The Tories may have left it too late for that realistic debate about border security
Matt Cavanagh 9:04am
Another day of bad headlines about border security is, in the end, a bad day for the
Home Secretary, whoever ends up getting the blame. Yesterday morning brought further revelations in the newspapers; and then at lunchtime, Brodie Clark, the senior official who was first suspended
and then resigned over the affair, made his much anticipated appearance before the Home Affairs Select Committee. Meanwhile, over in the House of Commons, the immigration minister Damian Green had
been summoned to answer an urgent question about further alleged border lapses. By the evening, the story was once again leading the national news. Nevertheless, as the dust settles, Theresa May is
still there — and, if anything, slightly less vulnerable than before.
Many observers were impressed with Clark’s composure and gravitas under questioning which divided, depressingly, along party lines. On the substance, however, he scored a draw at best against the witness after him, the newly-installed Chief Executive of the Border Agency, Rob Whiteman.
Clark’s evidence boiled down to two points. First, he repeatedly insisted on the difference between the 2011 pilot, which allowed the relaxing of certain checks on EU nationals, and which Theresa May had authorised; and pre-existing health and safety guidance dating from 2007, which allowed the relaxing of checks on all nationals, which she had neither authorised nor stopped. Second, he argued that the lapses for which he had been suspended and publicly criticised were not an unauthorised extension of the pilot, but had been done under the authority of the health and safety guidance, which he was entitled to assume was still in force.
Whiteman saw things very differently. He agreed that it was a matter of interpretation, but thought the correct interpretation of ministers’ wishes was to take their instructions on the pilot to supersede their lack of instructions on the health and safety guidance — which they might not even know about. So anything that was ruled out in relation to the pilot should have been ruled out everywhere, even if this hadn’t been formally instructed. Whiteman also felt that the pilot and the health and safety guidance had become confused on the ground, and that the health and safety guidance had been ‘stretched’ to allow checks to be routinely relaxed — presumably to manage excessive queues. His judgement about how ministers’ wishes should have been interpreted was made after the issue was brought to his attention by John Vine, the Border Agency’s inspector. It was a judgement made, necessarily, with hindsight, since he had not been in post at the time. But he clearly regarded the whole situation as a bit of a mess, which justified his decision to suspend Clark while it was sorted out.
This is a dispute which it is hard to adjudicate without more evidence, either from the official paperwork or a more comprehensive (and impartial) account of events on the ground. But if this the crux of the matter, the advantage for the Home Secretary is that it gives her another chance to rise above what now looks more like a dispute between two of her officials.
There are two ways in which she could still be dragged back into it. First, if the claims that she, or someone acting on her behalf, ‘strong-armed’ Whiteman into suspending Clark are substantiated (his account of how he made this decision was one of the less convincing parts of his testimony). Second, and even more seriously, if one of the various investigations — by the Committee, by John Vine, and of course by the media or the opposition — unearths hard evidence that May was given information, orally or in writing, about what was actually going on at the borders beyond what she has so far admitted.
If neither of these happens, she will escape — but she will be permanently damaged, in two ways. First, Whiteman’s willingness to take full responsibility for Clark’s suspension merely reinforces how unwise it was of May to allow herself to be dragged into this part of the story in the first place, through how she handled events during that first weekend. The most emotive part of Clark’s measured testimony was when he accused the Home Secretary of destroying in two days a reputation he had built over forty years. Her special advisers had already been reported to the Cabinet Secretary for briefing against Clark. Whatever else happens, her officials and staff at the Border Agency will be less inclined to protect her from future crises; some may even be motivated to hasten her demise.
Second, as the Committee’s questioning reminded us, May cannot escape the age-old dilemma facing ministers in a crisis like this: either you knew what was happening, in which case you are compromised, or you didn’t, in which case you are incompetent. It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect that even if May is telling the whole truth, there is no suggestion that anyone misled her about what was going on: she simply never asked. Such a lack of interest in the operational affairs of her department — in so central an area, of obvious importance and sensitivity — is remarkable, even if it is not regarded as a resigning matter.
