Cambridge Analytica to file for insolvency

[directhex]

The mandate from the British people was for the immigration office to do it's job properly. Check the legal status of those living here, those on temporary visas have a biometric passport to make them easier to trace and identify, and then talking to UK businesses work out a reasonable quota system.

Deporting British citizens is doing their job properly, in your mind?

[Saracen]

Jamaicans who moved to the UK after the British Nationality Act 1948, and prior to the Immigration Act 1971, are British citizens.

No, they aren't. That's partly how some of most unjust cases have come about. The 1971 Act conferred Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), which is not the same thing. One way in which it differs is tgat it can be lost, such as by not fulfilling residency requirements.

However, after the requisite period, ILR can usually be turned into citizenship, by going through the fornalities ... and osying the fee. Had the Windrush people done that, there would have bern no problems.

My bet is that mostly, they didn't because nobody thought to tell them to, and they didn't understand the difference. However, taking citizenship can have unintended consequences too, as some countries regard their citizens taking another citizenship as revoking the original citizenship, thereby losing rights in their original country.

[Saracen]

thanks in no small part to deliberately destroying the evidence),

Actually, despite much smoke and mirrors in the press, the destruction of landing cards had little to do with it, because the only thing they could help establish was arrival date, and the critical issue was ongoing residency.

As for "deliberately destroying evidence", that simply isn't the case. The order to destroy those cards was given in 2009, which means either under Jacqui Smith, or as I believe he later admitted, in the latter part of 2009 under Alan Johnson. In any even, it was an administrative decision taken, it seems, by Border Agency managers, when moving from their old Croydon office, due to space requirements.

Or are you really suggesting that ANY home secretary, whether Labour or Tory, personally oversees which boxes of 50-70 year old archive papers are moved and which not, when an office moves?

[Millennium]

You know directhex politics I don't often yet get involved in .... what I'm trying to say is that a couple of times on BBC Parliament I saw conservative MP's including Theresa May state on the record in the House that the destruction of records happened under Labour leadership in a Labour government. I can't claim to totally refute your claim that Theresa May was in charge at the time ... hmm @ ... my understanding is that a Labour minister made this decision or similar.

[Saracen]

You know directhex politics I don't often yet get involved in .... what I'm trying to say is that a couple of times on BBC Parliament I saw conservative MP's including Theresa May state on the record in the House that the destruction of records happened under Labour leadership in a Labour government. I can't claim to totally refute your claim that Theresa May was in charge at the time ... hmm @ ... my understanding is that a Labour minister made this decision or similar.

To be clear, the destruction happened in 2010, post-election, when Theresa May was Home Sec, but the decision to destroy was taken months earlier, pre-election, in 2009, and Alan Johnson was Home Sec from June 2009 to May/June 2010, when the Tory/LD coalition took power.

The destruction was part of the reduction of archives during an office move, even though some local staff said it was a mistake.

It's also a stretch to paint this as politically motivated when the decision/destruction was 2009/2010, and the scandal blew up 8 years later.

It's just one of those unfortunate cockups used years later to try to inflame an already bad situation.

[Millennium]

Ah. Thanks Saracen my friend. If I was Home Secretary I would have tried to get the decision of the previous administration overturned. I guess there is some shared culpability.

[Smudger]

I think after many years of pandering to poorly thought out policy over immigration the government has been trying to remove illegal immigrants by asking people to prove their legal status. The story I know of the Windrush ship is that after returning airmen to New Zealand it stopped off in the Caribbean. No doubt dropping off servicemen there. Some Jamaicans decided to try their luck in the UK.

But all this is not the point. Actually Amber Rudd was considered fair and lenient. The scalp the Left (ie Momentum) are really after is Theresa May's because under her stricter rules on illegal immigrants were introduced. I'm sure the Guardian and many on the Left would have been aware of the new checks since then. Why not make a big story out of it then and get procedures checked for legality. Because they need a list of victims. Same as CA, it's all propaganda against a company that specialises in targeted propaganda. The Guardian is a general propaganda machine.

Really? The "Windrush Generation" was not just people on the Windrush, but a whole series of people, invited to build a life in Britain post-war, in order to help rebuild the country, owing to the amount of working men injured or killed in WW2.

With regard to CA, do you think the international conglomerate of journalists working on this thought 'when shall we release this? I know, there's some minor council elections in England that no-one cares about, that's when we'll do it. Huge impact. Massive.'

Thank goodness the WI aren't having an election this year.

So rather than concentrate on the manipulation of democracy, or the wrongs done to thousands of invited, legal migrants, let's moan about the timing. That's the bit that's undermining democracy.

[g8ina]

I think we have drifted quite a way off the original topic, please keep it civil, and just about CA please !

[Pob255]

I think both directhex & johnroe are secretly employees of CA (or some sub-contract), trying to divert attention from CA with politics.

EDIT: Yes I'm jokeing

EDIT: although as DirectHex pointed out they are not really gone, just swapped identities to Emerdata, trying to dodge the rep and bad publicity of CA
Sad thing is that it might work.

