General British politics discussion thread

PommieBast

@Igotadose

Oh, the Home Office passport system and passport delivery system (a private contractor because outsourcing) is a catastrophe for people renewing. Now they say wait 12 weeks, whether you apply for express service or not: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/apr/09/meltdown-at-uk-passport-renewals-forces-travellers-to-cancel-easter-breaks

Very different from my experience. When I renewed I got my new one within a few days. Then again this was in Jan 2021 right at the peak of the Alpha wave...

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118907692#Comment_118907692

That was then. Now there's a nationality bill, and several years of Patel in charge. Hostility via gutting the home office, no doubt promoting the ineffective too. The message is, why travel? And, don't think of immigrating we don't want you.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118908248#Comment_118908248

Maybe it's a problem with getting the passports over from the EU where that are made.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118908611#Comment_118908611

It's a busy travel season. The UK knows what capacity it needs to handle passports per week, let's say. So, you project the # of passports, maybe add in some percentage because you expect more people due to easing restrictions, and you staff up for that. Also, suddenly you've got strain on the system due to Ukraine visa requests.

Do you think they staffed up? Deployed additional back-end servers to handle the load? Would that have been supported by an anti-immigration Home Office in advance?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909467#Comment_118909467

UK Visas and Immigration, which deals with non-UK citizens wishing to come to the UK, is a separate agency from HM Passport Office, which issues passports to UK citizens. A spike in demand for visas attributable to the war in Ukraine (or any other cause) would not affect the work of HM Passport Office. And, while it's undoubtedly true that the Home Office is anti-immigration to a toxic degree, that would not be a reason for them to starve HM Passport Office of resources. HM Passport Office doesn't provide any services to immigrants to the UK; only to British Citizens.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909491#Comment_118909491

As I chronicled earlier, my friend (living in Ireland, UK citizen) sent his passport in, tracked it to the delivery point, and it's not shown in the passport service office system yet (about a week-10 days now). When he called and was eventually able to get through, he was told they couldn't start tracing because he was calling from an Irish phone number and could he have someone in the UK start the process for him.

Remind me, who would set the rule for the passport service that says "don't start lost passport searches if they're calling from outside the UK." And why does it matter as he's a UK citizen? The attitude flows from the top.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909501#Comment_118909501

Passport, for obvious reasons, used to be handled by the Foreign Office. A good few years back responsibility got transferred to the Home Office. Although HM Passport Office is a self-contained agency, it does form part of the Home Office.

The Home Office loathes foreigners and immigrants and is determined to make their lives miserable at every turn. However running a second-rate passport service does nothing to advance this goal, since those availing of British Passports are neither foreigners nor immigrants. So on this occasion I think we must account for the problem by pointing to general incompetence and stupidity, rather than malice. While the Home Office is pretty malicious, the logical link between their malice and this particular failing is missing.

It is possible to be both malicious and stupid.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909530#Comment_118909530

Fair enough; just another failing of HMG in a litany. It is amazing what the British electorate will put up with.

Fasano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118907692#Comment_118907692

I renewed mine in November and it took about two weeks.

personally I’d ignore what this poster claims, a quick glance at their history shows their agenda.

Sudden Valley

The whole Sunak affair is pretty fascinating. I thought Boris Johnson would be the richest person in government would he is worth a pittance compared to Sunak. I thinnk its a huge conflict of interest if a huge part of a ministers wealth is linked to a company in a foreign country

Fasano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909830#Comment_118909830

that does concern me as well. Especially when the UK is currently in the midst of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with that country.

Sunak does strike me as being completely above board though

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909641#Comment_118909641

Thanks for conceding my points!

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909830#Comment_118909830

Sure Sunak has so much money, he gave 100 grand of it to his old private school last week.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has often complained that the Prime Minister's job doesn't pay him nearly enough - and with all the children he has, his maintenance payments must be massive.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909830#Comment_118909830

 I thought Boris Johnson would be the richest person in government

With having to provide for ex-wives and several children that he admits to, Johnson (allegedly) is broke.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118910236#Comment_118910236

Remember something about him doing a rush job on his book The Churchill Factor because he needed to get the advance on it.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118911711#Comment_118911711

I recall that but bear in mind that everything he does is rushed as he puts the minimum amount of effort into almost everything

WishUWereHere

I have just found this thread so apologies if what I say has been said already:

I find it insane that Sunak seems more concerned about who leaked the fact he ( & his Mrs ) have green cards.

