I was delighted to receive an email this week from a good friend of mine, Roger Casale, founder of the New Europeans and also a former Member of the UK Parliament.
Roger emailed to say that one of his colleagues, Peter Conradi, who is Sunday Times Europe’s Editor, was running a story this weekend about the reasons why so many Poles have already left the UK. I was really pleased that I had an opportunity to speak to Peter and that the article itself was published in yesterday’s paper. It was a fascinating conversation, which, probably for the first time, helped me to pause and reflect on the causes of the Polish nationals’ departure from the UK. This trend has already directly affected many of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen.
It is estimated that almost a million Poles lived in the UK before the Brexit vote. Some, mainly anecdotal evidence, suggests that around 200,000 members of the Polish community have now left the UK. It is a significant exodus of Poles, which, in my view, might continue in the future. So what are the reasons why people have left or are leaving?
It was Private Eye, perhaps unsurprisingly, who nailed the Conservative U-turn on corporation tax rates. They note Boris Johnson’s quote at the Conservative leadership hustings on 5 July 2019 that;
Every time corporation tax rates have been cut in this country it has produced more revenue.
Perhaps Rishi Sunak wasn’t listening, or perhaps he thinks that the Laffer curve is a bit old hat, but the proposed increase in corporation tax effectively reverses most of the Coalition Government’s cuts in tax rates – George Osborne inherited a basic rate of 28% and a small profits rate of 21%. If the Laffer curve …
Some four and half years ago I wrote to Liberal Democrat Voice about the abuse of the honours system. I wanted Tim Farron to take a moral lead, abjure hierarchical honours and not nominate anyone for more than a BEM. My article The political honours system is sick, possibly fatally was published and drew a little interest but quickly dropped off the radar.
The time has come to revive the issue. Earlier this week the Times published a report that civil servants are actually coaching companies like Serco on the most effective way to obtain honours such as MBEs for their staff. What kind of an honours list this will produce later in the year does, to my mind, not bear thinking about.
Is this who we should really be honouring in this horrendous year? Surely the only appropriate use of the system is to devote it entirely to the front line workers and volunteers who have kept the country safe and maintained as much normality for the rest of us as possible. NHS staff, care home workers, the emergency services, teachers, shop workers, local authority and public transport employees and volunteers should be the people honoured in 2021. While there are perhaps groups I have missed off my list, no politicians, chief executives, senior civil servants, senior managers or contractors who will already be rewarded through their pay packets, should receive honours.
The scenes on Clapham Common last night as the police broke up the vigil for Sarah Everard were a disgrace and undermine the fundamental principle of policing by consent. Leading Lib Dems have called on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick to resign. It was not a protest. It was a statement of solidarity with a woman who had been abducted from the streets of London and murdered. It was a declaration that women should be safe on the streets. Lib Dem Voice editor Caron Lindsay told of her personal experiences yesterday.
The UK’s tradition of policing by consent is being replaced by policing by authority. Legislation now in parliament looks set to reinforce authority at the expense of the fundamental right of freedom to protest.
In this weekend’s world review, Tam Arms opines that Joe Biden’s economic stimulus package will boost the world economy. A new space race is underway much of it led by Russia and China, and of course Elon Musk. Tom also talks about the Covid-19 vaccine controversies, overstretched health services across the world and the countries that are luring us with holidays. A thinktank has downgraded India – once trumpeted as the world’s biggest democracy – to an “electoral autocracy”. Back to China again with Tom’s review of the annual National People’s Congress.
I am going to be in so much trouble, because the National Maraphone is 3 and a half hours old and I haven’t made a single call – which is unusual for me. I’ll make it up in the week, I promise.
Like so many women, I’ve been profoundly upset by the events of this week. I think we all feel it because we all have a story to tell, something we were lucky to escape from in one piece. But these things cast a long shadow.
When we talk of being frightened if we are walking alone somewhere, we have good reason to be. When we talk about having our fingers through our keyring, just in case, we have good reason. When we talk about our constant vigilance, our constant scanning to work out potential escape routes, it’s because we’ve been followed by someone who has scared us.
I woke up this morning feeling that I needed to go back to the place where a man threatened me two years ago and make a video to tell that story. I still find it hard to be there and I’m very grateful to my niece for giving up her morning to come with me to film this.
