BC GOVERNMENT
Saved by @Alex1Powell

On the face of it, this looks good, govt extending the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' visa scheme from 10,000 to 30,000 to address lack of labour for farming industry after the end of Free Movement.
Here's grinchy Zoe to explain why it's bad. Sorry...

 Until now, most seasonal agricultural work was taken on by migrants benefitting from the right to Freedom of Movement in the EU. This meant they could come, pick on this farm, move to that farm with the changing harvest, switch into other work, basically just live.
With the end of Free Mov the Home Office insists less & less convincingly that all lower-paid work our industries need can be covered by the domestic work force.

The "pick for Britain" drive to get British workers into these jobs was a car wreck, filling just 15% of vacancies.
So, yes. There is an urgent need for an alternative source of probably migrant labour to pick, sort and package food on British farms from January.

Two years ago they introduced a pilot visa scheme for this, originally to bring over 2,500 workers for 6 months at a time.
One year ago they extended and expanded the "pilot" scheme to 10,000 workers. There was of course no evaluation of the pilot's success before this expansion, no consultation with expert groups, no evaluation of the risks of the scheme (which I'll explain, are many).
Knowing the "pilot" was due to end again we, with @NadiaWhittomeMP's help, submitted a parliamentary question asking what evaluation was to be carried out of the pilot scheme before it was expanded.

I mean, that is the meaning of a pilot scheme... right? https://t.co/kGmD7kRB1d
We asked, 1. what evaluation was being carried out & when would it be published? 2. what plans are in place to consult w migrant rights orgs (as required by the recommendations of the Windrush review, which the Home Office claims it is implementing...)

No prizes for the answer.
So what's the problem? Farms need these workers, don't they? Yes. They do. & farmers deserve a govt capable of providing a system where they can access the workers they need.

A good e.g. of a system like that was Free Movement. A system based on the rights of migrant workers.
The new seasonal agricultural worker's visa is, to put it mildly, not based on those rights.

It is a strictly time-limited visa, restricting workers to 6 months in and 6 months out of the country. It relies on workers being housed on-site in shared accommodation.
In a pandemic scenario, it's hardly surprising why this model didn't work particularly well, but even in normal times it entails serious risks.

A person accommodated at their work place & who must leave in 6-months is not a person empowered to challenge exploitative conditions.
A person who, regardless of circumstances, is turned into an overstayer and a criminal if they exceed 6 months in the country is at the mercy of traffickers and has no escape to get back on track or seek help if this happens.
2 companies run the Seasonal Workers Pilot scheme. On 25 February 2020, Stephanie Maurel, CEO of one of these, described in an MPI seminar I attended how they have taken extreme care to monitor the risk of exploitation & trafficking with in person interviews & inspections etc.
She stated that if the scheme were expanded much more it would be impossible to continue to provide the high level of monitoring required to guarantee the standards that they have so far.

The government is expanding the scheme without, as far as I know, hearing that evidence.
This scheme is unfit for purpose. It is a recipe guaranteed to produce exploited migrant labourers & to vastly increase the population of undocumented migrants in the country.

Calling it a pilot is a lie. There are no plans to publish any assessment, they're just barrelling on.
I know that there are a million & 1 ways the government is fucking up at the moment, and most of it seems a lot more dramatic than this, but this is about our rights, or food chain, our democracy and the right to scrutinise policies and develop them on the basis of evidence.
I don't know how to end this thread. It's depressing to try to use the mechanisms of our democracy to ensure people's rights are protected & to fail.

Why do they even bother to call it a pilot? So they can get away with another back-of-a-fag-packet scheme without consultation.

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Long thread: Because I couldn’t find anything comprehensive, I’m just going to post everything I’ve seen in the news/Twitter about Trump’s activities related to the Jan 6th insurrection. I think the timing & context of his actions/inactions will matter a lot for a senate trial.

12/12: The earlier DC protest over the electoral college vote during clearly inspired Jan 6th. On Dec 12th, he tweeted: “Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! #MAGA.”


