Tag Archives: barge

Would Lee Anderson have told Jewish refugees to ‘f*** off’ back to Germany in WW2?

Floating concentration camp: Bibby Stockholm (pictured) is a floating mirror of the camps built by Nazis for groups they considered undesirable. How many Jewish asylum-seekers and refugees have been forced to board it?

Here’s a sad reminder of the lengths by which the Conservatives have regressed UK society:

Professor Roberts is only slightly inaccurate; while the Bibby Stockholm and any other converted prison barges are reminiscent of those ships from centuries ago, they are more accurately described as concentration camps – a label most commonly associated with the Nazi extermination of Jews, Romanies, homosexuals and other proscribed groups in the 1930s and 40s.

One cannot help but feel that this was an intended aim of Tory immigration policy; they did not have to let the issue of refugees migrating across the English Channel happen at all – it used to be well under control but successive legislative changes by the Tories changed that.

Is it a sinister message to the people of the UK? “Do as you’re told or you will be next?”

The Conservatives themselves have been strident in their support of a policy that imprisons people who have done nothing wrong, with a view to deporting them to a foreign country with a highly-questionable human rights record.

But they have (deliberately?) got the tone all wrong. Their party’s deputy chairman, “30p Lee” Anderson, actually used obscene language when referring to asylum-seekers – which implies that he considers them to be a form of life that is below him (this is impossible; as a Tory, Lee Anderson is already lower than vermin).

The associations with other far-right political organisations were quickly identified, but Anderson has been defended by other high-ranking Tories:

And public opinion has judged them all:

In fairness, the attitude is being challenged – and you can judge the pitiful response from Justice Secretary Alex Chalk for yourself:

There isn’t a queue to jump, of course. The UK government picks and chooses who it allows in and, if you are from a wide array of countries that includes territory the UK has bombed within the last 13 years, there is no legal route for asylum open to you.

People who believe they must seek sanctuary in the UK – and remember, France takes three times as many refugees as this country has; German takes 10 times as many – have no choice but to do as they have.

Here’s Chalk again, showing that he shares Anderson’s fascist views about foreigners:

His claim that people should stop at the first “safe” country has long-since been debunked; international law does not demand that and never has.

Fortunately the rest of us aren’t putting up with any of this Tory/Fascist/racist nonsense:

Now brace yourself for a bombshell:

If asylum-seekers and/or refugees refuse to take places on the Bibby Stockholm floating concentration camp, they won’t be sent back to France but they will lose financial support from the UK government, which will not provide accommodation for them.

So let’s be clear on this: they’ll still be in the UK, but out on the streets, unmonitored? Isn’t that what they want?

So the Tory plan to deal with these asylum-seekers and refugees is either to make them put up with conditions similar to those faced by concentration camp victims in Nazi Germany or to flood the UK’s streets with them – something politicians like Lee Anderson and Alex Chalk have been strenuously opposing for a long time.

Where’s the sense in that?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the House of Commons, we see no opposition at all:

So Keir Starmer agrees with the Tories yet again. No surprises there.

Indeed, the rhetoric of Starmer’s STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour) is identical to that of the Conservatives on this matter:

£6 million a day adds up to £2,190,000,000 a year for hotel accommodation. The barges cost – well, see for yourself:

So: £800 million per year. But that’s not instead of the cost of hotels – it is in addition to that cost.

And what are we – and asylum seekers/refugees – getting for that cost? Edwin Hayward has researched it:

He had a highly-pertinent response to a correspondent who thought this didn’t seem too bad:

The best word on this whole sorry affair has come – as it usually does – from the most unfairly-vilified politician in Westminster: Jeremy Corbyn. He reminds us that the UK used to have a human immigration and asylum system, before the fascists and racists who currently call themselves Conservatives (and their counterpart cuckoos in Keir Starmer’s party) came along.

And look at the comment on his words, below:

We have come full circle.

UK policy on refugees and asylum-seekers is not only vile and inhumane; it reflects that of the Nazis to the minorities they persecuted.

Lee Anderson, Alex Chalk, Keir Starmer and Stephen Kinnock (it seems clear) would have put Jewish refugees from the Nazis in concentration camps, if they had been alive and in Parliament at that time. And how many of those currently aboard Bibby Stockholm are Jewish, anyway?