What happened to me is on the minor end of the scale and I was lucky to get away, but virtually every woman I know will have had a similar experience.
One of the things that struck me the most about the response surrounding the case of Sarah Everard was that on Twitter the phrase “not all men” has been trending alongside her name. It has become a common pattern that as soon as women talk about their experiences that they are met with some form of reply such as “but not all men are like this” and “men can be victims as well”.
While both statements are true, it ignores the fundamental point that abuse happens when someone in a position of power takes advantage of their own power at the expense of the victim. So, although there are male victims (which for the record whose cases should be taken very seriously) and while not every single man is a predator, there is an overwhelming pattern of men being perpetrators and women being victims. This is because in society, men still hold most of the power; whether that be in upper body strength (which on average overpowers a woman’s) or much more crucially in the societal privilege that men have held over women for centuries.
This leads to the fact that 97% of women between the ages of 18-24 (according to a study reported by the Guardian) have reported experiencing sexual harassment. Herein, my problem with the “not all men” sentiment lies. If not all men are predatory, then why have(virtually) all women experienced predatory behaviour? This is a conundrum.
Speaking from personal experience, I was fifteen and in school uniform when I was first felt up by a man sitting next to me on public transport and younger than that when I was first catcalled. Those were not the last times such incidents have happened and as a twenty-year old I have now lost count. These experiences are far from unique, they are (a relatively mild) reality of a woman’s experience. It is these accumulated experiences that make every woman consider their personal safety most times they leave their home. Sarah Everard would have made these same considerations.
When I first heard about Sarah, it felt like I had swallowed a very bitter pill. Immediately it was because of how heartbroken I was for Sarah and her loved ones, but the aftertaste was the reality that that could have been me (or any woman). I myself grew up in South London not far from where Sarah was, and have friends that live in that area. It is considered pretty safe. So, then she was walking in a pretty safe area on main roads,before 10pm, wearing bright colours, on the phone to her boyfriend. Yet Sarah Everard was still was not safe.
If women get taxis, they have creepy – and sometimes worse – encounters with taxi drivers. If women take a walk in broad daylight, they are assaulted. If women have the audacity to go to work, they are still assaulted. Despite everything we do, as women by default, our safety is always in question. That is without throwing in other factors such as class (which means that women have to face this behaviour in less safe areas and are more likely to work later hours) or race (which exposes them to the chance of hate crimes therefore increasing risk of attack).
Who said what when and to whom in the British Royal Family is dominating world headlines? Bullying, racism, misogyny, mental health…. They are all urgent and material topics, and it is important that the Queen – and by extension – the Royal Family reflect the concerns of the society at whose apex they stand.
But there is a wider constitutional issue at stake. And it is complicated by the role of the monarchy; the obtuseness of the unwritten British constitution; the British class system; and the problems of investing a part of the constitution in a physical person.
Well, there is still all to play for – Labour Bristol has failed to be the first local authority to take a stand on advertising high carbon products like polluting SUV cars.
They have agreed to ban fast food advertising on council-owned advertising sites, like bus shelters, but they failed to follow up on the rest. They say they would need to go out for consultation on it and they fear ‘consultation fatigue’.
It was the person who commented on Facebook that really gave me pause for thought: “I get that you may be working abroad,” he wrote, “but this might be a bad image to project upon people who are severely pissed off and stuck in what was once a great country.”
I was on a business trip to Australia. Anyone who knows what I do professionally (I’m a tennis commentator) would not only have known it was a business trip and not a jolly, but my commentary could be heard across the UK. I had recorded a county elections campaign video from my hotel quarantine room in Melbourne contrasting Australia’s approach to Covid with Britain’s, yet instead of people hearing my comparison, some heard ‘Australia’, saw me in a polo shirt, and thought ‘jolly’. I wouldn’t call 14 days in hotel quarantine jolly.
I understand that people are irritated when they’re locked down in a cold snap and they see someone in a polo shirt pontificating from somewhere’s summer. But this form of shooting the messenger (or shooting the messenger’s location) means people don’t see the blindingly obvious message – that they are being taken for a ride by our government.
