by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
This malign deportation scheme is a distraction from years of broken pledges
wasn’t sacked from her post as home secretary three weeks ago because of her zeal in promoting the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda – a policy she once described as her “dream”. It was an intemperate attack she made on the police in the Times that led to her dismissal by the prime minister she had defied in making it. But anyone who thought – or hoped – that her
would bring an end to this vicious, wrong-headed policy was mistaken. Rishi Sunak’s government remains wedded to its project of sending asylum seekers from all over the world to central Africa.
To that end, Mr Cleverly travelled to Kigali on Tuesday and signed a
with the Rwandan government. Last month, the UK supreme court ruled that the existing deal, based on a memorandum rather than a treaty, is illegal. A new monitoring committee to oversee the arrangements for detainees, and an appeals system staffed by judges, are designed to answer the court’s objections. In addition, ministers are expected to introduce legislation to the House of Commons. Depending on the formula they adopt, this is likely to declare Rwanda to be a “safe third country”, and remove some legal protections from asylum seekers.
by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
The fragmentation of the education system into multi-academy trusts has created waste and a lack of accountability, writes Prof Ron Glatter. Plus letters from Penny Perrett, John Martin and Andrew Keeley
Michael Gove did even more severe damage during what Polly Toynbee calls his “thunderous four years” as education secretary than she lays out (
). He created a radical but unsustainable change to the architecture of the system.
There are now 2,500 academy trusts. Many are individual schools, but nearly half of them are organised into chains, so-called “multi-academy trusts”, containing up to around 60 schools. They are all contracted directly to the government via “funding agreements”, their ownership having been decided without public involvement. In addition, a number of schools still operate under the old local authority arrangements.
by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
The days of predictable voting patterns are gone. But this started long before the 2016 vote
Sky Sports irritates me. Not its coverage, which is great. But its tendency to imply that football only started in 1992, when the Premier League launched. We risk doing something equally misleading when it comes to politics – tracing everything back to Brexit. The reality, as the recent UK in a Changing Europe report
, is somewhat more complex.
None of which is to say that Brexit wasn’t hugely significant. It was – in the language of the British Election Study team – an “
” that affected politics and public opinion in a number of ways.
Anand Menon is director of the UK in a Changing Europe and professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London
by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
I can see the former PM channelling Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. But ignore all that – this was his mess, his debacle
According to all the people he’s leaked his witness statement to, Boris Johnson
the Covid inquiry not to pay much attention to WhatsApp messages on the basis that we can never know “the tone in which they were intended … Dark humour is lost or morphs into mockery.” Totally. Who among us can honestly say we are capable of parsing a WhatsApp message from Dominic Cummings dated 23 August 2020
: “I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or shd believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the cunt in charge of NHS still.”
Does it help that Cummings has appeared before the inquiry and explained that this meant he was stressing that leaving Hancock in post was a big mistake, because he was a proven liar who nobody believed or should believe on anything, and that the UK faced going into an autumn Covid crisis with the … health secretary … in charge of the NHS still? No. No it doesn’t help. That could mean anything, right? I’m positively drowning in its subtleties here, and like many people I simply can’t wait for Johnson to
at the inquiry on Wednesday and Thursday so he can explain that what this message actually implied was, “Boris Johnson saved lives”.
by | Dec 5, 2023 | The Guardian
The decision is apparently in aid of recruitment, but will no doubt be denounced as woke. The archaic hatred of beards lives on
- Keith Flett is the organiser of the Beard Liberation Front
News that the British army is considering a change to its very long-running ban on
for most ranks is to be welcomed. The navy and the RAF do allow beards, although no doubt with the proviso that they are neat and orderly. We are not talking ZZ Top here. As the organiser of the Beard Liberation Front, which since 1995 has advocated for the right of people to be able to dress and appear as they want, I welcome this.
The change is reportedly due to the fact that the army is having trouble recruiting people, and thinks allowing beards may help with the numbers of male soldiers. Take for example the Royal Signals, which equates to telecoms and tech. This is a highly hirsute occupation in civilian life, and it can be seen that an employer with a beard ban may not appeal.
Keith Flett is the organiser of the Beard Liberation Front