While Clark and Whiteman were giving evidence, and May herself was taking refuge at a meeting of the National Security Council, her deputy Green was in the Commons, pleading for a more serious debate — about precisely these operational issues, and the trade-offs they involve. Yvette Cooper won their encounter on points, but Green was right when he urged cross-party support for a ‘risk-based’ approach to border security. To put it another way, rather than spreading finite resources evenly over every single traveller, we should focus them where we believe the problems are concentrated: both geographically, and in terms of different categories of traveller.
This has to be the right approach overall, even if it does raise genuinely difficult issues around the acceptable limits of ‘profiling’; and Green is right that this is, in practice, the approach both parties have taken for decades. It is why during the 1990s both parties abandoned paper-based records of who entered and left the country, the Conservatives starting the process by scrapping them for EU nationals, Labour then scrapping the rest. The effort and cost of maintaining these records for every single traveller was excessive, given the infrequency with which the records were ever used. (Try devising an effective and efficient filing system for tens of millions of bits of paper each year. Even our best companies might struggle, let alone the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, as it then was.)
There are, however, two problems for the Conservatives in trying to portray Labour as opportunistic for attacking the ‘gaps’ which are in some ways the natural or inevitable result of a risk-based approach. The first is hypocrisy: they took exactly the same approach when they were in opposition. As I argued here when the present scandal broke, it would have been more strategic of the Conservatives to invest a little political capital in promoting the more rational debate Green is now calling for. That would have meant taking on those like the Daily Mail, who fill their summer papers alternately with stories about border lapses and about excessive airport queues. But, as the Conservatives now realise, that was a battle they merely deferred rather than avoided.
The second problem for the Conservatives is that you cannot have this more serious debate without also discussing resource constraints, which are at the heart of the present case even if they were mostly ignored by the Committee and the Commons yesterday. For years it has been accepted inside the Border Agency and its predecessors that there is a fairly straightforward set of trade-offs involving spending (including staff levels), passenger convenience (including queue times), and security (including the level of checks). In opposition, the Conservatives preferred not to acknowledge these trade-offs, choosing instead to imply that Labour’s problems at the borders were entirely down to incompetence or lack of political will.
If we were being super-charitable, we might say that the Conservatives did accept, implicitly, that there was some kind of trade-off involved in border policy — but that, under their leadership, the Home Office would start from a radically more favourable position in making that trade-off, first through better management, and second, through better technology. There are, however, a number of problems with that.
For starters, if this was the strategy, then they should have let the new technology bed in, and only then, as it began to deliver the benefits, decide how to take the dividend: either in terms of reduced staffing, or freeing up staff to improve security or customer service. Instead, driven by the government-wide timetable for budget cuts, that sequence broke down — with the staff cuts beginning at the same time as the technology programme was mired in delay (some of which delay, it should be acknowledged, was due to the decision to scrap an unsatisfactory contract inherited from the previous government). This decision to prioritise the government-wide timetable is understandable given the bigger picture, but it has consequences.
What's more, it is not a simple trade-off between technology and staffing. The more relevant trade-off is often between resources as a whole (staffing plus technology) and either security or passenger service. For example, the Iris-scanning system is a technology programme which has delivered both improved security and greater convenience for its users, but those benefits are now under threat due to staffing issues. Similarly, the current scandal seems to revolve around the way UKBA handled a trade-off between using expensive new technology (the capability to read a biometric chip) to increase security, or opting not to use that technology in order to maintain acceptable levels of customer service (in terms of length of queues). Again, the question that has so far gone unanswered is: to what extent did staffing constraints exacerbate this trade-off, and to what extent, therefore, are ministers ultimately responsible?