The biggest comparison I drew between Australia and Britain (or perhaps it should be between Victoria and England) was the contrasting sense of cause and effect. Australia has taken the necessary measures to eradicate the virus, and is largely back to normal now, while Britain’s lockdown is based on hoping for the best with poor enforcement, and we’re a long way from normality. But this week’s figures on track and trace in England highlight an even bigger contrast.
When I joined the Liberal Party in the 1980s, I was optimistic that the UK would replace its unrepresentative voting system in the not too distant future. Fast forward to 2021 and we remain stuck with First Past the Post and, at first glance, little reason for optimism.
The current set-up has never been ideal for the UK or indeed any modern democratic society. First Past the Post results in governments elected by a minority of voters, with policies supported by a minority of the electorate being imposed on the majority. This leaves far too many people feeling excluded and unrepresented. With a distorted link between voters and MPs, how can the UK call itself a representative democracy>
The answer, as we know, is Proportional Representation (PR). Replacing First Past the Post with a fair alternative will make our democracy truly representative. Pluralism is a key tenet of democracy. As a liberal and a democrat, I recognise the need for a voting system that allows multi-party politics to show itself rather than be hidden by the illusion of First Past the Post. Proportional Representation provides a framework for multi-party politics to flourish and voters to be represented.
We have all heard the tiresome arguments against PR, all the more worn-out considering that the UK is now the only democracy in Europe to use the outdated First Past the Post system for its main elections. The myth that reform would end the constituency link is nonsensical, considering the range of systems that can preserve and even strengthen it by improving voter choice both at the ballot box and in between elections. Those resistant to change also argue that a switch to PR would be a risky, unnecessary experiment. Considering that Proportional Representation is used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is well established across Europe, this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
All major opposition parties apart from Labour support Proportional Representation for UK-wide elections and groups like Make Votes Matter are pushing the debate in the right direction. The establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Electoral Reform is the latest boost in the campaign, ensuring a strong coordinated voice in parliament to champion the need for change.
A year ago Boris Johnson promised that his government would undertake the most fundamental review of the UK’s international priorities since the end of the Cold War. He promised that this would be the biggest review of our foreign, defence and development policy since the end of the Cold War, designed to maximise our influence and integrate all the strands of our international efforts.
Next Tuesday, March 16th, the first part of this ‘Integrated Review of Foreign and Security Policy’ will be published – several months later than planned. Changes in those responsible haven’t helped: David Frost was made national security adviser, then threatened to resign, then became instead the Cabinet minister for (mis)handling relations with the EU. Dominic Raab was distracted by the messy business of putting the FCO and the Department for International Development (DfID) together. The Prime Minister as usual wasn’t thinking things through. We expect a smoothly-written essay on ‘Global Britain’, without much detail on what that means in practice. The implications for defence manpower and resources will appear in a separate paper two weeks later.
Johnson has rhapsodised on ‘Global Britain’, without ever explaining what exactly that implied. Freed from the constraints of the EU, he saw Britain recovering its ‘buccaneering spirit’; he seems unaware that the buccaneers were licensed pirates. He’s been ecstatic about sending a carrier task force past Singapore to the South China Sea, though he never explained what the strategy behind that would be. Tory think-tanks have produced reports on ‘the tilt to the Indo-Pacific’, which others have labelled ‘the tilt away from Europe’.
English nationalists made us vote blind on Brexit. Our eyes are now well and truly open. The SNP ask us to vote blind on independence in May. They offer no plan. They can’t. For the foreseeable future, leaving the Union would be a disaster for the Scottish people.
Scottish Government figures for 2019/20 expenditure and revenue show a deficit of 8.6%, about average for the last five years. Our expenditure per head at £1,633 was about 12% more than the UK, and we paid £380 or 2.5% less tax, including oil and gas. The rest of the UK envy our free university education, prescriptions and home care. UK subsidies by the Barnett formula underwrite our jobs, health, pensions, education, social security and other public services. According to the 2018 SNP Commission, an independent Scotland would need 5 to 10 years of austerity to replace them.
It sometimes seems as though the Party has been adjusting its internal conduct and discipline system since its foundation. And, of course, you have to have one because not everyone is reasonable, and people don’t always behave reasonably towards each other in an organisation where the idea is to convince people of the rightness of your views, to win the argument, if you like.
