Glad to hear it - yes it is rather an attack on Patel, and on May as well. Deserved in both cases.
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Lowers my propensity to visit UK ::
The Guardian seems actually to be piggybacking on a story that someone posted on here last week…
If you’re not of a nervous disposition I recommend the article on the UK Home Office Paul linked above. I was particularly struck by a couple of bits…
Windrush was not unique – it is simply better known than other recent scandals. How many people are aware that a policy of detaining asylum-seekers that a court ruled unlawful in 2015… resulted in as many as 10,000 people being wrongly deported, some most likely to their deaths? Or that as many as 1,700 people, mostly from former Commonwealth countries in Africa and south Asia, were stripped of their rights for historic discrepancies on their tax returns, some amounting to as little as a few pounds?
I wonder how many of us immigrants to France could be caught out by small omissions on our tax returns, if France adopted a similar draconian policy?
And how do we feel about the state only allowing people to marry who they choose (and stay in the country) if they are rich enough?
Ruhena Miah, a British citizen, spent two years appealing against a Home Office decision to deny her husband, who is Bangladeshi, a visa because she didn’t meet the minimum income requirement of £18,600 (a threshold that effectively excludes about 40% of the British population from marrying someone from overseas).
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An utter shit, if you don’t mind me saying so. Someone who owes everything to Britain welcoming immigrants and giving them opportunity who now wants to pull up the drawbridge. Despicable.
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Have you guys been following the ‘attestation d’accueil’ discussions by the way?
https://france-visas.gouv.fr/en_US/web/France-visas/your-arrival-in-france
It seems visitors from the UK might be asked at the border to show proof of health insurance, sufficient resources, and accommodation booked - or if they are staying with family or friends an attestation d’accueil (30€ from the Mairie).
Don’t you just love brexit?
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I think that we should not only be concerned about whether we should get our applications in for a CdS before the 30th June as their is clearly a failing between what is published by the Government and what is being interpreted by the Border Force.
As UK citizens should we not be concerned how this Government is treating decent people who want to come and live and work in the UK.
By chance, I am reading a book called ‘The Peat Dead’ by Allan Martin, investigating the finding of five bodies in a peat bog on Islay.
However, it talks about the Government of the day, ie. nowadays, introducing 'Britishness 'into everyday life and anyone coming for more than 90 days, including foreign students, has to undergo a test similar to that required now for British citizenship.
Is this a foretaste of what is to come?
If the British government does that it would disbar me from entry as I have tried the ‘Britishness test’ and failed dismally on several occasions - despite having been born in, educated in, and lived in the UK for nearly 60 years…
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You are not the only one Brian.
Probably the whole of Doris’ cabinet would fail it too including himself 
“This is not the same country I grew up in, the same country that I have left to travel the world several times, that I have always raved about, felt proud of and looked forward to returning to. This is not the same country that my husband entered 13 years ago and decided to stay and dedicate his career to, have a family and build a life in.”
I used to work in a very international, but U.K. based based in which I was the old born Brit amongst other Europeans and people from both the Near and the Far East.
For a joke, my Italian boss sent us a link to an online English language test. I scored the lowest of the entire team as I was taught English in the 1970s and I didn’t know any of the fanciful grammatical terms that the test used.
“Past participle” my ****…
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No, your **** would be a noun with a possessive, not a past participle 
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I know what you mean though - I was also taught English in the 1970’s and the fashion was very much against including anything in the way of formal grammar. In fact the French teacher often complained loudly that we knew none of our native tongue’s grammar so he had to teach us that first.
When I was taught English rather embarassingly earlier that you two, they did include grammatical terms but I can’t say that I know what they are know. My French teacher completely floored me by talking about gerunds…
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The government finally gets around to doing what was blindingly obviously the right thing to have done from the start. Maybe they couldn’t get a focus group together fast enough.
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it was the same in Oz in the 80’s we didn’t get ‘taught’ grammar. I must admit all the terminology was a bit of a brain stress when I was doing my TEFL certificate! and that was with having nursing and midwifery degrees both with high distinctions and Dean’s awards! If based on that I’m not thick… but gerunds etc hooley dooley
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My (formerly South African) wife who before we married didn’t have a route to obtaining an EU passport, passed the Britishness test with flying colours (85%+ needed, but she’s a very studious Afrikaner with an MA from an anglophone university).
However, having read the aspects of Britishness on which one is expected to be au fait, I found it ridiculous, British art and culture don’t really feature - instead there are multiple choice questions on what percentage of the UK’s population are Sikhs, or whatever. OH was disappointed not to encounter any mention of Jane Austen or the Brontes (tho’ admittedly I thought that was OK 
)
Certainly, most Brits of whatever educational level and political persuasion would fail the Britishness test.
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My hubby had to do quite a lot of study of the little book when he got his Aussie citizenship! It also cost us over AUD2000 and we’d been married maybe 10 years and and 2 kids at that point! Thank god they’d taken out most of the cricket questions.
This is why I think that being taught Latin for 8 years, to the point I could read ‘Caesar’s Gallic Wars’ [J. Caesar] as you can read this, was a valuable linguistic resource.
Here’s a handy gerund for you " "Nunc est bibendum ". So saying, I’m going to have a slurp.
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