Tag Archives: missing

Missing asylum-seeking children may be working in the sex industry – and the government ignored warnings

This is exactly what I was alluding to, when I wrote, “Kidnapped? Made into slaves for criminal gangs, for purposes that one flinches from considering?”

Dame Sara Thornton is a former UK Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and was previously Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. She reckons asylum-seeking children, spirited away from hotels, may have been set to work on drug farms or in the sex industry.

She also said that 440 children were reported missing, of which the 200 mentioned in earlier reports were merely those who remained unaccounted-for.

But the bombshell was that the government has known about the problem for a considerable amount of time, but simply couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.

Watch:

The clip also covers the death of Zara Aleena and the failings of the Probation Service. Dame Sara said the service needed to be properly staffed, funded and resourced.

And on the subject of recent convictions of Metropolitan Police officers, she said, “You can’t keep on saying it’s just one bad apple; it’s another bad apple.”

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200 asylum-seeking children go missing – Tory MP says they should not have come to UK illegally

A new low: Jonathan Gullis (the unmasked bearded man in the background) [this is a stock image].

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq drew attention to the fact that, despite the UK being considered a safe haven for vulnerable children, there are 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children missing from UK hotels.

Rishi Sunak’s comment that the government needs to end the use of hotels for unaccompanied children, “and that’s what government plans will do,” was sinister enough – he meant the plan to stop asylum-seekers from getting into the UK would ensure that fewer will be here in need of housing.

But from the backbenches, Tory MP Jonathan Gullis apparently shouted, “Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally!”

That’s Compassionate Conservatism for you: let children go missing – kidnapped? Made into slaves for criminal gangs, for purposes that one flinches from considering? – because they should have stayed at home, possibly to be exploited in similar ways by their own countryfolk?

One can only agree with Peter Kyle: The Conservatives have found a new low.

Here’s the video clip:

And here’s Mr Kyle’s tweet:

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What has happened to the missing £50 BILLION in UK banknotes?

Where has all the money gone? With £50 million missing, someone would need a pretty big sofa to have it all stashed down the back.

MPs are getting their knickers in a knot after around three-quarters of all the UK banknotes in existence dropped out of circulation.

The House of Commons’ public accounts committee has said the cash – £50 billion of it – might be supporting the so-called “shadow economy”.

It could also be overseas or tucked away in homes, unreported.

This Writer thinks there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. For example, does anybody remember, when the crisis flared up, we were told that we could be unwittingly transmitting the virus via money, which passes unwashed through many pairs of hands as it is exchanged for goods and services?

Also, people no longer trust the banks and have been stockpiling cash to cope with the Covid crisis – and ahead of the financial disaster that we call Brexit.

Remember that banks provide information on your savings to the government, and this can affect the value of benefit claims.

At a time when huge numbers of people are trying to claim state support to get through this short-term pandemic, doesn’t it make financial sense to keep as much as possible in reserve, in the form of physical notes?

I’m not saying it’s an attitude that is particularly helpful to governments – but it has become abundantly clear since March that Boris Johnson’s wishes are not the same as ours.

Personally, I don’t have anything stashed away. As This Site has been able to keep operating in spite of the pandemic, I have not had reason to. Most of my transactions are carried out via card.

But I know I’m among the lucky ones. Millions of people have lost income – or lost their jobs altogether – only to find that they do not qualify for the support schemes offered by Johnson.

What are they supposed to do – lie down and die?

Most people have a bit more life in them than that.

They’ll do what they have to, in order to survive.

If that means stashing away some cash in the belief that the legendary “rainy day” has come, then that’s what they’ll do.

If it means resorting to this “shadow economy”, they’ll do that as well – and Johnson will have been the one who pushed them to it.

Of course, some of us have been having fun with it:

Source: Call for probe into ‘missing’ £50bn of UK cash – BBC News

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What happened to the £3 billion Johnson paid for ‘missing’ Covid-19 contracts?

Spaffer: Boris Johnson has thrown billions at private consultants and contractors – but now it’s time to show where the money has gone, and it seems he can’t.

This is what comes of spaffing public money indiscriminately to your Tory mates and getting nothing back in return!

A cross-party consortium of Labour, Lib Dem and Green MPs have filed for a judicial review after the Johnson government failed to disclose details of £3 billion worth of Covid-related contracts.

These will be contracts made under the emergency system in which private firms are not invited to tender; instead, Johnson and his cronies have been shovelling money to their Tory mates, to provide multi-million pound services using start-up firms or companies that have been as good as dead for years.

Last month the Department of Health said £11 billion of contracts had been agreed between April 1 and September 7 – mostly related to Covid-19.

But analysis of publicly-available contracts information showed less than £8 billion of contracts awarded by the government.

It seems the government is taking 72 days on average to publish contract details online – despite a legal duty to do so within 30 days.

So the question arises: what are Johnson and his cronies trying to hide?

The Department of Health and Social Care has said it is committed to transparency and is working through its backlog of contracts with a view to publishing them “in due course”.

Is that after they’ve been doctored to remove any evidence of foul play?

It’s a reasonable question to ask, in the circumstances.

It’s incredible that Johnson, Matt Hancock and their buddies have splurged our money away in such a cavalier manner – and what have we got to show for it?

This Writer would like to see a full audit of all £11 billion worth of contracts, with details of whether they were honoured in an acceptable manner.

I think the result of such an audit could be highly embarrassing for Spaffer Johnson.

Source: Tories face legal challenge over £3bn of ‘missing’ coronavirus contracts – Mirror Online

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Where are all the Grenfell Donations? The families aren’t getting them

A vigil near Grenfell Tower in London [Image: Victoria Jones/PA].

Is it true?

