EPTUK Politics Mega-thread - Page 422
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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CoughingHydra
177 Posts
Funny, I remember you being the guy to correct other people's grammatical mistakes, sometimes in a snide way. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Laurens
Belgium4554 Posts
On April 09 2018 07:24 Dangermousecatdog wrote: To my recollection I have only commented to a certain poster that my command of the English language and vocabulary was greater than his, when that certain poster was being particularily vitriolic in calling me a traitor to the English, to which I would say that my observation towards him would be a fair rebuke in context. Particularly* An unfortunate post to make mistakes in. | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
On April 08 2018 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Sometimes, editing a post can cause grammatical errors or odd sentencing. *shrugs* I also admit that I make plenty of spelling mistakes and sometimes apply random capitalisation or lack of thereof. But we all understand what I meant and we can communicate with each other. Is it really worth it to point out grammatical errors on a gaming forum? In general, I agree that small grammatical errors shouldn't be an issue on a gaming forum, but you have history of being controversial here, so it feels right for me to correct you. You reap what you sow. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
I feel no need to run everything I type through a spell checker. I've own up that my spelling isn't perfect on numerous occasions, including 2 posts prior; TL is not a professional setting, nor do I feel bound to act as if TL is a professional communique. | ||
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iamthedave
England2814 Posts
Which can happen, but is rare. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9769 Posts
The basics: In the 50s and 60s, the UK needed labour, so we launched a huge campaign encouraging people from the commonwealth to settle here and work. Many of these people came from the Caribbean, and the ship used to transport them was called the HMT Empire Windrush (hence the name). This was widely seen as the beginning of mass immigration to the UK in the 20th century. In 1962 we tightened restrictions slightly and then in 1971 there was new legislation which all but halted the mass immigration from commonwealth countries. Recent events: Fast forward 40 years David Cameron takes over. The tory government is under huge pressure from the rapidly gaining UKIP and other far right and anti-immigration populist movements. They decide to take drastic action. Cameron sets an extremely unrealistic target of reducing immigration by 50% to 100,000 (it was 196,000 in 2009). In order to achieve this target, massive pressure is put on the Home Office by Cameron and his home secretary at the time, Theresa May. In order to try and achieve this, Theresa May decides to implement what she called her 'hostile environment' policy. This was basically an untargeted attack on immigrants who were unable to provide thorough and up to date paperwork. The dilemma for May was that many illegal immigrants were able to game the system by providing just enough paperwork to be able to keep appealing any decision the home office made so deporting people was difficult. To get around this, she decided to remove legal protections, including the right to remain in this country while their appeal was heard. Home office staff have described the toxic atmosphere as pressure was piled on them to deport as many people as possible in a misguided attempt to reach what was a completely unattainable target. There were massive protests in parliament at the time about these policies and their possible consequences, but they were (as you would probably expect) ignored completely. What you would expect at this point would be for the government to relax their target slightly to be able to achieve what they had set out, but they were committed by this point and populist movements were still on the rise and threatening to take votes from the conservatives, so they stuck to their guns. Part of the hostile environment policy was to completely shut people out of all public services and any kind of a life at all unless they had significant amounts of official documentation for every single year that they had spent in this country. How did this lead to the windrush scandal? Those citizens who are here completely legally, but came to this country in the 50s and 60s when no documentation was required, many of whom had never owned a british passport, suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the home office. I'll post some cases below, but essentially this means the home office had them fired from their jobs, denied healthcare and threatened with deportation - British citizens who have lived in this country for as long as 60 years. Attempting to get a passport at this point was almost impossible because the home office destroyed all the landing cards from the Windrush passengers in 2010, so as far as they were concerned these people were just more illegal immigrants. The point here is not that the Windrush generation was targeted deliberately, but that tory policy is so informed by rash, unattainable promises and vast sweeping policies that have no care for subtlety or precision that it is inevitable that groups of innocent citizens will have their lives utterly destroyed by the unstoppable machinery of their pandering to populists. This truly is a tragedy of the rule of bigotry over decency in the modern age, whereby objections at the time of policy announcements are brushed aside as unreasonable complaints, and then the government only reacts when the press makes a big deal about the victims of their horrific policies. Hopefully people will agree with me that this isn't a story about victimizing commonwealth citizens but a story about the horrific consequences of pandering to to populism in a political atmosphere where the need for instant results negates the need to think things through and act with care. Here's some articles about this, starting with some stories from victims: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/15/why-the-children-of-windrush-demand-an-immigration-amnesty https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/19/windrush-albert-thompson-cancer-treatment-theresa-may https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/18/mother-of-windrush-citizen-blames-passport-problems-for-his-death http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43804304 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-43831563/windrush-what-is-the-hostile-environment-immigration-policy https://www.ft.com/content/889f1342-42f1-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-43818762/windrush-lord-kerslake-says-policy-reminiscent-of-nazi-germany | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
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Zaros
United Kingdom3692 Posts
The actual "hostile environment" policy of denying illegal immigrants rights I would say is broadly correct outside of healthcare. If someone has come illegally to this country is anyone going to argue outside of some very specific cases that the environment should be anything other than hostile? The problem with windrush is these people were wrongly classified as illegal which is shameful in itself. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9769 Posts
