“British couple convicted of keeping immigrant as slave for 24 years” — yet they were Africans with British passports. this, however, was never once mentioned in the article as that would mean that Africans are frequently guilty of exploiting other Africans — often brutally — and that would require the admission that Europeans are not the source of all, or even most, of their problems. Needless to say this would then turn attention on themselves and that just won’t do!
Christopher, spot on.
Why is there no mechanism to strip such of their passports?
It always struck me as a very bad idea to give people nationality quite so easily.
CO: in Germany there are legal mechanisms, even if it isn’t simple. The problem is that British law makes it virtually impossible to lose British citizenship once it is obtained. I’m utterly convinced that the Taiwanese are utterly sensible! It is simple enough to get a work visa if one has a skill that is needed, but it is virtually impossible to acquire a Taiwanese passport.
This is down to our useless civil servants and their political lackeys.
Whew !! Thought I’d spelt lackeys wrongly, but it’s ok.
Wish there was an editing function
Janus, my old mucker, please forgive me for posting one of my all time favourite lines in movie history. However, I do think your comment warrants this clip. 😉
Sipu, wha’ever! 🙂
PS you owe me a reply on your antisemitic state!
I would have thought that being arrested as an illegal immigrant and being deported would have been preferable to the life of slavery he was leading.
Quite sheona.
Christopher, I think the problem is with the british system, that they do not want to have identity cards and therefore there cannot be made a difference between born and living in Britain, whereas in Germany / Spain /France or Taiwan,as you say, you can. It is the british people themselves, who have decided against ‘inetrnal’ ID cards some time ago and therefore have to as well accept some inconveniences arising out of it.
As a tax payer and legal citizen I have a British National Insurance Number, as does my non-British wife. What else does your ‘id’ offer?
I agree with FoE, unfortunately ID cards in the UK were rejected in better times when the need was not obvious to most. Since we have been swamped by wogs battening on to every free service available times have changed!
NI numbers are useless by themselves, there is no photo ID and well known to be easy to fiddle. I think the time has come for a plastic card that holds all sorts of info and biometrics that is only available from personal interview and generation of data. Stops it all dead so to speak.
Interestingly in the USA both the driving licence and my permanent resident card are only available by personal attendance at a govt. building. They take the photo, iris print and the finger print there and then.
Very much harder to fiddle. Both are instantly invalid without a current address. It is the same to register to vote. You go to the town hall with your birth certificate and proof of current address to register to vote. It is to stop foreigners like myself from voting and quite right too. After registration voting cards come through the post. But no postal registration at all a la Bradford! Britain is far too lax for troubled modern times on such matters.
FoE: it isn’t so much the lack of identity cards as it is a lack of a formal registration. A certain number of forms of identification have to be shown to pick up mail, open a bank account, find a civilised job, etc. But, because there isn’t a central registry, there also isn’t a single form of ID — be it a passport or Personalausweis that is quite as efficient as Germany’s system.
CO: unusual. Mostly, people register to vote by post and hardly anyone in any state actually goes to town hall for that. A social security number and signed form are all that is needed. Not that I’d bother to vote again — can’t stand German politics and I won’t touch anything Yank-related. There are a number of districts in the US with more voters voting than legal residents and, especially in Democrat-controlled councils such as Miami, Chicago, Detroit, King County, San Francisco, IRAville (Boston), New York, Philadelphia, etc. voter-fraud is rampant. I know you love the US dearly, but it’s no better than the UK in terms of political competence!
I have to admit that WA is a model of probity in these departments. One has to observe that all the areas with voter fraud here all have extremely large black populations and are known for it. And as you say are democrat. Just like Bradford. Why do they have to be so corrupt? How they shoot themselves in the feet!
Ethnic minorities really do not know how to help themselves, no wonder they have such foul reputations.
CO: with the exception of King County! Seattle is actually more corrupt than Chicago. Much of it is ethnic bloc-voting. Over 90pc of black voters in the US vote Democrat so no one would find it unusual if 99pc of a 110pc turnout votes Democrat in Philadelphia or Cleveland or if there are thousands of cases of voters “accidentally” being given 5-6 ballots stacked on top of each other in places like Miami, Fort Lauderdale or New Orleans! Hawai’i is a cesspit of political corruption. Everything depends on extended families and family alliances — unless someone has enough money to “make good friends” with the Kama’aina!