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Labour will continue using firetrap barge to house migrants if elected, says Kinnock

The barge: Bibby Stockholm has been modified to take nearly twice as many asylum-seekers as it would have accommodated when it was a prison, creating serious humanitarian concerns – and meaning that there would be no escape for many if a fire broke out there.

The Labour Party has confirmed that, if elected into government, it will continue to house asylum-seekers in converted barges that have been condemned as fire hazards by the Fire Brigades Union.

Reactions have not been positive:

The Guardian report states that Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock admitted the prison barge Bibby Stockholm (and others like it) would remain in use after a Labour government came into office because it would take time to sort out the mess the Tories have made of the UK’s immigration and asylum system.

Crucially, he did not even estimate how much time it would take to clear the 172,000-person backlog of claim processing enough to dispense with the barges.

Their use would clash with long-standing left-wing humanitarian principles of solidarity – supporting people in need in a humanitarian way (not possible on an overcrowded barge that is a floating fire hazard).

This in turn supports claims that Keir Starmer has changed Labour into nothing more than a Substitute Tory Party (This Site calls it the STP) that is practically identical to the Conservatives in its main policy aims because Starmer believes that will attract, from the so-called ‘Establishment’, support that he needs in order to seize power for himself.

Starmer’s supporters have been quick to point out that Labour has not said it will keep the barges forever – but this is sidestepping the fact that the party has said it will keep them indefinitely.

A better message would have been that Labour will get rid of them as soon as possible. The fact that Kinnock chose not to describe his party’s policy that way should be deeply worrying for any “traditional” Labour voters who actually pay attention to whether that party is actually sticking to any of the long-standing principles that make it worth electing.

At a time when even hard-right-wing activists like John McTernan are admitting that Starmer’s party cannot win an election without help from the Left, this is a critical – and unforced – blunder.

Would you vote for a Labour Party that doesn’t treat all people with equal respect?

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Asylum barge is potential new Grenfell Tower-style deathtrap

Suella Braverman considers a kinder, ‘compassionate Conservative’ response to asylum-seekers.

Isn’t it good to know the Tories are taking their responsibilities seriously?

Oh, wait…

Once they have detained people they believe have come to the UK illegally, they have a legal responsibility to ensure the well-being of those people until their future can be decided.

So, do they house these people in safe and secure accommodation? No!

They say: “We’ll put them up in a floating firetrap with no means of escape if it burns; that’s good enough for ’em!”

Or at least, that’s what This Writer gets from the following:

Here’s the supporting information:

Bizarrely, if I recall correctly, the Tory government could have put the same number of people into luxury hotel rooms for less money than it has cost to hire this floating incinerator.

The Fire Brigades Union has now written to the Home Office, and you can read the letter here:

It says: “Firefighting operations on vessels such as the Bibby Stockholm provide significant challenges and require specialist training and safe systems of work.”

Then it describes safety provisions on the Bibby Stockholm as “diminished” and warns that the nature of those provisions “exacerbate our operational concerns”.

The letter also states that “The FBU believes fire safety standards are universal and apply to everyone… Fire does not discriminate and therefore neither should safety regulations.”

The implication is clear: the boat is unsafe and the FBU believes it has been deliberately made unsafe on Home Office orders.

This Writer looks forward to hearing Suella Braverman’s excuse for housing asylum-seekers in a deathtrap.

I’m willing to bet it will include a lot of bullying talk and probably a bit of racism as well.

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The news in tweets: Thursday, July 20, 2023

The puppets: in fact, with today’s information, this image needs to be updated to show a Saudi politician or a private health boss with his hand up Blair.

Labour sinks its candidates’ chances in today’s three by-elections

The UK’s main parties seem to have given their candidates in the three by-elections taking place today (Thursday, July 20, 2023) a shot… in the foot. An entire volley, in the case of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour). In fact, metaphorically-speaking, it would probably be accurate to say that those candidates no longer have any legs to stand on.

Here’s former party leader candidate Liz Kendall showing why members made the right choice by avoiding her like a nasty disease. In defending her leader’s decision to condemn 55 per cent of families with three children and a massive 80 per cent of those with four to poverty, she resorted to the “fiscal responsibility” argument that simply doesn’t ring true:

The simple fact is that fiscal rules may sound good to the public but all they really do is straitjacket political parties into courses that can harm us all in the long term. There’s no need for them.

