Maybe You’re The Very Reason It Needs To Change

 

There are many lies told by politicians when it comes to immigration in the UK, but none is bigger than the claim that it’s all too easy. Too easy to enter Britain; too easy to be given handouts; too easy to acquire citizenship. The UK is presented as an inert country, passively receiving future Britons that it does not charge, test or, indeed, invite. The government’s latest raft of policies to deal with the “failed experiment” of “open borders” is heavily influenced by this lie, as it is intended to make things harder for immigrants.

I doubt it, but if it turns out to be true, then it’s long overdue! 

That policy is extending the period you’re required to be settled in Britain before you can get permanent residency, and then citizenship, from five years to 10 years. As someone who became naturalised under the five-year route, my stomach sank when I saw the news.

why? It’s not going to affect you, is it? You’ve already got your feet under the table, haven’t you? 

If the government’s new policies come to pass, the route to settlement will now take a minimum of 11 years, not including any time spent in Britain as a student or on other visas that don’t count towards the settlement component. I know from experience that five years is already one long trial of keeping jobs against all odds and fighting sudden changes in the law.

Yet you managed it. And how have you demonstrated your gratitude? 

Above all, the rule changes show how little our politicians really care about integration. They constantly cite it as the epitome of what earns the right to be in the country and accuse immigrants of not holding up their end of the bargain. But being stuck on work visas for year after year amounts to the opposite of integration. It means you can’t vote, cannot have recourse to public funds if needed, cannot fully lean in to British society and participate with a sense of safety and belonging, as you’re constantly trying to minimise costs in case a change in circumstances means relocating.

All you've done sinse you were granted leave to stay is whinge ans moan and run Britain down, as a quick glimpse of your columns will show.So ehat exactly is the benefit to Britain of having you here? And if you're a shining example of integration, it's no wonder no one else (apart from the chattering classes) wants more of you here.

I Guess I Am, Readers...

 I Guess I'll have to buy a balaclava now....

Under this definition, I'm in very good company though!

I Hate To Say ’I Told You So’…

Actually. I love it, after all. it hsppens so often. Though rarely so quickly:

Public disorder broke out in Ballymena in Northern Ireland, with police saying a number of missiles had been thrown towards officers after crowds gathered near the site of an alleged sexual assault in the town. The unrest follows a protest in the area, about 30 minutes’ drive from the capital city of Belfast, earlier on Monday evening, the police statement said, adding damage had been reported to a number of properties.

More people unwilling to trust to the authorities' claims that the forces of law and order should be their only recourse? Stands to reason it would come first from a community long harbouring a distrust of government and its false promises.

Protesters gathered after two boys appeared in court after an alleged serious sexual assault in Clonavon Road, media reported. On Sunday, police announced that detectives investigating a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the adjacent Clonavon Terrace area of Ballymena had charged two teenage boys.

Those 'teenage boys' requiring the assistance in court of a taxpayer-funded Romanian interpreter. Which little nugget may go some way towards rxplaining the action taken by the community.

It's going to be a long hot summer. Isn't it , Reader?

Of Course, It Would Be Dorset Police....

A neighbourly feud involving a damaged garden gnome resulted in a 15-month legal ordeal for a law-abiding grandmother.

Mrs Hutton, 66, admitted she had accidentally broken off one of the gnome’s legs while moving it from a communal pathway outside her flat in Bournemouth, and said she had already apologised to its owner, Lilijana Cekauskiene.She also said she posted £20 through her neighbour’s letterbox to cover the damage. But Mrs Hutton was horrified when Mrs Cekauskiene reported the damage to Dorset Police and accused her of breaking the gnome ‘provocatively’.

And the fiull might of the Dorset cops (who make the Keystone cops look good!) descended on her:

A convoluted court saga followed, which is thought to have cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds – including £4,000 to pay for Mrs Hutton’s legal aid, £1,000 for her psychiatric evaluation, a £55-per-hour Lithuanian interpreter for Mrs Cekauskiene and magistrates’ court costs, which can be upwards of £1,000 a day.

Hey, why not, it's only taxpayer cash, there's always more where that came from, right? 

Fifteen months and three court dates later, and Mrs Hutton has been formally exonerated of any crime.

 And are those involved in this farce sorry? Reader, of course not:

Official statistics show that Bournemouth had the worst crime rate in the south-west of England in 2024. Crimes involving possessing an offensive weapon were up 22.9 per cent and shoplifting offences rose by 5.5 per cent. Meanwhile, in 2022/23, 77 per cent of burglaries went unresolved. But Wessex CPS, which brought the case against Mrs Hutton, insisted it was in the public interest.

Because the neighbour was an immigrant? After all, crimes against English-born folk don't get anything like that response....

Cover Me! 'Devil Woman'

The welcome return of Duran Duran in 2024 breathed new life into this Cliff Classic: 

Starmer's War On Children

The mother of the eight-year-old blamed Labour's war on private schools for emboldening NHS managers to deny her child help with his crippling joint condition. 'If you discriminate against children because of the school they went to, where does it end?,' she asked. Her son was referred to a paediatrician at Kingston Hospital in south-west London after she noticed he was 'struggling to hold the pen well enough to write properly', along with other mobility issues.

