[The Weeping Angel]

They had a decent by-election a couple of weeks ago.

[The Weeping Angel]

This looks like a decent achievement by the Government and would doubtless get enormous coverage if Sunak had achieved it. The usual suspects will either ignore it or say it's just "killing". Lots of jobs in Scotland. I think the SNP will win the Scottish Elections fairly easily, but that Labour will have a case in the next general election. Norway seem very happy working with the UK, and might perhaps be less than enthusiastic about Scottish independence, or at least the sort of government that lots of its staunchest supporters seem to envisage.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is a surprisingly positive write up from the Guardian about a) the Government and b) AI. On that basis, I'm inclined to believe it.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ts-recover

Stroke centres in England given AI tool that will help 50% of patients recover
NHS equips all centres with life-saving software that will increase number of patients avoiding serious disability

This sounds suspiciously like what heavyweight medic and technologist, Oliver Eagleton, described disparagingly as "tech optimism".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Talking of Oliver Eagleton, he went in very heavily to bat for the Resident Doctors, repeating their debunked figure for pay erosion. Has anyone heard from the Resident Doctors since? Where are the "strike while the iron is hot" next strike moves? Have they beaten a quiet retreat?

[kreuzberger]

Not a lot apart from the fact that Kemi wants to be one. Or something.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Tubby Isaacs]

I see we're on to "trying to stop people overstaying visas and making no hope asylum claims" is bad.

As part of the campaign, the Home Office will for the first time proactively contact about 130,000 students and their families, warning them they will be forced to leave the UK if they have no legal right to remain.

The full message will read: “If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused. Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support. If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave. If you don’t, we will remove you.”

The University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said the campaign was an “attack on international students” that has “very little to do with visa overstays and everything to do with apeing Reform”.

There are a lot of lightweights hiding behind the "apeing Reform narrative". They often follow this stuff with "and they'll never outdo Reform", as if that somehow proves that's what they're trying to do. And it's quite a complacent view of what Reform, like "Dump them all in France" is on the same sort of spectrum.

[kreuzberger]

There are a lot of lightweights hiding behind the "apeing Reform narrative".

Can't, for the life of me, think how these lightweights will make that charge stick.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She might well have. So what? Trap questions about flags to which a mainstream politician can't give a right answer are just as bad from the likes of Staniforth as from Farage. Both are playing culture war.

Grady is objecting to what there? People leaving at the end of their visas?

[Tubby Isaacs]

In the meantime, here's a policy. In the current climate, Rayner was lucky to get away without answering questions about how many flags were acceptable on a pub.

[kreuzberger]

She might well have. So what? Trap questions about flags to which a mainstream politician can't give a right answer are just as bad from the likes of Staniforth as from Farage. Both are playing culture war.

Grady is objecting to what there? People leaving at the end of their visas?

Woah, the cult* is straining at the seams!

She could easily have told him to fuck off, in so many words, just as she is going to tell forrin students to do, once they have paid their inflated whack and earned their degrees.

Conflating the "brightest and best" with Somalian war children? That is exactly what the flag-shaggers do.

*If you believe that Chèz Cooper-Balls is festooned with Chinese tat, I might be able to interest you in some fine, riverside real estate.

[davidjay]

Anyone who leaves is entitled to apply for another visa as soon as the plane's wheels stop turning. It's not a bad thing to get people to go home when they're supposed to and neither is it wrong to allow them to return if they have a job to go to.

[kreuzberger]

Of course, that is exactly the case. But, will they be quite so keen to bring back their freshly-minted, in-demand skills when they have been personally targeted on their phones and threatened with deportation?

[davidjay]

I doubt they'll be personally targeted - they'll probably get a mass text and a poster somewhere in the SU.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Woah, the cult* is straining at the seams!

She could easily have told him to fuck off, in so many words, just as she is going to tell forrin students to do, once they have paid their inflated whack and earned their degrees.

Conflating the "brightest and best" with Somalian war children? That is exactly what the flag-shaggers do.

*If you believe that Chèz Cooper-Balls is festooned with Chinese tat, I might be able to interest you in some fine, riverside real estate.

Thanks for calling me "the cult".

The fact that leaving at the end of a visa date is now being elevated to some sort of draconian notion is pretty ridiculous, in my view.

No idea what's in their house. Nor have you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I doubt they'll be personally targeted - they'll probably get a mass text and a poster somewhere in the SU.

It's a letter that's being sent out to foreign students.

[kreuzberger]

If these Golden Geese - bundles of energy and promise - can land themselves a bachelor's, master's or PHD-level qualification, I am pretty sure that they can read their visa terms and won't need a digital "Go Home" van to remind them that they can take their skills to more welcoming shores.

Home Office figures already confirm that UK sponsored study visas dropped by 31% from 600,000 in 2023 to 415,000 in 2024.

[Youngian]

The fact that leaving at the end of a visa date is now being elevated to some sort of draconian notion is pretty ridiculous, in my view.

I haven't heard of any government informing visa overstayers that's OK you can do that. But is it worth the time and effort weeding out illegals beavering away under the radar? They're a feature in all global metropolises.

[Tubby Isaacs]

If these Golden Geese - bundles of energy and promise - can land themselves a bachelor's, master's or PHD-level qualification, I am pretty sure that they can read their visa terms and won't need a digital "Go Home" van to remind them that they can take their skills to more welcoming shores.

Home Office figures already confirm that UK sponsored study visas dropped by 31% from 600,000 in 2023 to 415,000 in 2024.

Such a big drop in study visas is bad, no doubt about that, as is reducing the time they can work after the degree from 2 years to 18 months.

But the letter about not overstaying visas seems like a lot of fuss about nothing, The main beneficiaries of visa overstaying are employers who don't want to pay proper wages or NI. I think few people would be upset by the letter.

There's also a specific issue addressed in these letters. What might politely be called "long shot" asylum claims made by soon to depart students, mostly from India. I presume these are dealt with fairly quickly by returns to India as thing stand now, but might as well save some processing work.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The fact that leaving at the end of a visa date is now being elevated to some sort of draconian notion is pretty ridiculous, in my view.

I haven't heard of any government informing visa overstayers that's OK you can do that. But is it worth the time and effort weeding out illegals beavering away under the radar? They're a feature in all global metropolises.

And the metropolises generally have politicians (at national level, if not local) who're making hay with it. I don't know how much effort will actually be made to remove people. The government certainly removed a lot of people very quickly when it came in that the Tories had left for them. I don't know if that was wildly expensive.