Be aware of the UK Government's war propaganda

We are all aware of the very powerful influence that the war lobby has in UK politics. The Government and the mass media refer to this industry as the 'defence industry' and indeed, the relevant department is called the Ministry of Defence.

No UK Soldier or military device has been involved in defence of the UK since 1945.  In fact, there is only one year since then and I think it was 1967 that the UK military was not involved in fighting wars abroad in favour of oppressive regimes. Please make this very useful bulletin from Campaign Against the Arms Trade available to all those in your network:

https://www.caat.org.uk/issues/arms-fairs/farnborough

Yet more suspicious special pleading from the immigration lobby

I recently received the email below purportedly from 38 Degrees which is a campaigning body which is mostly sensible. However, they seem to be exploited by the immigration lobby or exploiting us by working with it.

This email is not very convincing. It doesn't mention that these two Pakistanis which they call Scottish. Somer and Areeb, not very well known Scottish names, are in the UK illegally. They have gone through the full asylum process at enormous cost to the taxpayer. I suggest you write to the Home Office to ask them to stop spending money on worthless cases like this.

Upon going to the 38 Degrees website, we learn that these two boys are here with their parents. That information was conveniently excluded from the email from 38 Degrees. The whole thing is very suspicious. When will 38 Degrees stop wasting our time and its money on spurious appeals to our heart? If they want to think of the welfare of the children, they should speak about the plight of the Palestinian children, many of whom have been separated from their families forever - by death.

Oddly enough, the BBC and 38 Degrees don't want to talk about Palestine, do they?

Yet more rubbish from 38 Degrees

Today, I received in my Inbox this email:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/scrap-visa-fees-in-human-rights-cases-in-the-uk

I am certainly not going to comply with their wishes. Instead, I am putting this on my blog. The costs of processing visa applications and the consequent costs in many cases of granting visas (a fact that a high proportion of people with visas overstay or disappear involving enormous legal costs) is high. These costs are much greater than the fees charged for visas which are by no means extortionate.

Words have no meaning for the immigration lobby!