Nody

The Metropolitan Police is set to fine Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for breaching lockdown rules.

The fixed penalty notice sent to the prime minister and Mr Sunak is part of fines sent to government staff who attended parties in Whitehall when COVID restrictions were in place during 2020 and 2021.

Taken from Sky News.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118916124#Comment_118916124

Sigh. No criminal convictions, though that wasn't a surprise. Just another day in the mayhem that is HMG under BoJo. Maybe they'll send more aid to Ukraine to distract again, or visit Kiev or something something.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118916180#Comment_118916180

It was a good tactic to wait until the investigation happened. A few low level resignations and the issue has blown over, and politicians wonder why the public have such a poor view of their profession

Patser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118916180#Comment_118916180

I don't know. Ukraine has been going a month now, and is in a bit of a lull. Headline writers could be looking for the next big thing, and this is fair old slam dunk territory. Last weekend they were more than happy to go hard on Sunak, despite Ukriane War - those attacks almost certainly orchestrated by Johnson, possibly anticipating this was on the way.

Conservatives now in a bind. Their Leader and PM completely tied up in knots linguastically and legally. Meanwhile their lovely shiny replacement Sunak is now shredded (and implicated in this too). Leaving only Truss??? Horrible choices for them, although with years til an election, they could change now and rebuild

Patser

Also to add, if the Met office are finishing off their investigations, this will also clear the way for Sue Gray to release her un-redacted report, and opens the possibility of photos of the parties to be released.

Nothing like a good photo headline to get blood boiling

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118916781#Comment_118916781

They don't really have years though. 4 weeks to the next locals and many will be starting to sweat and want immediate action.

breezy1985

With friends like Michael Fabricant....

Having said that, I don’t think that at any time [Johnson] thought that he was breaking the law. I think that at the time he thought, just like many teachers and nurses who after a very, very long shift would tend to go back to the staff room and have a quiet drink - which is more or less what he has done - but I don’t think he thought he was breaking the law. But of course that doesn’t make any sort of excuse.

Is he seriously playing whataboutery with nurses.

beggars_bush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118916979#Comment_118916979

It were the teacher's fault, with all their drinking in staff rooms

gmisk

The Tories really are a total clown car how can anyone vote for them.

Now many scandals is that in the last week?

The fact that one of their MPs was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15 year old boy hasn't got more headlines is bizarre.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/11/tory-mp-imran-ahmad-khan-guilty-sexually-assaulting-boy-15

Yet some of his colleagues still defended him...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40849658.html

devnull

Good Daily Mail front page tomorrow morning

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1513995105681694733

Interesting that whilst in Wednesday's Daily Mail, they're saying that essentially there is a war going on so nothing else matters, the very same newspaper decided to not even mention the war on Tuesday and instead was more interested in talking about Meghan Markle, Holidays and a number of health stories.

https://twitter.com/generalquixote/status/1514001331660460037

The Daily Mail really does have some nerve. No doubt most of this is Dacre's doing. Not only do they continually stir up hatred in the UK, they also are a bunch of hypocrites that along with the Express, are nothing but Tory mouthpieces. They are morally bankrupt.

breezy1985

Were not 24hrs in and this "war PM" party line is really getting tedious already.

pixelburp

It's a thread in itself, and I know risks careening this conversation away from generalised UK political chit-chat, but it always astonishes me the sheer hatred the right-of-centre media has for Megan Markle. At least Piers Morgan has some excuse - however petty and childish it is to be angry Markle rejected his advances - but what excuse do the rest of those most adjacent to GB News?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919207#Comment_118919207

Even within that first tweet, the Mail reveals their hypocrisy, given the item ABOVE that big, swaggering pontificating attack on "the Left" is the celebrity scandal between Johnny Depp & Amber Heard. Their sanctimony couldn't even last one page.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118919718#Comment_118919718

Re: Markle, isn't it obvious? Foreign woman coming over here, taking our royals, insinuating racism from/insulting the monarchy & queen (or that's the narrative), etc.

And she's also black/a woman of colour, so the DM and the like have been frothing at the mouth for years.