The problem is that, with any process, you have to supply the resources to make it work, and if the experiences of too many people are to be believed, that simply isn’t the case currently. It would be very easy to blame the professional staff responsible for managing the system but, from painful personal experience, I can vouch that they are too few in number to manage the flow of complaints, and too dependent on volunteers to fill all of the roles that the process requires.
For some reason, people often seem surprised that whilst I own a house and have a driving licence I choose not to have a car. I could afford to buy and run a car, but I choose not to, because I don’t need one. The public transport network where I live isn’t perfect and the walking and cycling infrastructure could do with some improvement, but it’s more than enough for me to get around.
Transport accounts for around a third of UK greenhouse gas emissions, with most of this coming from road transport. Therefore, given the government’s commitments made at the Paris climate summit, the government should be seeking to do whatever it can to help us reduce the amount of traffic on the roads. And inevitably when this government fails to take any action, the opposition parties should be making a fuss about it!
We have stood on the streets and applauded our front line NHS staff. We have wondered at their resilience in the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. We have sympathised with them when they have fallen ill and with their families when they have died.
The reward health service workers will get for their efforts is a measly 1% pay rise. Ministers seem not to recognise that those who have worked themselves into exhaustion, taken on extra shifts, faced danger every working day need a boost. With tax allowances frozen, the lowest paid staff and frontline nurses should at least get the 2.1% pay rise they were promised.
In this weekend’s look at world politics our foreign correspondent Tom Arms looks at political events in the UK, Boris Johnson cutting aid to Yemen, politics in the EU shifting to the left, a bad week for ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and ASEAN foreign ministers pushing for the release of Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the return to democracy in Myanmar.
In his speech to Scottish Spring Conference, Willie Rennie reached out to disillusioned SNP voters who may be upset by the division in their party and the SNP Government’s failures in so many areas. He set out what I reckon is the Scottish Liberal Democrats most bold and radical offer for 22 years. It really has that vibe of reform about it. Free human rights based social care, a job for every teacher on the register if they want it, a housing first approach to homelessness, economic regeneration are all part of the package to put recovery first.
He also shared memories of Charles Kennedy after last week’s documentary.
He was introduced by Cllr Liz Barrett, who won a fantastic Council by-election victory at the end of last year.
The full text is below:
Councillor Liz Barrett.
Councillor for the ancient capital of Scotland.
Victor over the SNP in John Swinney’s back yard.
Winning from third place.
Thank you, Liz.You are a true liberal champion.
Conference, it’s almost six years since we lost our Charles, Charles Kennedy.
But last week we were treated to a wonderful tribute to his life in that BBC Alba documentary: A good man speaking.
We all have our own personal recollections of Charles.
Mine was the extraordinary courage it took, just days after acknowledging his alcoholism and resigning as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, to come to Dunfermline.
He came to help me win that by-election.
He would have been forgiven if he had chosen to hide away, to recuperate, to nurse his wounds, but instead he chose to face it up.
As we walked down the High Street, surrounded by the mass ranks of the media, a voice from a pensioner at the back shouted – “we love you Charles”.
As quick as a flash he retorted: “now madam, I am in enough trouble as it is”.
But that lady spoke for us all.
And if there is a lasting legacy from Charles Kennedy’s life it should be the conduct of the debate, of elections, of political life.
That would be a good way to remember our Charles.
I think Charles would be pleased with how the Liberal Democrats have conducted ourselves over the last year through the pandemic.To put recovery first.
We set aside our differences to work together.
Working constructively with the government to deliver funds for business, tourism, fishing; an expansion of testing; access for parents of new borns; and a faster roll-out of the vaccine.
Ministers have recognised the part we have played from the First Minister to the Health Secretary to the Economy Secretary.
We rolled up our sleeves to get us through this pandemic.
There was a lovely sight this week that has made all that work worthwhile.
After months of separation, families are safely back together again in care homes.
Considering here just everyone living in Britain, all of whom Liberal Democrats value, what kind of equality should we seek for them? And what matters most for public policy?
Equality of treatment in health and social care, I suppose we expect and the nation demands, not just our party. So far there is no disagreement. But equality of educational opportunity for all children and young people? We haven’t got that in our country, far from it. For Liberal Democrats to campaign for it when we aren’t prepared to reduce the privileges of the private schools perhaps limits our efforts, but we will surely try to help.