Finally, as for managerial competence, this is the kind of boast which should be gradually earned, rather than hubristically pre-announced. Even assuming May survives, the events of the last fortnight will not strengthen the public’s confidence that she is worth her previous label as a ‘safe pair of hands’, never mind the kind of gifted leader who would be required to get an institution as complex and troubled as the Home Office to shake off the old constraints and ways of thinking and break through into a new world of lower costs, shorter queues, and safer borders.
May is, of course, not the only one in her party to blame for their current predicament. She was not rated highly enough to be given the Home Affairs brief in Opposition, when the Conservatives enjoyed surfing the media narrative that immigration was simply ‘out of control’ and that a bit of common sense would bring it back under control. But she is responsible for choosing to continue with that narrative in office, and for failing to start the serious conversation which her deputy is now calling for, about costs and benefits and the balance of risks. The danger for her and her party now is that they have left it too late. Their lead on the issue is down to five per cent, and more important, they are no longer in control of the narrative. Unless they start working much harder and smarter, their new immigration slogan for the next election might as well be, ‘Sorry — but at least we’re a bit better than the last lot, aren’t we?’
Matt Cavanagh is associate director at IPPR.
Previous
Heartless P.
November 16th, 2011 9:20am Report this commentWhat a truly macho administration we have!
Yesterday the H2B "stamped", the day before he was going to "claw" back something or other from the EUSSR. Today we read about "boiling" the issues.
Apart from the fact that the H2B probably has trouble opening his breakfast egg, the issues are more simple than 'who knew or said what'. It's the fundamental outlook of the H2B and his sorry gang about who runs Britain, and how they intend to do it. And it's a bit late in the day to start that job.
anne allan
November 16th, 2011 9:32am Report this commentI consider myself to be reasonably imaginative, and have watched the onward march of patently mad officials for a good many years...
But, even I did not envisage a time when the security and ethnic mix of Britain would be deemed of less importance than the demands of 'health and safety'.
Satirists, eat your hearts out.
Mark Cannon
November 16th, 2011 9:36am Report this commentAs has been clear to some of us from the start, and should now be clear even to the slowest-witted, Mrs May has always been in the right about this.
She authorised a pilot scheme which involved some relaxation of border controls for certain groups who were, fairly obviously, not terrorists.
She expressly stated that this relaxation should not extend to dropping the fingerprint test.
Mr Clarke then authorised the repeated relaxation of fingerprint tests.
When Mrs May was finally told of this she was, understandably, extremely annoyed.
End of the story run relentlessly by, among others, Mr James Kirkup of the Daily Telegraph.
The real questions are:
1. How did someone like Mr Clarke come to be put in charge of our borders?
2. How is the mess which Mrs May inherite to be sorted out?
Chris W
November 16th, 2011 9:42am Report this commentThe labour government did take a "risk-based" approach to border control. They avoided any "risk" of upsetting their union friends by not expecting them to actually work hard or do anything to tackle the issue of queuing and organisation.
Kenneth Burlton
November 16th, 2011 9:43am Report this commentThe man's name is Whiteman not Whitehead. Rather debunks the force of your argument to get the name of one of the main players consistently wrong.
toco
November 16th, 2011 9:44am Report this commentBrodie Clark has just admitted on this morning's Today programme he was at fault not to check before going native on fingerprint confirmations.Seems like pretty rogue behaviour to me so I am not sure what constitutes a bad day for the Home Secretary but this morning it looks very rosy!
Mrs M L Bonwick-Jones
November 16th, 2011 9:54am Report this commentMatt you are quite wrong on a few issues.
Damien Green won against Yvette Cooper yesterday he was quite right when he said
'I agree with the Lady this is all a little too late
several years too late'! and when he also said 'it was a pity the Lady did not listen to what i had to say before delivering her rant'- prehaps we were not listening to the same debate!
Labour's grubby hands are all over this they are in smear mode as they are trying to hide their involvement in this fiasco, they just like cover-up's from the state of the economy to border controls,so it is never too late for the conservatives.