Will the money donated after the Grenfell Tower fire for the good of the victims be used to fund work by authorities that should be paying for it from their own pockets?

Apparently £20 million has been provided by well-meaning people including Adele and Usain Bolt (see below) – but if any of the former residents, or anybody representing them, asks for some of it they are refused.

Where is this money?

Why is it not being used to help the former residents of Grenfell Tower?

And who has decided to deny them this help?

Time for a Freedom of Information request, I think.

Thank you FA and Adele and Usain Bolt and all the wonderful people in this country and abroad who have donated money in response to this awful tragedy.

But the truth is that no one knows where this money is, who is controlling it, making decisions about disbursement. There have been rumblings for about 4 weeks now but finally the Residents got to vent about it in a closed door meeting with the people who’re supposedly taking care of the money.

With £20m in the bank RBKC is drawing down on this money ‘for ongoing voluntary organisation commitments’ and presumably interest is accruing on a daily basis too.

My sneaky suspicion is that RBKC will present a bill for the hotel accommodation and all the ridiculous keyworker system they put in place that had everyone going bonkers for over 6 weeks. All these expenses will be added up and my instinct is somehow deducted from the £20m donations. Wait and see.

Meanwhile some bloke I know has to rummage to find a pair of trousers to fit him, another a jacket and a woman who had the most miraculous escape from the jaws of hell, says ‘I don’t know what I can ask for. What can I have? I don’t want to be greedy or ask for anything.’

Source: Where are all the Grenfell Donations? – National & International Issues – Dorset North

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Child trafficking victims are disappearing from UK care – and the attitude seems to be ‘so what?’

In one year, nearly 30 per cent of all UK child trafficking victims disappeared from foster and care homes [Image: Veryan Dale/Alamy Stock Photo].

In one year, nearly 30 per cent of all UK child trafficking victims disappeared from foster and care homes [Image: Veryan Dale/Alamy Stock Photo].

Is nobody else worried that our local authorities seem completely unperturbed about this shocking failure in their duty of care?

Would they have mentioned the fact that a confirmed 760 young people have gone missing from their care at some time, if they had not been forced to do so by a Freedom of Information request?

Would they have told anybody that 207 of these children have never been found and are presumed to be back in the hands of their exploiters?

And these figures aren’t even accurate!

Less than a quarter (45) of the 217 local authorities from whom information was requested have bothered to reply.

This is a bitter indictment of a care system that, quite clearly, doesn’t.

Child trafficking victims and unaccompanied children are going missing from local authority care at an “alarming” rate according to a new report, which reveals that in one year, nearly 30% of all UK child trafficking victims and 13% of unaccompanied children disappeared from care services.

New research by child trafficking NGO Ecpat UK and the charity Missing People has found that 167 of the 590 children suspected or identified as child trafficking victims in the year from September 2014 to 2015 vanished from foster and care homes across the country.

An additional 593 of the 4,744 unaccompanied children placed under the protection of local authorities also went missing at least once in the same time period. Of the 760 trafficked or unaccompanied children who disappeared from care, 207 have never been found.

The new data, drawn largely from freedom of information requests to 217 local authorities across the UK, shows that Thurrock, Hillingdon, Croydon, Kent County Council and Surrey had the highest numbers of trafficked and unaccompanied children who were unaccounted for. One local authority reported that 22 child trafficking victims had gone missing in the recorded time period.

Despite the high numbers, Ecpat says that the real scale of the UK’s missing child trafficking victims is still not accurately reflected in the data.

Source: Child trafficking victims disappearing from UK care at ‘alarming’ rate | Global development | The Guardian

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SNP MP Natalie McGarry investigated over ‘missing donations’

An SNP MP has been named as the person being investigated by police over financial discrepancies from a campaign fund for Scottish independence.

Natalie McGarry, the Glasgow East MP, was one of the new intake of nationalists MPs in May’s general election.

The party said it was aware of discrepancies in the accounting at Women for Independence.

Ms McGarry’s solicitor said she denied any wrongdoing.

Source: SNP MP Natalie McGarry investigated over ‘missing donations’ – BBC News

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Scandal of the million voters ‘missing’ from electoral register

[Image: BBC]

[Image: BBC]

The BBC reports: “Almost one million voters are “missing” from the electoral register in England and Wales, Ed Miliband is to say.

“In a speech, the Labour leader is expected to blame the “hasty” introduction of the new system of individual voter registration, with students particularly affected.

“People must now register to vote individually rather one member of a household filling in a form.

“Ministers say online registration has made the process easier.”

Seriously – that’s their response? That the process is now easier?

Then why are one million people now missing from it who would have been present before?

Mr Miliband is quite right to say that the number of young people not registered to vote is a “scandal” – and he’s quite right to be doing it at Sheffield Hallam University, in the constituency of Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader whose party helped the Tories push through this insult to democracy.

“Labour said 307 of 373 local authorities that provided data had recorded a reduction in their electoral roll. Overall there had been a reduction of 950,845, the party said,” according to the BBC.

Mr Miliband was expected to tell students: “This election is a hugely important moment for young people. It is a choice that will have implications now and for years to come. It is about who this country is run for: working people, young people, or just a very few people at the top?

“In this election campaign we will be publishing a Young Britain manifesto and you have the chance to help shape it by telling us what your priorities are for this campaign and for the next government.

“There is nothing more pressing at this election than the future of young people. The future of the country depends on young people and the outcome of this election will determine what kind of future young people have.  Your job, your education, your home, your future depend on who wins this election.

“This government has betrayed young people. I am determined that we can fulfil the Promise of Britain so that the next generation does better than the last.”

This writer belongs to the last generation. So also do David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

In terms of performance, it seems clear that the next generation couldn’t possibly do worse than those two!

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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