12/19: Trump announces the Jan. 6th event by tweeting, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Immediately, insurrectionists begin to discuss the “Wild Protest.” Just 2 days later, this UK political analyst predicts the violence


12/26-27: Trump announces his participation on Twitter. On Dec. 29, the FBI sends out a nationwide bulletin warning legislatures about attacks https://t.co/Lgl4yk5aO1


1/1: Trump tweets the time of his protest. Then he retweets “The calvary is coming” on Jan. 6!” Sounds like a war? About this time, the FBI begins visiting right wing extremists to tell them not to go--does the FBI tell the president? https://t.co/3OxnB2AHdr
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Christian Christensen
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1) This pic published in the Daily Mail showing debris left after terrorist attack on US Capitol seems relatively unremarkable. But a man in Sweden noticed something: the red scarf at the top with the name of the northern Swedish city of Skellefteå. Then it got interesting.


2) The man contacted his local paper, pointing out the fact that there was a scarf from a northern Swedish city of just 70,000 in the debris of the attack. The paper published the story, with the headline: "What's a Skellefteå scarf doing inside of Congress?"


3) It turns out that, in 2017, the scarf had been offered as a Christmas gift from the city of Skellefteå to people who had moved away from the area. They were told go to a website and order one. A total of 934 people did so, and had received the scarf.


4) Now, natl Swedish media picked up story, wondering if a Swede had participated in the terrorist attack in Washington. Doing a search, the paper Dagens Nyheter found pictures of the man who was wearing the scarf. The first showed him trying to force his way into the Capitol.


5) After breaking through the barriers, the scarf man was later seen toward the front of the mob, waiving an American flag, and no longer wearing his baseball hat...but an official police helmet and visor. Skellefteå scarf still on.
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JeLove
JeLove
@LovesTheLight
'Peaceful transition to Military Power....'

Cannon
44
....heard around the world

NG - High Alert https://t.co/lfeSiUCCRB


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44
Stage is set
https://t.co/h6G3LCevII


Following the 44 trail of breadrumbs
https://t.co/PcX0uKUEUW
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Adam Briggs
Adam Briggs
@ADMBriggs
Most recent T&T data now out, covers 4th - 10th Feb

LFD use continues to rise but more slowly than last week and T&T performance remains consistent.

And as ever we don't know about who isn't tested and who struggles to isolate.

🧵

https://t.co/lffa72M9YJ


The number of people being tested each week remains high at around 3m, but this is due to increasing use of rapid lateral flow devices as PCR test use falls.


The number of LFDs used has increased five-fold since the start of Jan, and 35% in the past two weeks (although noticeable slowdown this most recent week).

By contrast, PCR test use for people with symptoms fallen week on week for the past month (PHE positivity data due later).


LFDs are generally used by people without symptoms to find cases that might otherwise unknowingly transmit disease. Current use focuses in places like schools, health and care, some workplaces, and community testing sites run by local gov for people who can't work from home.

There's definite variation in their use across the country (but note chart isn't pop adjusted) and as mentioned last week, will need to keep close eye on how use varies, particularly among more vulnerable and deprived groups.

Need to mitigate any unintended harm, esp around jobs
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Operation Cupcake
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Labour Grandees are listed in Sir Keir Starmer's colleague Jeffrey Epstein's ''Little Black Book''; Blair, Mandelson and Alastair Campbell. COINCIDENTLY, Keir Starmer and some of the same people have connections to ANOTHER of the worlds most prolific peadophiles. #StarmerOut


Starmer failed to bring charges against Jimmy Savile for paedophilia. The decision was made despite the Crown Prosecution Service receiving substantial evidence of his crimes from witnesses and victims several years before Savile died in 2011. #StarmerOut https://t.co/PNyX5uSAkw


With a past like hers, Margaret Hodge might show a bit more humility.
In the Eighties Hodge was aware of previous child sex abuse in the care homes for which she was responsible, and did nothing about it. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut

As leader of Islington Council, a post she held from 1982-92, Margaret Hodge was aware of previous, horrendous child sex abuse in the care homes for which she was responsible, and did nothing about it. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut #CSA

She was guilty of rather more than a casual failure of oversight. In an open letter to the BBC after it investigated a range of monstrous abuse (child prostitution, torture, alleged murders), Hodge libelled one of its victims as “seriously disturbed”. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut
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Guts, resolve and glory!

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Rudy Havenstein, listening to Nas all day.
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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


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Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
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