As for Brodie Clarke Labours ' Little Friend' they are trying to protect ( more then our borders) this man is already back-tracking maybe it has something to do with a 'Leaked'Document which now proves he relaxed checks after the home secretary explicity said this must not happen.
Should we be shocked this man had a rather chequered history in the prison service for most of his 'career' despite which he was regulary promoted and thereafter moved to the border agency. The Home Secretary may have been wrong in the way she handled the situation- by naming the person! but she was not wrong in principle or any other way.
pete-s
November 16th, 2011 10:00am Report this commentI don't know anyone at work for 40 years who has not made a cockup at work. However Mr Clark, a friend of Alan Johnson, claims to be the exception.
N.B. Just because you answer questions in a dower scots accent, does not by itself give you Gravitas. Brown spoke like that and look at his actual record!!!
liz wilson
November 16th, 2011 10:06am Report this commentPlease explain Clarks great reputation.
Detention centre burnt down,IRA prisoners
etc etc all on his watch
The mistake May made was to leave him in post at all
alexsandr
November 16th, 2011 10:06am Report this commentWhat reputation?
He was a muppet at the prison service. How did he get to run our borders?
He is an arrogant idiot who thinks he does not need to keep his management informed of what he is doing.
TomTom
November 16th, 2011 10:09am Report this commentYou haven't finished your second chapter ! Basically we have porous borders and a silly game of paying £100 for bio-metric passports that are pointless. ALL parties are agreed on the policy but none wants to confess to the voting public
Axstane
November 16th, 2011 10:09am Report this commentArrival and departure records need not be maintained on paper. There are such things as computers which have the astonishing ability to retrieve a particular record at a touch.
The huffing and puffing of Labour over this issue is classic satire.
Wily Trout
November 16th, 2011 10:12am Report this commentI see, so the rules are that Labour can go on blaming the Tories for everything during their entire 13 years in government but the Tories may not refer to anything Labour did, even though everyone knows the loss of control of UK borders was directly down to Labour. Even the BBC is less biased than this.
George
November 16th, 2011 10:12am Report this commentAnne Allan
"But, even I did not envisage a time when the security and ethnic mix of Britain would be deemed of less importance than the demands of 'health and safety'.
Satirists, eat your hearts out."
While health and safety is an overused term. I think if you read a little deeper you'll find it's justifiable in this case.
If you have handful of passenger planes circling over Heathrow, each with limited fuel. Then you may choose to expedite some of the border processing on the ground. What else would you do? Maybe you'd like to start an internment camp?
Nicholas
November 16th, 2011 10:13am Report this commentI find it surprising that neither of these highly paid career apparatchiks thought to clarify the 2007 and 2011 inconsistencies with the Home Secretary before proceeding on the basis of their own interpretations.
Interpreting "rules" without seeking to clarify them and then blaming their author(s) when it all goes horribly wrong is as old as the hills. But Ms May was in a nearby Whitehall edifice, on the telephone and on email, not on the dark side of the Moon. Perhaps they wanted to "lead beyond authority" in Common Purpose tradition?
Russell
November 16th, 2011 10:16am Report this commentI wonder what world Matt Cavanagh inhabits after reading his incredible misunderstanding of the facts as presented both at the home affairs committee and the House of Commons debate.
A rotten civil servant 'honoured' by his labour masters and obviously a power mad nobody, so incompetent he would never be employed outside the civil service. The man was a joke as the only serious committee members who asked appropriate questions (who were tories) got answers the labour committee members cringed at.
He did relax checks which he was not authoorised to do. and since then has been shown to have lied to the committee.
Mrs Balls was absolute rubbish as she was as a minister, and was also shown to be a joke in the commons. Delusion is still present in every department of the opposition party.
Matt, you may hang your hat on labour, but I think you will regret this action as people are not as gullible as they were when voting for labour over a 13 year period.
