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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| You're quite wrong. We do like paying our taxes to help out the truly poor (everyone is charitable at heart) |
For many charity starts at home, is that wrong?
Why should verified single homeless British nationals not be legally entitled to housing, but single asylum seekers (actually unverified, ie they are "seeking"in the future to be granted refugee status, it's currently undetermined, we don't know who they are yet, etc) be housed?
Maybe I deserve the white van treatment. Maybe I own a white van, but if Wiley was Home Secretary I would be saying, hang on, this can't be right.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| I don't follow, my understanding is that London, by far the wealthiest area in the country, is currently placing homeless familes as far away as Birmingham on the grounds that they can't secure nearer, and they, the London Boroughs, can't afford to keep folks in bed and breakfasts (these are not 4 star hotels) in the London area. Whenever we see the films these establishments look truly awful. |
This is all true. I'm not aware of saying anything that would contradict what you are saying.
| It certainly looks like to Wiley that your councils are providing a far worse service than those receive straight off the boat getting the 4 star hotels. Are you really saying that is not the case? |
I don't know what case you are making. Everybody is bodging it on the hoof. Money is only one consideration. Avoiding having too many migrants in one place is another. No doubt influential local politicians play a part. Whether the local media is up in arms. All sorts.
| Hang on, you are saying a single homeless person is not helped at all ("single people don't qualify") ... but a single migrant [is placed] in a four-star hotel? |
You are conflating the two categories again. A single British claimant is not normally eligible to be 'rehoused' if he finds him or herself 'on the street'. A family is. A single migrant is entitled to be 'housed' under all circumstances (as far as I am aware).
| but, unlike Wiley, you are happy to place a single migrant in a four-star hotel? |
Me? I'm neither happy nor unhappy. I couldn't give a monkeys about any of it personally. I simply comment on what is going on in an anthropological sort of way. I can approve or disapprove about this or that policy on the basis of the felicific calculus or some other quasi-objective method.
| Why not give them the identical service? Just asking. |
Can't think why not. Can't think why they should be either. It's a lottery so I don't think expectations of equal outcomes are very high. It is more a case of 'beggars can't be choosers'.
You're quite wrong. We do like paying our taxes to help out the truly poor (everyone is charitable at heart)
For many charity starts at home, is that wrong? |
That's what I've just said. The charitable impulse might or might not be universal but unless the truly poor are helped they will come to your home.
| Why should verified single homeless British nationals not be legally entitled to housing |
Technically they are. It's in the legislation. But the demand and supply situation, and the potential for abuse, has led to most (every?) local authority treating single people as being able to fend for themselves, eg going home to mum and dad, going to a homeless shelter etc etc.
| but single asylum seekers (actually unverified, ie they are "seeking"in the future to be granted refugee status, it's currently undetermined, we don't know who they are yet, etc) be housed? |
That's not just 'in the legislation', it's in the international agreements setting up the system back in the nineteen-fifties. They can't go to mum and dad's for instance. Actually, in practice, they often do prefer to make their own arrangements rather than go to a state-provided facility. For various reasons.
| Maybe I deserve the white van treatment. Maybe I own a white van, but if Wiley was Home Secretary I would be saying, hang on, this can't be right. |
You should first ask yourself why every Home Secretary has been totally unable to do anything except to be borne along by events, despite coming from every political persuasion known to mortal man.
If they didn't have a political persuasion they might be able to solve what is a tricky--but not that tricky--technical problem afflicting all developed countries.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I'll tell you why I flick through all this brouhaha about assisted dying.
1. It is unimportant, affecting not many people in unusual circumstances.
2. The arguments are simple ones and have been endlessly rehashed already.
3. The arguments are complex ones incapable of truly rational decision-making.
4. It is a toss-up whether it should be allowed not not allowed.
5. It is a toss-up whether it should be just left to individuals or be allowed/not allowed.
6. It is a toss-up whether I think it should be allowed.
7. There is such a brouhaha, it is unlikely to be affected by my own personal intervention.
8. It is a matter about which I cannot come up with my usual ten point plan.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is being reported that the Qatari Jumbo will cost three quarters of a billion to 'retrofit to Air Force One standard' including the cost of 'taking the whole plane apart to check for bugging devices etc'.
