Future Timeline

Mon 7 Nov 2022 06.00 GMT

Britain exists in an imaginary state of crisis about immigration. Nothing soothes this anxiety – not facts, not real numbers of arrivals, not the distinction between migrants in general and asylum seekers in particular. In the past week alone, reports have emerged of illegally detained migrants at overcrowded centres falling ill, of underage sexual assault, and of others being dropped off in the middle of cities and promptly forgotten about. These appalling failures have occurred not because there are too many migrants, but because the government has broken its own asylum system.

This is a crisis by design, not of arrivals. The government is keen to stress the recent increase in Channel crossings, yet asylum applications are half what they were 20 years ago. The real and only cause of the debacle at Manston and other failing centres is this: the number of asylum applications processed within six months has fallen from almost 90% to about 4%. It’s not that more people are arriving than ever before, it’s that more of them aren’t being processed, and so are stuck in the asylum system for years. Efficiency has been dropping sharply since 2014, one year after Theresa May established the “hostile environment” and in the middle of George Osborne’s austerity programme. The intersection of those two forces created an underfunded, cruel Home Office, and with it Britain’s immigration “crisis”.

And it is a crisis that the government has every interest in maintaining, or at least no pressing interest in resolving. The Tories have finessed a narrative in which the country is under a migrant siege that the government is trying valiantly to rebuff, but is frustrated in its efforts by a string of culprits – “activist” lawyers, human rights law, tofu eaters, the Labour opposition. It is that tired fallback of failing rightwing government: plead helplessness in the face of a ubiquitous fifth column, an abstract leftwing blob that only last week the Sunday Telegraph editor, Allister Heath, promoted to the status of wielding “near total intellectual hegemony”.

Tuesday 8 November 2022 15:47, UK

Labour has called on Rishi Sunak to block Boris Johnson's "conveyer belt of cronies" resignation peerages.

Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, former minister Nigel Adams and the outgoing COP26 President Alok Sharma are among those expected to be nominated by the former prime minister to be elevated to the House of Lords.

The Times newspaper also reports that Mr Johnson has nominated two of his loyal advisers - Ross Kempsell, the Conservative Party's former political director and Charlotte Owen, a former assistant to the former PM - to become the youngest life peers in history.

A source close to Mr Johnson said: "We never comment on speculation about honours."

9 November 2022, 12:23

A minister has hit out at police for arresting LBC reporter Charlotte Lynch as she covered Just Stop Oil protests yesterday.

Charlotte was arrested on the side of the M25 on Tuesday and held for five hours, despite the fact she had her press identification with her.

Hertfordshire Police defended their actions, saying officers faced "very challenging circumstances" and they had "reasonable grounds at the time to make an arrest in order to ascertain the circumstances surrounding [the journalist's] presence at the location".

However they later said ordered an independent investigation of their approach, saying they recognised "the concerns over the recent arrests of journalists" and added that "additional measures are now in place to ensure that legitimate media are able to do their job".

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: "Journalists shouldn't get arrested for doing their job."

wjfox wrote: ↑Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:41 pm About damn time. It's the 21st century and we still have an unelected upper chamber.

This would be a huge change!

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Keir Starmer: I will abolish House of Lords to ‘restore trust in politics’

Sat 19 Nov 2022 19.30 GMT

Keir Starmer will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new elected chamber as part of plans to “restore trust in politics”, the Observer understands.

In a sweeping constitutional overhaul, the Labour leader has told the party’s peers that he wants to strip politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords as part of the first-term programme of a Labour government. Starmer said that the public’s faith in the political system had been undermined by successive Tory leaders handing peerages to “lackeys and donors”.

It is understood that Labour will hold a consultation on the composition and size of a new chamber as well as immediate reforms to the current appointments process. Final proposals will be included in the party’s next election manifesto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... n-politics

wjfox wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 10:04 am Scottish government loses indyref2 court case

2 minutes ago

The Scottish government cannot hold an independence referendum without UK government's consent, Supreme Court rules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-63727562

1 day ago

Qatar is reportedly reviewing its investments in London in retaliation for the capital’s transport authority banning the Gulf State’s advertising over its anti-homosexuality laws.

Transport for London (TfL) tightened its prohibition on buses, taxis and Tubes amid an outcry over LGBTQ rights and the treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to the World Cup.

This has triggered Doha to reconsider its “current and future investments” in London, according to the Financial Times.

London mayor Sadiq Khan told TfL to “review how it treats advertising and sponsorship from countries with anti-LGBT+ laws” in 2019.

06:00, 28 NOV 2022

There are concerns plans to split the Cotswolds constituency into two will lead to a “mish mash” of residents sharing the same MP but who live in different counties and districts.

The Boundary Commission for England is planning to divide the current constituency. But the proposals will see a South Cotswolds constituency include parts of North Wiltshire.

Under the current proposals, the Stroud district wards of Bisley, Hardwicke and Painswick and Upton wards will be transferred to The North Cotswolds constituency. But the Wotton-under-Edge ward will be transferred from the current Cotswolds constituency to Stroud. And Kingswood ward will be transferred to the South Cotswolds constituency.

The Tewkesbury constituency wards of Churchdown, Brockworh, Badgeworth, and Shurdington will form part of the North Cotswolds constituency. The parts of Wiltshire which have been earmarked to join the South Cotswolds constituency are Brinkworth, By Brook, Cricklade and Latton, Kington Malmesbury, Minety Purton and Sherston.

Boris Johnson will stand again to be elected as an MP at the next general election, a source close to the former prime minister has confirmed.

Johnson, who has been on the backbenches since leaving No 10, will run for re-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency at the next poll, expected to be in 2024. He has been an MP in the west London constituency since 2015, winning it with a majority of 5,034 in 2017 and 7,210 in 2019, by which time he was prime minister. It has been a Tory seat since its creation in 2010.

The source confirmed Johnson’s decision to stand for a fourth time after the Telegraph first reported that he told his local Conservative party of his intention.

But if a Commons investigation finds him to have been in contempt of parliament by misleading MPs over lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street, Johnson could first face a fight for his seat in a byelection.

Since leaving No 10, Johnson appears to have embraced life as a backbencher, tweeting about a number of constituency visits including to Ruislip Synagogue and Uxbridge high school this week.