Stephen Walkley
November 16th, 2011 10:33am Report this commentBut the inspector (Vine0)had commented on this policy at Heathrow a month earlier and Damian Green had been to Calais and presumably been told what happened there. There was no need for a panic suspension -unless the objective was to get rid of Clarke at all costs.
The number of times this suspension of checks happened, based on the 2007 guidance must have been mentioned in weekly or monthly reports. Find one of those and May will be back in it.
TrevorsDen
November 16th, 2011 10:45am Report this commentWhat bad headlines -
The Telegraph says 'Former UK border chief admits he should have checked how much ministers knew about suspension of fingerprint checks.'
The Mail says 'I DIDN'T tell Theresa May about lifting fingerprint checks': Borders chief's bombshell admission after Mail's revelation that suspension was justified'.
Even the BBC quotes, 'I should have more thoroughly checked what the home secretary knew or did not know'
ChrisW's point is valid. Heaven forfend that border staff should actually pull their fingers out.
TrevorsDen
November 16th, 2011 10:48am Report this commentDear heartless - you and your friends are stuck in a groove repeating the same old rubbish all the time.
Its an absurd asinine message - the message of thick right wing loony nut jobs. The hilarity of you criticising others for ignorance is clearly lost on you.
TrevorsDen
November 16th, 2011 10:56am Report this commentPS even the Guardian quote - 'Former head of UK border force admits he should have checked whether home secretary knew fingerprint-matching checks regularly suspended'
This is clearly a post with an agenda - the IPPR is a left wing cheer leader and clearly has an interest in painting May in a bad light. The Speccy it to be condemned for giving it house room.
Cavanagh is a former special adviser in the Labour government. He worked for Brown when he was PM. Its disgusting to see his verbose propaganda smeared all over this web site.
Pete Hoskin
November 16th, 2011 11:31am Report this commentKenneth Burlton: Thanks for spotting that — we've fixed it now.
Dennis Churchill
November 16th, 2011 11:41am Report this commentIf the Conservatives can’t win an argument about the way our border controls work they really should give up.
Open the debate up to include an Inquiry into Labour’s open borders by stealth policy. Call Andrew Neather to give evidence. Call a succession of Labour Home Secretaries. Call Anthony Blair.
They won’t because they are more afraid of the BBC than the Daily Mail and anyway agree with the policy. So much easier to get domestic help in Notting Hill nowadays.
richardj
November 16th, 2011 11:45am Report this commentA Scottish civil servant this time no doubt twinned with the last and worst ever PM - is anyone surprised - as for quoting 40 years of service it says it all!
Pettros
November 16th, 2011 11:53am Report this commentDamage is done.
Joe Bloggs in the street now thinks - Coalition = Weak on immigration = no jobs for me = Labour Gov in 2015.
perdix
November 16th, 2011 12:02pm Report this commentI don't believe that anyone from IPPR can be considered a neutral commentator.Are to expect an article by Mary Riddell on CH?
EC
November 16th, 2011 12:10pm Report this comment"difficult issues around the acceptable limits of profiling"
What's difficult or indeed wrong about profiling?
salieri
November 16th, 2011 12:11pm Report this commentGeorge at 10.12:
Your response to Anne Allan’s post seems a little unfair. The health and safety aspect has little or nothing to do with planes stacking up over London and everything to do with the convenience, laziness and incompetence of the Border Agency – or at least that’s the impression you get every time you come through Heathrow and join a queue of hundreds of people (but only EU nationals, of course!) landing at regular intervals and jockeying for position as they wait to be nodded through at 4, 5 or if you’re lucky 6 immigration desks.
