Unspinning the spin…
When I visited Romania, I was housed, much to the astonishment of the British Ambassador, in the suburban villa of the country’s late dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. Semi-disappointingly, we did not however see the ghosts of either Ceauşescu or his terrifying wife.
Yesterday, we had an announcement from our dysfunctional Home Office that gives both that Department and politicians in general a bad name (For now, let us put aside whether immigration is a good or bad thing). The simple truth is that in practice we shall not be able to stop Romanians and Bulgarians from coming to Britain. There are to be £1000 fines for illegally working here. We must revisit this in January 2008, a year on, to see how many have actually been fined! It will be impossible to deport transgressors.
The Home Office know all of this, but try to spin something different. And for those of us who observe the nuances of Parliamentary protocol, this announcement was sneaked out in a written statement and not on the floor of the Commons, where it could have been challenged.
It says it all.