What to do with asylum seekers who go awol? Like fine wine they mature, and disappear
? "You've got to have a system," the comedian Harry Hill would proclaim to much hilarity. And at the UK Border Agency, they do. But it does seem as if it were designed by the illusionist Derren Brown to elicit the sort of laughs garnered by Harry Hill. There are thousands of asylum cases that date back several years, explained acting chief executive Jonathan Sedgwick in a letter to home affairs select committee chairman Keith Vaz. Trouble is UKBA doesn't know what's happened to many of the people concerned so they've come up with a statistical technique to manage the problem. The people they can't find are placed in a "controlled archive" for six months, where they "mature". Once they've matured they are deemed "concluded" and no longer continue to exist. At that point, presumably, they cease to cause any further political or administrative difficulty. To date 40,500 have done their time in the controlled archive and have conveniently vanished. Another 34,000 are maturing. Soon they will be gone, the 2011 vintage.
? Much drama to be had, meanwhile, in Terence Rattigan's courtroom play Cause C�l�bre, now running at London's Old Vic. And no little drama in the stalls as members of a stellar audience, which included such as Jemima Khan, tried to discover who was shattering the artfully constructed tension by snoring. It was unfortunate indeed, for the sound ? and it was unmistakable ? came from a critic, Paul Taylor of the Independent. He was sitting close to the actor James McAvoy, whose wife Anne-Marie Duff has the leading role and who is believed to have made clear his displeasure. A scandal of the "pissed old hack copies Kenneth Clarke by falling asleep at wrong time" variety seemed inevitable. But it transpired that poor Taylor had succumbed not to alcohol or ennui but powerful medication. The Indy will review the play anew with a fresh pair of eyes. As for Taylor, we wish him well.
? A worrying phenomenon returns to football: a banana is hurled at a Brazilian player in Sunday's game with Scotland. And what to make of the strange Islam-unfriendly leaflets headlined "Boycott Wembley Stadium Halal Food" circulated to fans ahead of Tuesday's friendly between England and Ghana? "Jesus is a man's man," read the curious text. "He told a bunch of fishermen to follow him; and they did. He drove money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem with a whip ? Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, nailed to a cross, hung up to die in agony. A man doesn't get much tougher than that." Sorry, is this tough guy Jesus of Nazareth or John Wayne?
? Poor Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator. He's getting it in the neck for mispronouncing the word "chasm" on the radio. He deployed a soft "ch" ? in a Chas and Dave sort or way. But then Fraser, who moonlights as a columnist for the News of the World and a sage on all things Cameroonian, isn't the first political titan to fall down on pronunciation. Nor will he be the last. For the great Clement Attlee, it is said, seemed unaware of the effect of the accent in the word "clich�". Once he waved away a briefing paper with a cry of: "This is simply clitch, clitch, clitch."
? Finally, there is something close to consternation at the offices of tax activists UK Uncut as MPs who previously signed an early-day motion of support withdraw their names. Around 145 protesters from UK Uncut were detained during its occupation of Fortnum & Mason during the anti-cuts march on Saturday. In the cold light of day 138 were bailed on a charge of aggravated trespass. All too much for quite a few and among the names of those who have moved to distance themselves, thus avoiding reputational damage, we see MPs Nigel Dodds, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Stephen Williams, Mark Williams, Gregory Campbell, and Liberal Democrat Mike Hancock. Yes Mike Hancock, the member for Portsmouth South who spent much of last year refuting allegations that he employed Russian spies as parliamentary assistants and conceding that he had kissed and cuddled a 17-year-old he met when she inquired about work experience. UK Uncut seems fairly content to have its ties with him cut.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/31/hugh-muir-diary-jonathan-sedgwick
Hillary Clinton Bill Clinton Rudy Giuliani Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney
No comments:
Post a Comment