Nor is there any justification in saying that (Labour) can’t make promises about where the money for a change will be sourced. The simple fact is that the Conservatives have spent 13 years cutting taxes for the richest people in the UK. The opposition party should be looking at the amount of money these policies have denied to the treasury and making its plans accordingly. Instead, the plan is to leave these tax breaks in place – boosting the rich still further while punishing the poor yet again.

The claim that parents should get better jobs is risible. Even if such employment was available in an economy where pay has been pushed through the floor, how are parents supposed to take them when the massive cost of childcare ties them to their home, looking after their children?

(And please, let’s not engage in the tired old argument that people should not have had more than two children in the first place: you don’t know the circumstances behind those situations, and in any case the UK’s economy requires a larger indigenous population, now that so many workers from abroad have been scared away.)

Elsewhere, Tony Blair has demanded that a future ‘Labour’ government should inflict austerity on the UK:

We know from the nauseating spectacle of Blair discussing policy with Keir Stürmer in public that the opposition party leader is a Blairite and wants to follow the desires of his ideological leader as much as possible.

Blair is saying he wants austerity, and he wants increased privatisation in the NHS. Only “basic” healthcare should be free at the point of use, he said. Other services would cost money. These are not Labour Party policies, of course – and nobody claiming to represent Labour who supports them, and/or the leaders who spout them, should be allowed into Parliament.

What we’re looking at is “policy capture” – and the organisation behind Tony Blair should be avoided at all costs because it is owned by foreign governments, it seems:

So candidates in today’s by-elections – by the words of leading party members – are not going to help working and working-class people but may well be following the demands of foreign governments instead, with plans including making us pay for anything more than “basic” healthcare.

Would you vote for that?

Grant Shapps shows why Tories should not be allowed near power

While leading members of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour) have been hobbling their by-election candidates, Grant Shapps has been doing the same for the real Tory Party’s credibility.

He has written to Keir Stürmer, demanding that the STP pay for damage caused by Just Stop Oil protests, on the grounds that the STP is the political wing of Just Stop Oil:

This is boneheaded stupidity. In doing so, Shapps is publicly acknowledging that any politician or political organisation that takes money from a donor will do what that donor demands in the future.

If Stürmer’s STP had said that, we could point to the donations its members receive from Trevor Chinn and say this is an admission that that party is now a sockpuppet of the so-called Israel Lobby (amongst others).

But because a Conservative has said it, we can rifle through all the donations that party and its MPs receive instead. Obviously Shapps is admitting that the Tories are all in thrall to private health firms (for example), and that’s why the NHS is being increasingly privatised.

He has opened the door for us to tell the world that the Conservative Party – and more importantly the Conservative government – does not work for the people of the United Kingdom, despite taking huge amounts of our cash.

Instead, it works for those shadowy donors, despite all the claims over the years that it did not, which we are now free to conclude are lies.

And that means any Tories elected in today’s (Thursday, July 20, 2023) by-elections will do the same and should therefore be blocked from ever entering Parliament.

Nice one, Shapps!

Rishi Sunak blames striking junior doctors for his own government’s health service blunders

Here’s another Tory failure that should cut into that party’s vote in today’s by-elections: Rishi Sunak’s attempts to blame striking junior doctors for weaknesses in the National Health Service.

I’ll let Peter Stefanovic explain:

A couple of points that should be emphasised:

As a result of Tory pay cuts since 2010, you are £11,000 a year worse-off than you would otherwise have been, and Sunak wants you to take further pay cuts (not just just junior doctors). Meanwhile, average pay for MPs, once their multiple other jobs are taking into account, is more than £200 per hour.

The “Independent” Pay Review Body is nothing of the sort. Its members are all employed by the government and are told how much money the government is willing to pay public sector workers before making any decisions. Those decisions are then made to fit in with what the government tells them to do, rather than with what public sector employees need.

Daily Express fails at basic maths. Just because inflation has fallen, that doesn’t mean prices are dropping

Carol Vorderman explains basic mathematics to the writers of a national newspaper.

It seems the Daily Express and its employees don’t understand that a fall in the rate of inflation does not mean that prices have dropped – despite the fact that it has been drilled into all of us over many months that such a fall really means the rate at which prices increase is slowing down.

So the following headline betrays a lack of economic credibility:

Still… when the price cuts demanded by the paper don’t happen, perhaps we can all enjoy a public backlash against the Tories.

That’ll be fun to watch.