[directhex]

I think both directhex & johnroe are secretly employees of CA (or some sub-contract), trying to divert attention from CA with politics.

EDIT: Yes I'm jokeing

EDIT: although as DirectHex pointed out they are not really gone, just swapped identities to Emerdata, trying to dodge the rep and bad publicity of CA
Sad thing is that it might work.

Probably. Blackwater's changed names 3 times since all the bad press associated with that name.

[outwar6010]

I still dont get why we're not having a revote on brexit knowing everything we know now.

[johnroe]

I still dont get why we're not having a revote on brexit knowing everything we know now.

That's exactly what all this CA propaganda is all about. Trying to undermine the referendum democratic vote. The Observer reported on this story after the referendum, but only now are spin doctors using it in the lead up to actual Brexit. Smudger no offence, but you misunderstood what I said in two separate sentences.

Pobb255>you got me! (ex CA employee ha ha!)

[Pob255]

I still dont get why we're not having a revote on brexit knowing everything we know now.

because nothing was strictly illegal to invalidate the vote.

As long as it's not "defamation of character" you can get away with saying all sorts of cleverly worded things and carefully target them at people, to make them think things that are untrue. (here by refereed to as
Both news media and politics has revolved around this for a long long time, it just now that we have "big data" it becoming easier to target and personalise the to smaller groups which in turn leads to less broad which makes it more effective at persuading people into views or beliefs you want them to supprt

[Saracen]

Ah. Thanks Saracen my friend. If I was Home Secretary I would have tried to get the decision of the previous administration overturned. I guess there is some shared culpability.

While agreeing that this isn't the thread for this, I'll just respond to that to complete the picture I've painted.

While, certainly, any incoming home secretary can review decisions made by the previous incumbent, the ability to change them will be limited, and deoend on several things. For example, any decisions involving contractual obligations will expose your department to potential legal liability. Suppose a new IT system has been ordered and contracted for. Like any other party to a contract, you'll either be paying oenalties, or getting sued.

But more broadly, how many decisions do you think would have been made by the Home Office, under the previous HSec, in, say, 1 year, 2 years or 5 years? A million decisions a year?

Are you, as the new Home Sec going to review them all? If so, where do you plan on finding time to make your own decisions on current issues?

So, at some point under the previous administration, the decision was made to restructure some offices and close that Croydon office. Are you going to review that, too? And the thousand administrative decisions that go with it? And that's just that ONE office move.

Consider a major corporation, say, Barclays Bank. While the CEO may well be involved in deciding on a program of branch closures, he doesn't individually supervise the ordering of new stationary.

While, personally, I 'd have thought that prior to destroying those landing cards, a digitisation process might have been a good idea, you then have to digitise many tens of thousands of records, and come up with some search mechanism or index. I wonder whst that would cost. And how you justify it? What, from your budget, do you cut to pay for it?

That one decision was a single needle in a field of haystacks of decisions. It just turned out to be one with really big teeth, that bit.

[Pob255]

That's exactly what all this CA propaganda is all about. Trying to undermine the referendum democratic vote. The Observer reported on this story after the referendum, but only now are spin doctors using it in the lead up to actual Brexit. Smudger no offence, but you misunderstood what I said in two separate sentences.

Pobb255>you got me! (ex CA employee ha ha!)

You're doing it again, you mean current Emerdata employee



The only time historically the uk press has sat on stories and not released them is when they don't think a story is that big/profitable/of interest however the moment one paper breaks something all the others jump on it so as not to be left behind.
News is very cut throat, the only time it's not is when it's run at a loss as a propaganded tool for someone.

[Saracen]

I still dont get why we're not having a revote on brexit knowing everything we know now.

Because there's no evidence that CA-type antics actually affected the vote.

Besides, holding a second referendum falls into the old EU standard of getting countries whose people are stupid enough to vote 'wrong' to do it again, until they get it 'right'.

Also, it takes months, not least because there is a statutory process that MUST be followed, and costs £100m, or more.

And also, not least because unless the EU agree, and they can come up with some legal whizzwang to do it, article 50 has been invoked and doesn't include an uninvoking process for exiters with buyer's remorse. Even the timescale can't be changed without unanomous agreement of all member states, let alone abandoning it entirely.

And if the do, they may well have conditions .... like joining the Euro, Schengen and loosing the rebate. So then what, yet another referendum to see if people still want to stay?

In the UK, we have a principle. Governments don't put matters to the people often, but when they do, they don't then keep second-guessing it, turning it into a neverendum.

We had 18 months of discussions, television debates, endless political interviews with both sides, a war of ludicrous statistics (by both sides), we had think tank reports, milions of newspaper words and a collossal to-do, followed by a vote. Do you really think CA managed to subvert all that?

Just because CA executives claim ti have affected gjis ir that vote doesn't make it true. Remember that Sun headline .."it was the Sun Wot Won it". Their claim doesn't make that true either.

Of course CA execs will claim to have affected results. They're trying to sell their services. There wouldn't be much point in hiring them if they admitted they made no difference.

Which brings me back to my first point - where's the evidence they affected the referendum result?