On April 22 2018 07:26 Zaros wrote: Its obviously terrible treatment of these citizens and historical vandalism to destroy the landing cards and yes Theresa May along with Alan Johnson (the initial decision was taken in 2009 under Labour only enacted out in 2010 under conservatives) and Amber Rudd should take responsibility for this terrible treatment it is more bureaucratic incompetence, ridiculous requirements to prove you are a citizen and lack of common sense within the Home office (which all 3 should take blame for particularly Mrs May.) The actual "hostile environment" policy of denying illegal immigrants rights I would say is broadly correct outside of healthcare. If someone has come illegally to this country is anyone going to argue outside of some very specific cases that the environment should be anything other than hostile? The problem with windrush is these people were wrongly classified as illegal which is shameful in itself. Its not just the public policy that's the problem though. Its the pressure that is put on civil servants to get rid of as many people as possible, instead of judging each case on its own merits. That is an integral part of the hostile environment, and its biggest flaw. It points to wider issues with tory policy, a theme that runs through all of their policies, which is a lack of care in the way they are implemented, and being reactive instead of proactive in solving the problems that they create. Look at social care, for example. There were warnings for years that cuts to council budgets will put too much pressure on social care but the tories wanted their money because the money is theirs, so they let it happen and then a social care crisis happens and the tories scramble to find a solution. For the benefit of sc-darkness, this kind of thing probably happened under Labour too, but I didn't follow politics particularly closely when they were in charge, so I'm going to stick to complaining about the people who are making the mess right now  | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
On April 22 2018 07:36 Jockmcplop wrote: For the benefit of sc-darkness, this kind of thing probably happened under Labour too, but I didn't follow politics particularly closely when they were in charge, so I'm going to stick to complaining about the people who are making the mess right now Well, you admit you're not fully informed. I'm not either simply because I'm not British and I don't have to know all details. However, one thing is for certain, Labour HAD enough time to resolve this problem. They didn't. Apparently Conservatives haven't solved it either. I think we should criticise both. Otherwise, we're not being honest here. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
Start by pointing out when Labour had the time to resolve this problem, that in fact wasn't a problem until very recently. It's also not "apparently conservatives haven't fixed the problem either", they in fact created the problem by destroying the landing cards, while shortly after ramping up the "hostile enviroment" without a second thought about what's gonna happen. Amber Rudd is pretty proud of herself about that one, as was shown when private memos of her to May were leaked. The problem is that under the new "hostile enviroment", everything goes very fast. The windrushs could've fixed it by simply applying for a passport - the landing card would've been proof enough. They were destroyed in 2010 under the tories. That's where the problem is. Not the "hostile enviroment" itself, that's just the catalyst. The problem is that the landing cards got destroyed, rather than keeping them as a legal document. Now, because of that, that generation can't prove that they in fact are windrushs. Hell, even IF you want to argue that the reason the tories give for destroying the landing cards (privacy laws) is legit, which it isn't, they could've sent copies to the windrushs making sure that they don't have their lives destroyed a few years later. Arguing that Labour is equally at fault because they didn't fix what wasn't broken (and it wasn't, as is shown by people living and working in the UK).. I don't know about that one. | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
Empire Windrush is best remembered today for bringing one of the first large groups of post-war West Indian immigrants to the United Kingdom, carrying 492 passengers and a number of stowaways on a voyage from Jamaica to London in 1948.[1] British Caribbean people who came to the United Kingdom in the period after World War II are sometimes referred to as the Windrush generation. I'll let you count how many times Labour were in government since 1948. They could have resolved immigration status since then. Personally, I don't care how many times, I just know the number is more than 1 which is good enough for me to blame them as well. Everyone with basic logical thinking will realise that this is a failure of many governments since 1948. I don't have to prove anything to you. It's simple logic if you read what I wrote above. It's 70 years. | ||
KwarK
United States43567 Posts
The problem is that the Tories changed the documentation requirements and didn't grandfather in people who came before the new requirements existed. You've got to understand that until 1962 Commonwealth citizens had the right to live and work in the UK without needing specific documentation beyond that which proved their Commonwealth citizen status. Imagine that the people of England had birth certificates in one format and the people of Wales, Scotland and NI had them in different formats. If you were to suddenly change the rules to make the English format the only acceptable format it would be unreasonable to demand that the Scottish, Welsh and NI citizens all produce English format documentation that they had never been issued and never previously required. You'd have to grandfather them in. This is the same situation. | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
Austerity cutting young people to the bone for the last 7 years but I'm PRETTY sure memes on twitter are at fault. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
On April 22 2018 16:43 sc-darkness wrote: They could have got UK citizenship though, couldn't they? Someone didn't give it to them it seems. That's been happening for 70 years. You only need to live 5 years in the UK to get it. I still think it's the fault of many governments and/or the Windrush generation if they didn't apply for citizenship. You don't seem to understand that there was nothing to fix. There wasn't a problem, it's a bit dumb frankly to argue that Labour totally could've "fixed" easily in the last 60 years if by then no one saw the problem coming. Because Labour didn't create it, in fact no one did until a few years ago. It really isn't that hard to understand that. And this is factual. You seem to be under the impression that the windrushs are "immigrants" in the sense that a mexican in the US is an immigrant, but this is wrong. If anything, it's comparable to a EU citizen moving to another EU country. Not quite, but certainly way closer to what you seem to be thinking. Again. Sure, they could've had citizenship. They didn't need it for 60 years, if you can figure out why it wasn't a problem for 60 years but is one now, you understand where the blame needs to go. | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 22 2018 20:05 sc-darkness wrote: Still, if they didn't apply for citizenship while living in that same country, something was wrong with their mindset unless government refused to give them one. They share some of blame in my opinion. Let's agree to disagree and call it a day. You won't change my opinion and I won't change yours. You are mind bogglingly ignorant of the circumstances, blaming the people affected is absolutely insane. | ||
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