficult to search, but the actual original documents which you can view do have surnames on.

If you knew your first name and year of entry and place of entry it would be possible to track down a record before 1960.

I had wondered about those Red. We have used them to see DH’s family going backwards and forwards to Egypt.