Tory government paid almost as much for each ‘migrant barge’ as it costs to hire the most luxurious cabin cruise ships

This is self-explanatory:

This Writer understands that we still don’t know who won the contract to provide these barges, that have been modified to accommodate 500 people rather than 240, meaning less space is available for each of them.

And we don’t know whether there was a proper tendering process, with multiple interested parties invited to bid for the contract, or if it was just handed over to a Tory crony via the illegal “VIP lane” or any successor route.

It’s another point for voters in today’s three by-elections to consider.

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The news in tweets: Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Falling energy prices are not being passed on to customers and the government is doing nothing. Why?

Tory energy security minister Grant Shapps was grilled over the government’s failure to support cash-strapped households, by Martin Lewis on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. His answers were revealing:

So: we will receive no more money to help with energy bills, even though the energy companies are charging us far more than the cost of the energy itself. The government is supporting these firms as they rip us off.

Shapps’s comments about standing charges are also useful. He said these charges are for “all of the network costs, the maintenance costs and the things which happen before you get the live supply of energy to the household”. He said these costs were “not for nothing”.

This Writer certainly hopes that is true.

But let’s have a look at another privatised utility that forces you to pay standing charges: water. If standing charges on water are said to be for the same purpose as for energy – network costs, maintenance etc – then the water companies are guilty of fraud because we have learned that none of our money is being spent on infrastructure (maintenance). The pipe system still dates back to the Victorian era and some of it is made of lead, which is poison.

The water firms also borrow heavily to cover day-to-day costs. That leaves me asking what the standing charge supports. Is it just feeding into the profits of shareholders? If so, then these firms are lying to us about its purpose and should be prosecuted, forced to return that money to us and the charge abolished.

In fairness, I have read that the charge is for the cost of reading meters and sending out bills – but with smart meters installed that tell firms what you’ve used without anyone having to come to your home, and with the facility for people to receive bills by a new-fangled device called email, those costs now must be very low compared with times in even the recent past. Why are the standing charges not being reduced, then?

Taking the subject back to energy, if standing charges on water are a rip-off, how do we know that the energy firms aren’t also charging us far more than is reasonable?

Answer: we don’t.

One rule for them: MPs get up to £16,305 per year for up to three children, but restrict your child benefit to two kids and £2,080

Yes indeed.

Current salary for a backbench MP is around £84-5,000. They get expenses to pay for food, rent and bills (on the second homes they need in London, if I recall correctly), and they also receive £5,435 per year to pay bills related to their children, for a maximum of three children. That’s around £104.23 per week, per child, up to £312.69 – let’s round it up to £312.70.

If you have three children, you won’t receive any child benefit for one of them. You then get £24 per week for the eldest and £15.90 for the second child: £39.90 per week or around £2,080 per year.

Your MP thinks this is fair – even those in the Labour Party who should be demanding equality for everybody (possibly with a few exceptions).

This is why we need to think very carefully about who we allow into Parliament and what they should be elected to do.

Meanwhile, Substitute Tory (formerly Labour) Rachel Reeves can’t see how a UK government can fund free school meals for children who need them, so members of the public have been offering helpful suggestions:

Howard Beckett pointed out: “In Norway the sovereign fund stands at over $1.3trillion. Norway tax[es] fossil fuel Corporate giants at 78 per cent.”

She could also reverse some of the massive tax cuts that the Tories have handed to the richest members of UK society since 2010. There are plenty of ways to fund a better future.

One can only conclude that Pamela Fitzpatrick is right: “Reeves really cannot see where the moneys going to come from because she simply does not have the skills, talent or vision for the role she is in.”

There is a lighter side to this – if you have a certain sense of humour:

Keir Starmer was ‘consciously dishonest’ when he campaigned for the Labour leadership. Shouldn’t he be given the boot?

We may conclude from the information available to us that when Keir Starmer was telling Labour Party members that he would respect and continue the policies of his immediate forerunner Jeremy Corbyn, he was actually planning to throw away all the popular policies that Mr Corbyn had formed, as soon as possible.

He lied in order to be elected.

That is not acceptable.

He should be removed.

He won’t be – because Labour disciplinary procedures are a bad joke at the expense of rank-and-file party members. But voters should – and will – remember his betrayal, and the cynical, calculated way in which he planned it.

Defence spending rises by nearly one-third of what it was in 2019 – while all other spending falls. Why?

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has announced that the UK government will spend £50 billion on “defence”, for the first time in its history – more than £12 billion more than in 2019.