Do we seek equality of income for all? Hardly. Or of wealth ownership? Scarcely. But we do want nobody to live in poverty.
Then, how about equal freedom for everyone to have satisfying lives? Yes, certainly. Equal freedom to ensure our children have good lives? Yes, surely. However, both those last two aspects of equality depend on freedom, which to me is the greatest good.
Well, equality is a Liberal Democrat value as well as freedom. We as a party wanted everyone to have the equal provision of a basic citizens’ income when we passed the UBI motion at the last Conference. However, is it not possible, if that is the only income-related equality we seek, that the nation might in achieving it become more unequal? Because there could be large swathes of the working-age population in future subsisting on the basic income, whether out of necessity or to relish the freedom it represents. Perhaps we will stop trying to help everyone who wants a job to find one. Perhaps we will stop bothering about them not having a home of their own, rented or privately owned? Well, no, you will say, of course we want everyone to have a secure and affordable home – equality in that. So housing benefit must continue.
Trump supporters continue to sport MAGA hats and shout “Make America Great Again” at rallies. It is a catchy slogan which has captured the conservative American imagination. It is here to stay whether Donald Trump is in or out of the White House.
But what does it mean? What makes America great and, perhaps more importantly, what makes it un-great?
The answer is complicated by the difficulty of wedding individual perspectives to universal truths. But I think it is important to search for it, so I have asked the opinion of a number of people with whom I have worked with over the years.
Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds will today address her party’s Virtual Spring Conference, vowing to “Put Recovery First” by focusing on the economy, people’s mental health and the environment as Wales begins to emerge from the current pandemic.
Addressing the party’s virtual conference, she will say:
“At this critical moment in our future anything other than securing our recovery from Covid and the havoc it has reigned on every aspect of our lives would be foolish.”
On first sight there seems little in Rishi Sunak’s budget to scare the horses. With tax threshold increases delayed and Covid support continuing for the time being, Sunak has avoided an immediate hit to families’ wallets.
Look below the surface though and what becomes apparent is that those on the lowest incomes will suffer the most once the measures outlined in the budget kick in.
The most glaring example of this is the cruel decision to reduce universal credit at the end of September by £20 per week, just at the time when unemployment is expected to rise. This will hurt the poorest families the hardest and shows the lack of compassion and empathy that is at the heart of Tory thinking.
As you grow older you see things differently. Way back in 2003 as the new Chair of Tim Farron’s Campaign Committee I thought that, before we started campaigning, we should set out a few areas like education, health and housing where we needed some clear thinking. Though Tim was reluctant, we pulled together a few sensible people and we talked the issues through.
It is probably a good time for some more clear thinking now.
Where to begin? Well let us start with the most pressing problem facing mankind – that of global warming. Last year I thought the problem was insoluble but now I believe it can and will be solved though there will be more casualties and unnecessary costs if we do not get on with it.
For the last 9 years Merton Lib Dems have been campaigning to help some of the poorest paid and hardest working people in our community – those who look after people who need care.
We started 9 years ago with a question from a member of the public – me – at a Council meeting about the Council paying its staff the London Living Wage (LLW). The answer was that it would cost £275k and would cause all sorts of difficulties.
A few months later the Council announced that it had decided to pay all staff at least the LLW: the many difficulties to doing this had disappeared and the cost reduced to £47k.
That didn’t cover those working for Merton’s contractors though and in particular those working in social care. Mary-Jane Jeanes – then the sole Liberal Democrat councillor – proposed a motion that asked for Merton to commit to paying the staff of contractors the LLW and to commit to become a Living Wage Employer.
I was challenged by one of our readers, having opined on the Shamima Begum situation, to apply a similar logic to the question of vaccine passports and whether or not they should be mandatory. And I suppose that my answer is a fairly straightforward one – that they shouldn’t be made mandatory.
That’s the simple answer. A more complete answer is rather longer.
Throughout the pandemic, there has been a sense that politicians, and the Government in particular, are following public opinion rather than taking a lead. And I suspect that, with regard to a vaccine passport, public opinion is going to determine how much they impinge on day to day life.
