August 30, 2021 - 3:46pm
Today’s reports that the Taliban are prepared to guarantee safe passage for Afghans trying to flee their new regime seem to be providing little comfort to those trapped in Kabul.
But with America’s self-imposed exit deadline upon us, and the UK’s inability to act independently of the US beyond doubt, Taliban goodwill might now be the means available, however spectral, to undo some of the harm done by our exit.
For as it stands, Britain is now known to the world as the nation that gave cats and dogs top priority while leaving hundreds of allies and collaborators behind.
The row over Pen Farthing and his pets seems to have split the nation (or at least Twitter) down the middle. To some, he’s a hero doing his bit for God’s creatures against a beastly government.
To others, he’s a self-aggrandising, self-righteous hypocrite who asked us to believe he’d stay and die with his dogs but was prepared, when it came to it and despite all his big talk, to leave his staff behind.
How likely is it that the Taliban, having refused them access to the airport on Saturday, is suddenly prepared to facilitate their escape on Sunday? Or is it more likely that it’s just easier for the Islamic Emirate to make promises when the physical lifeline to the West has been cut?
Perhaps we will be able to strike some sort of deal to get more people out, although Kabul’s new rulers will make us pay a price for it. But not even the Biden administration is prepared to say whether we should actually trust the people with whom these deals are being struck.
As and when the Taliban start capturing the very people we should have evacuated, there will be some extremely difficult questions for the Government and military to answer. And while the impact might have been marginal, the absurd priority given to ‘Operation Ark’ will make them even harder.
Yes, Nowzad provided an extra plane. But the evacuation wasn’t short of planes — there were planes leaving with empty seats. It was short of time, and the manpower needed to process people’s papers and escort them securely through the airport.
The military and Ministry of Defence were both clearly uncomfortable with the order to misallocate resources to Farthing’s pets. Very likely it meant at least a handful of people not getting their papers processed who would otherwise have done so. Those people may now never leave Afghanistan.
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SubscribeFirstly 60% of homeless in London are foreign nationals, so if we helped them get home to where they can get support from friends and family, that solves 60% of the issue. Secondly, we have had mass immigration running at 700,000 a year for two decades of mostly low-skilled labour, which was been great for every sector of society, except the poorest, who have seen depressed wages and high housing costs. Once we limit mass immigration, wages will go up and housing costs go down, stopping people getting homeless in the first place. Thirdly there will always be some who actually want to live on the streets by choice & no amount of do-gooders effect will get them off.
1) The figures you’re quoting relate to rough sleeping specifically (as noted by Richard Pinch). 2) The largest group (nearly half) of rough sleepers in London are UK nationals (data source: London’s Poverty Profile: https://www.trustforlondon…. I am not seeking to win any points here – there’s this narrative that it’s all about foreigners which has been used to justify the Government doing very little, and as a result the numbers sleeping rough of all nationalities have more than doubled since 2010.
If UK nationals account for less than half of London rough sleepers, it follows that more than half are foreign nationals. This is consistent with Jamie Gerry’s statistic. Your second point appears to be self-contradictory, unless a nuance is escaping me.
It does not help the argument in this article that it confuses rough sleeping with homelessness. The latter is a legal definition and most people who are homeless are not sleeping rough (which is not to say that being legally homeless is anything other than awful). For Oct-Dec 2019, about 65,000 households were legally homeless, of which about a quarter were in temporary rented accommodation, about a quarter living with family and friends, and about 3% sleeping rough.
Why not simply hang everyone caught dealing drugs irrespective of how often or how small an amount. Once that profession dries up (about a day after the first tranche of public hangings) we might get a start to see a clearer picture of what’s what on the streets.
Precisely. Our current policy on the so called “War on Drugs” is an utter fiasco. A pathetic cocktail of punishment and indulgence, that not only rewards the Drug Barons, but ludicrously also rewards the numerous Enforcers.
The irresistible elixir of bloated Public Sector pay and pensions, means no one is prepared to do more that spout meaningless platitudes and sanctimonious drivel.
We must either implement total liberalisation or begin to execute on an industrial scale. It is the duty of the State to protect its citizens even if that means killing a few of them, as Aristotle may/might have said.
Rarely in life do things ‘unravel’ by themselves. While sympathising with Gary’s plight, there is surely some event or concatenation of events that triggered his descent & that it isn’t mentioned indicates less an interest in the truth than in politicising a situation that is not, inherently, political.
I think the only place you don’t see street dwellers is where there are laws against being homeless that are actually enforced. We need homes for the homeless, new laws, and active enforcement. Quite a revolution in thinking.
it was interesting to note the opinions of West Indian immigrants towards white Englishmen in the BBC documentary ‘The Colony’ made in 1964 but aired again recently. A few of the participants had noted after many years in England how Englishmen are “all for themselves” and put their own interests first. Others mentioned how Englishmen had no love in them for others. As a white, working-class, middle-aged Englishmen I have to say I concur with these views. There is a very slight prospect of English people suddenly taking an empathetic view of the homeless or rough-sleepers other than to clear the streets of ersatz living quarters. We are by and large a nation of selfish materialistic individualists.
The workman ought to be worth of his hire. This is going to be difficult in any reasonably free economy. It’s impossible in a world of globalization and mass labor migration. Pretty those things should be addressed along with dealing with the mentally ill and the substance-addled.