This is not through cut-backs, by the way, but an established pattern of arrogance going back many years. It's more than pathetic: it's a calculated f*** you to anyone visitng or living in Britain.
disenfranchised
November 16th, 2011 12:39pm Report this comment@trevorsden.....
look trevor lad, we're all terribly sorry that you've been saddled with such an unfortunate name, but you've got to stop letting out your obvious resentment of it by calling people beastly names, or pejoratives, as the politically correct like to call them.
now i know it's preferred terminology with many left leaners, but if you only realised how ranting and silly it makes you look, you'd stop it immediately.
trevor, no matter what many of your lot say, right wingers are not all loony nut jobs, just as lefties are not all completely sane, intelligent people.
so let's have an end to it, eh, for all our sakes.....
starfish
November 16th, 2011 12:46pm Report this comment@George
"If you have handful of passenger planes circling over Heathrow, each with limited fuel. Then you may choose to expedite some of the border processing on the ground. What else would you do? Maybe you'd like to start an internment camp?"
No - all it takes is some leadership, vision and management
These people do not just turn up - they are coming in scheduled flights with bona fide airlines arriving in prearranged slots and all have been through exit immigartion at their point of departure and are travelling on passports
Thus the fools at Heathrow and other airports know exactly who to expect, how many and what time
Apparently they cannot manage this without huge queues
Perhaps they should look at their staff sceduling and equipment?
Perhaps they could clear the people before they board the aircraft - or during the umpteen hour flights?
Useless
Andrew Fletcher
November 16th, 2011 1:07pm Report this commentPoor old Teresa hangs on, just
She will be quietly moved sideways in the first reshuffle "big challenges at Environment" etc
What the hell is going on when a (and I am not making this up) Tory Home Secretary only just clings on to office after a public spat with a senior civil servant
She isn't good enough, she hasn't got sufficient stature or authority and you don't need to be a right wing nutter to see that
We must have better talent than her in the party surely???
Colin Pearson
November 16th, 2011 1:33pm Report this commentThe USA has a risk-based approach. The approach regards every entrant who is not a citizen or green card holder as at risk of seeking to stay permanently in the country. And even with a visa-waiver scheme for British passports it is not unheard of to queue for 1 - 2 hours at US aiports at busy times. And don't think you can use your mobile phone, go to the loo or similar. And make sure the forms have been filled out correctly or in advance....if not go the the back of the "line". Perhaps some of this risk-based approach should find its way to the UK.
strapworld
November 16th, 2011 1:39pm Report this commentdisenfranchised, trevorsden is our resident cameronloon! He lives in a parallel universe where cameron rules supreme and can do no wrong!
strapworld
November 16th, 2011 1:42pm Report this commentMy own observation on the whole issue of Border Control is that instead of throwing well trained armed service personnel on the scarpheap. Why not hand the job of controlling our borders to the military. It would be run efficiently with true British discipline.
Nicholas
November 16th, 2011 2:13pm Report this commentstrapworld that is a very good idea. I believe the Border "Agency" would benefit from being a disciplined force rather than the usual slack, civil service lefty types and/or "fox guarding henhouse" recent immigrants.
TrevorsDen
November 16th, 2011 3:14pm Report this commentStrapworld - there is nothing remotely military in reading passports and checking paperwork.
Cameron is to the left of me. Politics is about dealing with failure. No one - no polititian - is perfect. No policy is perfect and pretty much all problems have in fact either no solution or no ideal solution.
Far from living in a parallel universe I am all to deeply wedded in the real one.
And disenfranchised - lets get real shall we? The agenda of all the anti camerloons is all to easy to see. Pursue policies that allow them to wallow in their fantasy comfort zone; pursuing policies that have never been part of any significant conservative mainstream. And let Labour back in power.
And of course you are not disenfranchised - you have the vote - same as me. All you want to do is steer the tories down a backwater where you can all rant away in peace. I would actually rather be in government, certainly with Labour out of it.