‘Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it. Strengthen it. Renew it.’ President Biden said that in his virtual address to the Munich Security Conference last week. He was talking explicitly about threats to Democracy across the world, but implicitly also about the threats within the United States. We should worry that liberal Democracy, open society and constitutional government are not to be taken for granted in Britain, either.
None of us should under-estimate the extent to which the US Republican Right has effectively colonised the Conservative Party. Our right-wing media takes its cue from American campaigns – on culture, free markets, ‘family values’, suspicion of government as such. Tory MPs interact with US politicians and think-tankers far more than with conservatives across the Channel. Funds flow into the UK from right-wing US foundations, companies and lobbies, supporting similar groups and promoting like-minded causes over here. The denigration of liberalism that grips the American right is echoed in London seminars on ‘post liberalism and endless attacks on Britain’s allegedly ‘metropolitan liberal elite’ – by well-connected and well-paid Conservative intellectuals who live in London themselves.
The Liberal Democrats should be commended for their principled opposition to The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (criminal conduct) Bill, which is better known as the “spycops” bill. Yet, they have much work to do in securing the civil liberties of their fellow citizens. What has gone on with undercover policing for decades is a threat to hard won political liberty and social progress. Liberals have to learn lessons of undercover policing gone wrong from the Undercover Policing Inquiry.
With all due respect to Baron Paddick, who wrote the article The ‘spy powers’ bill is a step too far, he needs to realize the status quo of undercover operations is toxic, as far as the police go. He wrote:
if all this legislation did was to provide legal authority for the police and security services to authorize informants, when necessary to commit crime, it would maintain the status quo and the Liberal Democrats would have no argument for it.
Liberals need to consider how zealous efforts by undercover police officers could cause people to act criminally, in cases they ordinarily would not have. Considering the case of animal rights activist Geoff Sheppard, he claims then-undercover Metropolitan Police Officer, Matt Rayner (not his real name) asked him to show him how to make an incendiary device. Sheppard received a four year sentence for possession of a shotgun, ammunition, and material to make an incendiary device.
History appears to be repeating itself in Myanmar with the military unwilling to relinquish control. Will thousands be killed again, as massive numbers of people nationwide protest in the streets and are engaged in civil disobedience?
Following independence from British colonial rule in 1948, disagreements amongst political elites, the civil wars with ethnic-based groups and anxieties over communist influence led to General Ne Win forming a caretaker government in 1958. An election was held in 1960, but when minority groups pushed for a loose federal structure, which were seen by the military as separatist movements, General Ne Win took over in a coup d’état.
Since then, for the next 30 years, Myanmar was ruled by the military. In 1974, a new Constitution was established and a one-party system was adopted, whereby military officers resigned and governed through the Burma Socialist Programme Party. Protests were held against military rule throughout the 1960s and 1970s, which were crushed, culminating in a major unrest and widespread pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. Thousands were killed. Martial law was declared in 1989 and Burma was renamed Myanmar.
I ought to start by expressing the view that, regardless of what Shamima Begum has, or has not, done, I have little sympathy for her. And, for all the suggestions that she was groomed, or that she was too young to understand what she was doing, Liberal Democrat policy is to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to fourteen from its current level of ten years of age. If she has committed an offence punishable under law, then she should be tried and, if found guilty, sentenced appropriately.
But the Government are arguing something rather different. They suggest that her citizenship can be taken away from her because she is “a bad person” and a threat to national security. That may be true, but the United Kingdom is also a signatory to the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Article 8 of the 1961 Convention outlines how and when a State may withdraw nationality, opening with the sentence;
A Contracting State shall not deprive a person of its nationality if such deprivation would render him stateless.
paul barker Current projections suggest that Immigration will be "Over by Xmas", with more people leaving than arriving . The Party that talks about this before it happens...
Dav We can look to recent reforms in the EU where they have begun implementing a range of measures aimed at strengthening border controls with more resources, co...
Steve Trevethan “Prioritizing inflation control primarily causes high interest rates, slower economic growth and increased financial burdens on regular households.” (Ffom...
Peter Wrigley We have no more chance of stopping the flow of irregular immigration than King Cnut (Canute, Knut) had of turning back the tide, and if the planet continues to...
David Allen Paul is right. A flexible cap on the immigration quota would truly allow Government to "take back control". Given the recent high levels of immigration, a tig...
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