Bigotry And Its hangers On

[Richard]

Bob wrote in another thread;

Absolutely correct! The UK is not as blameless as may be believed in that regard. Witness the Windrush episodes and the way government is turning and twisting, trying to avoid responsibility. Misguided, inaccurate political speeches and certain media pressure during the Brexit furore, have led to well-behaved, hard-working people from other countries who have been resident here for years in some cases, being assaulted and spat at in the streets.

I do have a bit of an issue with the present Windrush brouhaha. It clearly suites the likes of Dian Abyss to play this one up but the story has a number of subtle sides. This government is at least trawling through the records to try to trace any affected residents and has agreed to pay compensation.

My children were born outside of the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s and I knew that the effects of the 1971 act and possibly others needed paperwork to be in ace condition as it affected far more than incomers. It would/could affect my daughter’s children had they not been born here and getting their passports required some degree of paper chasing.

I fought hard a fast to get it all in order and for them to have their own passports from a very early age, i.e. within weeks of birth – it was not normal at that time. During my time in other countries it was essential that my, my wife’s and children’s paperwork was kept absolutely in order via the likes of residents permits and work permits, etc.

I understand that some of the Windrush first arrivals may have kept their original passport status and may or may not have had their UK paperwork sorted out, and that their children’s status was not indelibly recorded as a result. I understand that the first of the Windrush problem cases has been tracked to 2005 so well before any issue of the influx of EU facilitated illegal immegrants and of course before any so called Brexit effect. It is suspected that some may go back further. This is not to pass the buck to different governments but down to what I term the;

‘jobsworth effect‘, ‘Your paperwork is wrong so its more than my jobsworth to let it go’.

Now to be a little more candid, many of the civil service jobs are poorly paid and some that involve aspects of law were filled by staff with some legal training who felt their roles and pay were beneath their training. This was certainly the situation in the so called ‘Court of Protection‘ or as we found it the Court of Abuse. There many of the staff were West African Law students who clearly felt they should be in better roles with better pay levels. Their sometimes heavily accented voices were hard to understand on the telephone and one had to be very careful in dealing with them. I took over from my 88 year old Father in dealing with mother’s affairs to avoid the growing risk of conflict.

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