TrevorsDen
November 16th, 2011 3:20pm Report this commentOh and - another brick knocked out of the wall of Cavanagh's specious and biased argument
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100117885/the-more-brodie-clark-speaks-the-more-he-helps-theresa-may/
The whole point of this post is bogus (or more politely 'parti-pris'). Hope the Speccy is pleased with itself.
dorothy wilson
November 16th, 2011 3:24pm Report this commentThe "realistic debate about border security" should have been held before Labour gave out the message that we were a country inviting mass immigration.
Verity
November 16th, 2011 3:33pm Report this commentGeorge, 10:12 am ... "Maybe you'd like to start an internment camp?"
Mmmmmm ... internment camps ....
Verity
November 16th, 2011 3:38pm Report this commentNicholas ... re Strapword's idea ... seconded. Are you reading this Theresa May?
Nicholas ... Common Purpose. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ...
Cynic
November 16th, 2011 3:58pm Report this commentEC asks "What's difficult or indeed wrong about profiling?" You might find out that it isn't white, middle-aged, indigenous people who are the culprits.
Echo34
November 16th, 2011 4:18pm Report this commentUKBA is made up of customs and immigration staff. The immigration staff are similar in work ethic to those you would find in a benefits agency. They deal predominantly with civil law.
Get your military to deal with that can of worms strapworld.
Starfish, you're partly right, staff could be utilised more effectively, but the immigration side don't like this and are currently throwing their toys out of the pram over the introduction of team-working and fixed rosters.
See this http://www.noteamworking.com
The problems at our airports also involve our own convenience and the airports greedy scheduling. Everyone wants to arrive in the am from the US refreshed after a night-flight. everyone wants to arrive back from short hauls in daylight or early evening. The cheaper slots overnight get what they pay for, a lack of baggage-handling staff and th bare bones in immigration cos' no one wants to do nights.
The articles right in one respect, profiling worked in the past and it works today. Customs seem to get by not stopping everybody, i suggest their immigration colleagues also have a good idea what they're looking for.
disenfranchised
November 16th, 2011 4:38pm Report this commenti have the vote, dear trevor, but what will it get me today or in 2015: one, or two, of this un-differentiable triumvirate, who no longer represent my beliefs.
sorry lad, but i feel totally disenfranchised, as do so many other people in this god-awful country.
but i've just been reading some mark steyn, and he's shown that none of it now matters. immigration/demographics dictate that come mid-century our progeny won't be living under english law.
thus i'm obliged to vote UKIP, as i've been for some while now.....
Cynic
November 16th, 2011 6:23pm Report this commentAs Echo34 points out, UKBA is made up of customs and immigration staff. The two jobs are not necessarily the same. Split it back up into HM Customs and Excise and Immigration Control. Get somebody who's good at his job and has experience of the task in hand in charge of each section and weed out the politically correct (not to mention any illegal immigrants!).
ex-Tory Voter
November 16th, 2011 6:24pm Report this comment"... thus i'm obliged to vote UKIP, as i've been for some while now....." Welcome to the club, disenfranchised!
TomTom
November 16th, 2011 7:27pm Report this commentHilarious. We have an airport with concrete barriers to stop suicide bombers. Vehicles cannot park nearer than 300 metres from the terminal so it gets wet going for a bus/taxi/car.
Nevertheless the regular flights from Islamabad have benefited from reduced passport controls at this same airport.
It is so funny....really funny....
disenfranchised
November 16th, 2011 9:05pm Report this comment@ex-ToryVoter.....
can't say i'm happy to be aboard cap'n - only the delusional are happy living under the present regime - but you know what i mean.
may god bless nigel farage, the sole voice of sanity.....
John
November 18th, 2011 11:10am Report this commentAt last. Sanity. Border controls should be removed altogether. This was a step in the right direction
John
November 18th, 2011 11:13am Report this commentAbout time UK joined Schengen. I drove from Calais to the Russian border last year. No borders. Wonderful.
Britain is becoming increasinly paranoid about almost everything. A sure sign of rapid decline
Back to top