Jeremy Corbyn asked him about his priorities:

In response, Wallace said: “I am not out looking for war. We are all out here trying to defend our nation by avoiding war, but we do not avoid war by not investing in deterrence. Sometimes we have to invest in hard power, to complement soft power. We do not want to use it and we do not go looking for it. I know the right hon. Gentleman mixes with some people who always think this is about warmongering; it is not. But if countries are not taken seriously by their adversaries, that is one of the quickest ways to provoke a war.”

So he wants to avoid wars by rattling the sabre. This Writer isn’t sure that works – and I am encouraged to doubt him by his own prediction that the UK will be at war within seven years.

Mr Corbyn’s question was an opportunity for him to explain how his spending plan would prevent the UK from being at war within seven years. He did not answer that question.

What are these Tories planning to drag the rest of us into?

£500 million public money bribe to get Jaguar Land Rover owner to build electric car battery factory in Somerset

The Tory government is paying £500 million towards the creation of a £4 billion factory by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata, building batteries for electric cars.

Is it really great news?

As migrant-housing barge arrives in Portland: how was the contract awarded and was it carried out corruptly?

Two tweets on this:

Is the illegal Tory “VIP lane” still operating, then?

Why is the government repeating consultation on wet wipe ban? Is it looking for a different response?

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The news in tweets: June 18, 2023

Public support for striking nurses higher now than when action began, RCN says

Government quietly awards travel firm £1.6bn contract for asylum barges and accommodation

DWP criticised in parliament for ‘hiding’ information on starvation death

Labour reveals two-candidate shortlist in North East mayoral race

DWP’s ‘shocking’ refusal to allow benefit appeal for woman who was sectioned

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Barge to house asylum seekers looks like a prison and is treated like one. What is it?

Has the plan to house asylum-seekers on the 222-berth barge Bibby Stockholm come unstuck with its comparison to a floating prison?

Tory ministers may be claiming it hasn’t…

… but they would have been better-off checking their history books first.

Allow me to introduce you to HM Prison Weare:

Formerly known as the Bibby Resolution, HMP Weare was moored at – guess where? – Portland Port near Weymouth, where it held 400 prisoners between 2004 and 2005 when it closed due to costly running, being unnecessary and the cost of millions of pounds in order to refurbish it.

The prison was reopened a few months later for a short period. Not long after, the prison closed permanently and was sold off after conditions on board were criticised by the Chief Inspector for Prisoners, who complained that inmates had no exercise and no access to fresh air, also stating the ship was “unsuitable, expensive and in the wrong place”

So: poor conditions, costly and unnecessary.

May we expect to see the same conditions prevailing with HMP Weare’s sister ship, Bibby Stockholm?

Here’s a better idea for it:

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Look who’s opposing this plan to house asylum-seekers on a barge

Richard Drax: his ancestors transported slaves to the Caribbean in cramped, unhygienic ships. Now he is opposing a similar (albeit somewhat more comfortable) scheme for asylum-seekers.

When a Conservative MP whose family were pioneers of the slave trade opposes a plan to house foreign asylum-seekers on a “completely inadequate” barge, his colleagues in government ought to take notice.

They won’t, of course.

Richard Drax’s ancestors ran sugar plantations based on slave labour, in Barbados and Jamaica, until the British Parliament banned slavery in 1833. The slaves had been transported from Africa on ships where conditions were appallingly cramped, unhygienic and inhumane.

Now, single men who have already suffered to get to the UK are set to be billeted on the 222-berth barge Bibby Stockholm while they wait for their asylum claims to be processed. It is expected to be in use for 18 months.

It will be moored in Portland Port, near Weymouth, and is said to have been refurbished since the Dutch government used it for the same purpose, when it was described as an “oppressive environment.”

Drax’s constituency includes Portland, so the reason he doesn’t want this seems clear (Not In My Back Yard-ism).

According to the BBC,

he was “very concerned” about the impact on the area which “relies on small businesses”.

That being said, the mere fact of him opposing this should carry some weight.

The plan has been touted as a way to get asylum-seekers out of hotels where their accommodation has been costing the government more than £6 million per day and angering local residents.

But Labour has said it is

“in addition to hotels, not instead of them, and is still more than twice as expensive as normal asylum accommodation”.

So whichever way you slice it, the evidence in support of this new scheme is wafer-thin.

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