At the hospital appointment she was asked to fill in a form which asked: 'Where does your child go to school?'

So parents, you know what to do now - lie. or cross out the question and write 'none of your business'. But of course, she didn't because we are all conditioned to fill in these forms to feed the hungry bureacracy of the sainted NHS, aren't we? 

And days later, she received a text message saying the child had been 'declined' the crucial next appointment with occupational health therapists. She then discovered that the specialist unit had written a letter to her GP saying: 'We are unable to see this child as we do not provide a service to school age children who attend an independent schools [sic]. We are only commissioned to provide a service to the mainstream schools.'

 And plenty of Tory MPs have lined up to hoof the ball into this open goal, but not one Labour MP dared say anything.

The boy's older brother – who has the same condition, hypermobility syndrome – had been treated without issue several years earlier.

They needed the time to get up their courage to do this, clearly.  

'I have complained bitterly and asked who created these eligibility criteria and where it says in the NHS constitution that it's OK to discriminate against independent schoolchildren.'

It doesn't, but they are clearly now emboldened to do so, because this isn't an isolated incident: 

The mother of an autistic girl in Somerset told this newspaper her daughter was denied access to NHS mental health services, and was told: 'If you can afford the school fees, you should pay privately. If you had kept your child at the local authority primary school, she would have been supported.'

Notice no-one is offering her the percentage of her taxes that pays for the NHS or comprehensive education back?

The Mail on Sunday understands that other NHS trusts have also refused occupational therapy treatment to children because they attend independent schools.

I thought I hated the NHS bastards enough...turns out I was wrong! 

So Offensive, It Merited Swift Action...

But not so swift it didn't come nearly a half-year after the offense:

Jamie Borthwick has been suspended by the BBC after he used a slur aimed at disabled people on the set of Strictly. A video obtained by The Sun showed the EastEnders actor using the term 'm********s' to describe residents of Blackpool where the show was being filmed at the time.

The term was 'mongoloids' and the time - last November.

The BBC told The Sun on Sunday: 'This language is entirely unacceptable and in no way reflects the values or standards we hold and expect at the BBC. We have robust processes in place for this.'

Just not speedy ones, eh?

What Always Happens, Of Course – It Went Too Far

“There’s lots of chat at the moment about #SkinnyTok,” Jenny Stevens, the Guardian’s deputy features editor, tells Helen Pidd. “The TikTok influencers, TikTok users, who are documenting their extreme weight-loss journeys.

And activists are worried. But why should normal people who don’t follow celebrity trends care? 

Stevens explains why she is worried about the rise in weight-loss drugs, as someone who suffered from an eating disorder. “I worry about them. And the wider media context, and their absolute fixation on who’s taking them, who isn’t, who’s lost the weight, how they’ve lost the weight. Look at their bones jutting out … I worry about the effects of it on vulnerable people who are already suffering with disordered eating.”

*Shrugs* 

Also, we ask what a renewed fixation on thinness means for plus-size women?

Probably little,  they are too busy eating doughnuts and makibg gross tiktok videos to care.

Gina Tonic, the author of Greedy Guts: Notes From an Insatiable Woman, talks about the origins of the body positivity movement and why it feels less visible than it did.

The TikTok generation lost interest in the shock value of women who look like drag versions of Jabba the Hut, perhaps? 

“I think Covid put health into the forefront of society’s point of view as something that we really needed to prioritise for ourselves and also for our communities. And obviously, the first people to suffer under that kind of logic is people who are disabled, but also people who are seen as unhealthy, I guess, or willingly unhealthy. “And fatness is automatically associated with being unhealthy and has been for decades. So it just feels like a natural follow-on with a public obsession with health, and the perception that thinness is health, thinness becomes the priority again for so many people,” says Tonic.

Live by the trend, die by the trend.... 

Rejoice In Our Multicultural Society!

A murder investigation has been launched following the death of a man in Bradford after a number of males 'fought on the street with bladed weapons'.

Elsewhere: 

This one didn't initally make the MSM, which strangely often covers the annual Pamplona affair...

It's hit now, when the animal hs been captured and is in a sanctuary:

It was unclear where the large black bull came from or why it was running loose.

In 2025, we have no idea where a loose bovine came from? Really? Aren't we a First World country, with government regulations and paperwork to be filed for everything, then? 

It annoys me that the council can't put a stop to what's going on more quickly.

 But it surely can't surprise you?

Villagers are angry that, while strict planning controls apply to them, the travellers appear to be able to 'get away with anything' by flouting the rules. Around 120 people attended a meeting with local councillors in the village hall on Monday.

They pointed to a recent planning decision which is available to read on the council's website.The proposal was to convert a barn in a field opposite where the traveller camp now is, and also on Green Belt, into three dwellings. It was refused because the design of the proposed buildings 'would not adequately reflect the agricultural character of the area' and would be contrary to the Warrington Local Plan.

Well there's your problem, better to ask for forgiveness than permission. The travellers know this. 

Maybe it's about time everyone else learned? Maybe it's time everyone else stopped playing by rules that don't appear to be applied fairly to everyone?