Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I'm beside myself. It gets worse and worse.

After all the shit coming from Braverman this week I read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/02/home-office-leaves-asylum-seekers-from-manston-stranded-in-central-london

Home Office leaves asylum seekers from Manston stranded in central London
Exclusive: People who had been held at Kent centre left ‘stressed and disoriented’ at Victoria station for hours, some in flip-flops

The Home Office left asylum seekers from the Manston immigration centre in central London without accommodation or warm clothing, as officials attempted to reduce acute overcrowding, the Guardian can reveal.

A group of 11 asylum seekers from Manston were left at Victoria railway station on Tuesday evening with nowhere to stay, without winter coats, many of them in flip-flops, according to volunteers with the Under One Sky homelessness charity, who provided them with emergency supplies of food and clothes.

“They were stressed, disturbed and completely disoriented,” said Danial Abbas, a volunteer with the charity. The group, from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, some of them wrapped in blankets to keep warm, were confused about what they were meant to do, he said. “They were also very hungry.”

About 50 asylum seekers from Kent were also deposited from a bus by Victoria coach station at around 11pm on Saturday, according to a witness. “They were still on the street at midnight, trying to work out what to do, where to go. They had no money, and hadn’t even been told where they were,” said the witness, an Afghan asylum seeker, who asked not to be named. He has been housed in a nearby hostel for the past 14 months, and watched them arrive. “I was shocked. I tried to help; I showed them where to get free wifi, where to sit and get warm in the station.”

This in a week when I chose to start donating to our local food bank, a food bank in fucking Sutton... when I got a £250 winter fuel payment (that'll go to the food bank as well).

When a friend in her 80s waited 41/2 hours for an ambulance...
When some right wing terrorist firebombed a migrant centre and we 'aren't sure of his motivation'...
When the actual Home Secretary parroted BNP language about people seeking asylum...
When that cunt Farage stood up and opened his frog-gob yet again and got invited onto the BBC as an expert on migration politics...
When the BBC yet again hosted climate change deniers without challenge (Claire Fox)...

I fell like Betjeman felt about Slough but I'd fuck the entire country.

This sounds very similar to the stunt Ron DeSantis, the ultra-MAGA governor of Florida, pulled a few weeks back when his administration deposited a group of migrants to Martha's Vineyard. It's performative "owning the libs" bullshit designed to enrage the people they (Braverman, the ERG etc) despise i.e. "woke" metropolitan Remoaners blah blah blah.

I think they just dumped them in a panic.

de Santis bussed the press in to witness his 'owning the libs' - this seems to have been done secretly, under the cover of darkness.

The citizenship test

The “Life in the UK” test is a key part of the application process to become a British citizen or settle in the country.

But Meghan Markle has revealed that even her husband Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, could not answer questions asked of aspiring citizens...


...Applicants are required to get 18 of the 24 questions right, a 75 per cent pass rate.

Do you think you can do it? We have pulled together a list of sample questions here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 6.html?amp

The questions are at the bottom of the article.

I scored 23 out of 24, the odd one being about the first Christian communities in Britain (I know it's something the Romans introduced).

I think, based on personal observations, the answer to number 15 should really be "D".

With regards to becoming a good UK citizen, the correct answer to nearly all of them is "Why the hell should I know this?"

I can understand why anyone who didn't spend their depression years sitting in pubs reading everything and anything they could get their hands on might not do so well.


In short, it's a load of bollocks, and deliberately setting up would-be citizens to fail.

Some of the questions (the Bannockburn and Chartists ones in particular) reminded me of the the Simpsons episode where Apu does the US test. A little more complicated than a multiple choice or yes/no question.

Nothing really about everyday life, only a few on current events. Good for novice pub quizzers and that's about it.

As some of you will already know, I used to be a supervisor for that test.

What none of the articles that say things like this tell you is that it's a comprehension test at least as much as a knowledge test.

All of the answers to the questions are in the test handbook, which applicants're told to study (the exam itself is closed book). If you can read at the EL3 (secondary school entry level) reading level that the book is written at, then the answers are there. You're not expected to just pick it all up by osmosis

The previous edition talked more about benefit entitlements and everyday life. The current one came out in 2012, when Education Secretary Gove made it more about Our Island Story and being able to quote Kipling.

Oh well, up go the interest rates and the BoE announces the onset of longest recession on record and which will rip through the most vulnerable like an acute bout of dysentery.

I wonder which gritty dramas will be made now that "Boys from the Black Stuff" is, all of a sudden, a non-starter.

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 8:01 pm Oh well, up go the interest rates and the BoE announces the onset of longest recession on record and which will rip through the most vulnerable like an acute bout of dysentery.

I wonder which gritty dramas will be made now that "Boys from the Black Stuff" is, all of a sudden, a non-starter.

now there's no freedom of movement for construction jobs, it won't be Auf Wiedersehn Pet either.

Mystic Dan Hannan’s much mocked 2016 polemic gets funnier with every passing year. All Dan will do in June, 2025 is blame everyone else for short term teething problems and then move the timescale 2035.

It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again. https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/

What a symphony of bollocks. It's even worse than one of those "Littlejohn Imagines..." pieces. And they made him a Peer of the Realm.

Some followed us out of the EU (Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands).

Dalem Lake wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:27 am And they made him a Peer of the Realm.

He’ll be out on arse if Labour get their way & replace the Lords with something meaningful.

Arrowhead wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 12:41 pm

Dalem Lake wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:27 am And they made him a Peer of the Realm.

He’ll be out on arse if Labour get their way & replace the Lords with something meaningful.

Not enthused by HoL’s reform debates but when you put it like that.

Claire Fox as well.

It’s almost like they are trying to turn it against the public.