There was a good informative BBC programme about 3 years ago on the inner workings of the Home Office, can’t remember its name unfortunately, might still be on the iplayer if you can get it (with a VPN I mean), sometimes they leave them on for a good while or thanks to repeats those programmes are kept on the iplayer, it was a 4-parter I think and very interesting.
It highlighted (some of) the flaws but also positives about the HO, its human side in particular which is good (although having a good immigration lawyer is dead important, it should be that vital), like any immigration agency the HO has some awfully complex cases to deal with, immigration law can be very complex. (Like LGBT illegals, or even legal applicants, or political dissidents whose cases they understandably have to treat carefully and that programme followed such a person through his travails and the hard work of his lawyer, in the end the applicant, from Jamaica I’m pretty sure, was successful and given Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK - well, he was granted ILR as “given” is the wrong word as the card/process costs £2,400 and much more with the appeals etc. - I though the HO handled that particular case well, patiently and with humanity, but it dragged on and on, according to the BBC anyway the man had initiated the procedure something like 6 years beforehand, could have been 10 years, can’t remember).
Not available on the iplayer but maybe it will be again and some programmes are put on YouTube so if you’re interested check out YT and the iplayer regularly.
Having reread what I wrote I can’t see any words indicating approval. I thought my references to bears and the Pope made it clear that the article just states the bleedin’ obvious. The scratching of backs goes on everywhere, it’s probably just a bit more endemic in the Tory party.
In an idle moment (coffee break) I just looked up the Hancock share scandal company.
Turns out the media with their ‘his sister has a larger shareholding’ are underplaying it. In fact on the company register there are 2 people with ‘significant control’:
Emily Katherine Gilruth (Hancock’s sister) - between 25% and 50% of shares; and
Thomas Richard Patrick Gilruth - between 25% and 50% of shares
Interestingly, they seem to have acquired control only 5 years ago.
Assuming the Gilruths are related, this means that the company is totally controlled by Hancock’s family - they own at least 65% of the shares and probably more.
Lui, bon, il est hors catégorie mais c’est loin d’être le seul. C’est typiquement le genre de type que t’entendais pas trop avant la campagne du Brexit et pis boum, le bouzin ayant « libéré la parole », qui est selon la formule devenue « décomplexée », « désinhibée » etc. et tout le toutim, depuis il s’est bien lâché, he let rip. He’s actually been mainstreamed, he’s often been on the Beeb (he does tone down his act when on telly), he was a couple of times on the popular Question Time programme on BBC1 (popular in the “Brexit years”, i.e 2016-2020, less so now). But clearly that’s fine with his Sunday Times bosses, that hate speech is fine with them, ça passe crème.
A few years ago he wrote in The Spectator (don’t know if you’re familiar with that very rightwing mag, he writes in it and I think he’s even associate director or was at some point) that “the one thing stopping him from becoming a teacher was that he could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids.”
I’m afraid I’m not only familiar with it, I have a cousin who writes for it regularly and an uncle and another cousin who write for it occasionally.
They don’t share Liddle’s views.
Yes, like many mags and dailies trying to survive in our digital era and therefore keen to broaden their readership (The Guardian is a case in point, so is The Times), The Spectator seems to have a fairly broad (centre-right to far-right) gamut of people writing in it.
Boris Johnson was of course once an editor and regularly wrote in it for a long time. In 2004, he famously eviscerated Liverpudlians in a horrible hatchet job article about Merseyside, it was signed Boris Johnson but years later it was revealed that it had apparently been written by Simon Heffer, so the story goes anyway (but maybe Heffer was the convenient fall guy here, it was much more convenient for him to take the rap).
The article was not written by Mr Johnson - in 2012 then Daily Mail columnist Simon Heffer admitted that he wrote it, or ‘had a hand in it.’ But the former Foreign Secretary edited it and approved it for publication - and that is something people around here will never forget.
The Economist can sometimes be an infuriating read but l found this article an excellent description of
where the UK Government is vis-a-vis in terms of the Union. Apparently there is a ‘Union Unit’ created by Boris in Number 10 under Michael Gove - I’m sure many will find that “reassuring”. With what is currently happening in Northern Ireland and Scotland Mr Gove certainly has his work cut out if he is to preserve the status quo - I for one hope he succeeds.
“Johnson had given jobs, advising the government or running government programmes, to 25 of the 94 Conservatives MPs who lost their seat or stood down in the past two general elections”