Boadicea's Chariot 
How do you mean?
“British couple convicted of keeping immigrant as slave for 24 years” — yet they were Africans with British passports. this, however, was never once mentioned in the article as that would mean that Africans are frequently guilty of exploiting other Africans — often brutally — and that would require the admission that Europeans are not the source of all, or even most, of their problems. Needless to say this would then turn attention on themselves and that just won’t do!
Christopher, spot on.
Why is there no mechanism to strip such of their passports?
It always struck me as a very bad idea to give people nationality quite so easily.
CO: in Germany there are legal mechanisms, even if it isn’t simple. The problem is that British law makes it virtually impossible to lose British citizenship once it is obtained. I’m utterly convinced that the Taiwanese are utterly sensible! It is simple enough to get a work visa if one has a skill that is needed, but it is virtually impossible to acquire a Taiwanese passport.
This is down to our useless civil servants and their political lackeys.
Whew !! Thought I’d spelt lackeys wrongly, but it’s ok.
Wish there was an editing function
Janus, my old mucker, please forgive me for posting one of my all time favourite lines in movie history. However, I do think your comment warrants this clip. 😉
Sipu, wha’ever! 🙂
PS you owe me a reply on your antisemitic state!
I would have thought that being arrested as an illegal immigrant and being deported would have been preferable to the life of slavery he was leading.
Quite sheona.
Christopher, I think the problem is with the british system, that they do not want to have identity cards and therefore there cannot be made a difference between born and living in Britain, whereas in Germany / Spain /France or Taiwan,as you say, you can. It is the british people themselves, who have decided against ‘inetrnal’ ID cards some time ago and therefore have to as well accept some inconveniences arising out of it.
As a tax payer and legal citizen I have a British National Insurance Number, as does my non-British wife. What else does your ‘id’ offer?
I agree with FoE, unfortunately ID cards in the UK were rejected in better times when the need was not obvious to most. Since we have been swamped by wogs battening on to every free service available times have changed!
NI numbers are useless by themselves, there is no photo ID and well known to be easy to fiddle. I think the time has come for a plastic card that holds all sorts of info and biometrics that is only available from personal interview and generation of data. Stops it all dead so to speak.
Interestingly in the USA both the driving licence and my permanent resident card are only available by personal attendance at a govt. building. They take the photo, iris print and the finger print there and then.
Very much harder to fiddle. Both are instantly invalid without a current address. It is the same to register to vote. You go to the town hall with your birth certificate and proof of current address to register to vote. It is to stop foreigners like myself from voting and quite right too. After registration voting cards come through the post. But no postal registration at all a la Bradford! Britain is far too lax for troubled modern times on such matters.
FoE: it isn’t so much the lack of identity cards as it is a lack of a formal registration. A certain number of forms of identification have to be shown to pick up mail, open a bank account, find a civilised job, etc. But, because there isn’t a central registry, there also isn’t a single form of ID — be it a passport or Personalausweis that is quite as efficient as Germany’s system.
CO: unusual. Mostly, people register to vote by post and hardly anyone in any state actually goes to town hall for that. A social security number and signed form are all that is needed. Not that I’d bother to vote again — can’t stand German politics and I won’t touch anything Yank-related. There are a number of districts in the US with more voters voting than legal residents and, especially in Democrat-controlled councils such as Miami, Chicago, Detroit, King County, San Francisco, IRAville (Boston), New York, Philadelphia, etc. voter-fraud is rampant. I know you love the US dearly, but it’s no better than the UK in terms of political competence!
I have to admit that WA is a model of probity in these departments. One has to observe that all the areas with voter fraud here all have extremely large black populations and are known for it. And as you say are democrat. Just like Bradford. Why do they have to be so corrupt? How they shoot themselves in the feet!
Ethnic minorities really do not know how to help themselves, no wonder they have such foul reputations.
CO: with the exception of King County! Seattle is actually more corrupt than Chicago. Much of it is ethnic bloc-voting. Over 90pc of black voters in the US vote Democrat so no one would find it unusual if 99pc of a 110pc turnout votes Democrat in Philadelphia or Cleveland or if there are thousands of cases of voters “accidentally” being given 5-6 ballots stacked on top of each other in places like Miami, Fort Lauderdale or New Orleans! Hawai’i is a cesspit of political corruption. Everything depends on extended families and family alliances — unless someone has enough money to “make good friends” with the Kama’aina!