Margaret Thatcher made swingeing cuts to the Border Agency and Immigration Officers as I remember.
Apparently we do have a big problem with illegal immigration. It is not only a problem for those running the country, but also for those who are here illegally - it can turn them into slaves, force them into a life of permanent fear. Illegal immigration is bad for everyone. Proper, decent immigration policy humanely carried out with sufficient numbers and finance committed to it SHOULD be good for all.
Did you see the letters they send out? If you were deliberately designing something to look frightening and unreadable you could not do a better job. To frame a letter like that you'd be automatically casting the recipient as GUILTY! Why are Civil Servants trained to produce and duplicate letters that transmit their power and the recipient's weakness in the very lay-out and tone of a letter? Why can't they write properly? Why do tax letters for instance have to look and sound like tax letters? Why can't ONE government EVER just insist that its civil servants, who are after all acting on its behalf, treat the people who finance all this (you and me), like human beings? And why don't civil servants themselves insist that they become part of the 21st century, rather than the last bastions of colonialism?
Maybe if custom and practice were indeed to treat those with whom they deal as human beings, valuable clients maybe, even customers, then perhaps something like Windrushgate could never happen. It is surely because they cast individuals or groups as OTHER that they feel free to disregard the usual rules of human interaction. That goes for Mrs May, Amber Rudd, through the Civil Servant pressing the button to send off his standard threatening letter, to those who didn't even talk to people who said they'd been here fifty years ........ because it would surely have been very easy to see if their claims were true.
If you start out by communicating properly the rest comes easily, but all too often we bring in class, race, education etc and all too easily conclude we are dealing with someone who is not one of us.
SHAMEFUL IS THE WORD. RACIST AND SHAMEFUL.
Apparently we do have a big problem with illegal immigration. It is not only a problem for those running the country, but also for those who are here illegally - it can turn them into slaves, force them into a life of permanent fear. Illegal immigration is bad for everyone. Proper, decent immigration policy humanely carried out with sufficient numbers and finance committed to it SHOULD be good for all.
Did you see the letters they send out? If you were deliberately designing something to look frightening and unreadable you could not do a better job. To frame a letter like that you'd be automatically casting the recipient as GUILTY! Why are Civil Servants trained to produce and duplicate letters that transmit their power and the recipient's weakness in the very lay-out and tone of a letter? Why can't they write properly? Why do tax letters for instance have to look and sound like tax letters? Why can't ONE government EVER just insist that its civil servants, who are after all acting on its behalf, treat the people who finance all this (you and me), like human beings? And why don't civil servants themselves insist that they become part of the 21st century, rather than the last bastions of colonialism?
Maybe if custom and practice were indeed to treat those with whom they deal as human beings, valuable clients maybe, even customers, then perhaps something like Windrushgate could never happen. It is surely because they cast individuals or groups as OTHER that they feel free to disregard the usual rules of human interaction. That goes for Mrs May, Amber Rudd, through the Civil Servant pressing the button to send off his standard threatening letter, to those who didn't even talk to people who said they'd been here fifty years ........ because it would surely have been very easy to see if their claims were true.
If you start out by communicating properly the rest comes easily, but all too often we bring in class, race, education etc and all too easily conclude we are dealing with someone who is not one of us.
SHAMEFUL IS THE WORD. RACIST AND SHAMEFUL.