Now if the AEL decides I need an MJH-1 and tells me I can have my pick of any plane, the one I wouldn't choose would be the largest and most complex plane in the world that has (a) just been built* (b) that has made a couple of flights (c) has been disassembled down to the level of nuts and bolts** (d) then rebuilt** and (e) given a coupla more test flights before (f) being delivered to Ladbroke Grove for (g) me and the First Lady to visit her mother.
I'll take the bus if it's all the same to you. Their nuts and bolt rattle like hell but I find that, if anything, comforting.
* by Boeing, for Chrissake
** under the aegis of the most penetrated secret service in the world today.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This story isn't featuring on Al-Jazeera. I expect Boeing are a big advertiser.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The music chosen to accompany the President and the Crown Prince's procession to the main stage was YMCA by the Village People. This prompted speculation that the Saudis are going for the Pink Dollar as well as the Sports Shilling as they rebrand the Kingdom as a tourist destination. The death penalty for homosexual acts is rarely enforced nowadays.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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We were hoping that he would choose the all expenses State Visit to the UK, but he opted for the plane with gold plated toilets.
It has to be said that sadly Charles lacks the late Queen's wow factor. We should have thrown in a complimentary gold Rolls Royce (Trumpmobile) or the Isle of Wight.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I don't follow you. Rolls-Royce is a marque of BMW, the makers inter alia of Messerschmitt 109's. Oh right, it's a NATO gesture. Got it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Rupert Lowe, ex-Reform MP, rather spoiled his case about not being an office bully by genteelly browbeating Victoria Derbyshire in their sit-down Newsnight interview. But as to his accusation that Nigel Farage always goes ape-shit when another tall poppy rears its head in one of his many parties... guilty as charged.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Interviewer: What do you think about Keir Starmer's proposal to send Jews to extermination camps?
Labour MP: I'm not comfortable with that language.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| A former prison governor has been jailed for nine years for having a relationship with an inmate BBC |
Since she was only charged with misconduct in public office and possession of criminal property [a £12,000 car] this strikes me as totally out to lunch. Women are always drawn to criminals so it's not exactly going against the grain. You can get less for murder. I wonder if the Howard League will take up her case.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Apparently the new craze in America is to announce your approval of the assassination of the president. You put '86' (rhyming slang for 'nix', so they say) followed by the number of the president you feel should be terminated forthwith. Forty-six for Joe Biden, forty-seven for Donald Trump and so forth.
How this is done is a matter of individual taste. T-shirts are the usual vehicle but arranging shells on a beach is proving popular too.
Harmless pastime it may be, but it is still considered a crime in the USA (much like 'conjuring the death of kings' was in Tudor England) so you are urged to draw the FBI's attention when you see somebody doing it. They may wish to investigate.
Unless you are the ex-head of the FBI in which case you should keep it to yourself lest you yourself are investigated.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Why is fishing so important when it comes to UK/EU negotiations? It is not because fishing is a terribly significant economic activity for either side. It is not even because fishing is so 'iconic' -- all those storm-tossed telly programmes tell a story.
It is because it is the only tangible thing the British have to offer (or to withhold from) the EU. Yes, Britain's a whopping market for all twenty-eight EU nations and so forth, but that is not tangible when it comes to negotiations. What is tangible is
| "We're going to grant you free access to British waters for a year, then we'll talk again." |
But when you are in the middle of talks and you want to pretend you've already done a sweet deal because Reform are breathing down your necks
| "We are going to grant you free access to British waters forever" |
rather gives the game away. Technically it's only till 2038 but I shouldn't think there'll be any fish left by then.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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If you agree a scheme for 'youth exchange' doesn't it follow there will be an increase in migration? More of our wee bairns will be going there, more of theirs will be coming here. Unless the scheme is intended to thwart youth exchange. But I don't think it is.
Why can't the minister acknowledge this, when it is pointed out to him? Does he really think, if he blusters for long enough on Newsnight, neither confirming it nor denying it, the Great British Public will be fooled? Yes, they probably will. But even so I don't understand how he can sleep at nights.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This belated discovery by the British, the French and the Canadians that the Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza (who knew?) is not going to affect their relationship with Israel. But it may play merry hell when it comes to their relationship with Donald Trump.
We may be branded as terrorists.
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