439,478 British citizens recently signed a petition asking David Cameron and his government to “stop all immigration and close the UK borders until ISIS is defeated”

This was the government’s response….

The UK government will not close Britain’s borders. It will ensure access for legitimate travellers and trade whilst operating its borders securely to protect the public from the threat of terrorism.

The UK government has no intention of closing Britain’s borders, as this would create more problems than it would solve. The UK remains ‘open for business’ for legitimate travellers and trade. However, we continue to operate our borders securely and to enforce our immigration laws. This includes carrying out 100% checks on arriving passengers in order to identify any criminal, security and immigration concerns. Given recent events in Paris, Border Force has intensified checks on people, goods and vehicles entering the UK from the near continent and elsewhere, undertaking additional and targeted security checks against passengers and vehicles travelling to France via both maritime and rail ports and a number of airports across the country.

Phew…that’s a relief….makes it sound as if our borders are like this

But then you read this

 The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate that in 2014, 8.3 million people living in the UK were born abroad, around 13% of the total population of the UK. Of these, 3 million were from countries now in the European Union and 5.3 million were from non-EU countries.

…and you realise our borders are really like this…

Lin Homer, Chief Executive of HMRC since 2012, is back in the news. It appears that we, her employers, are being unreasonable in expecting good customer service.

The boss of crisis-hit HMRC has urged taxpayers to contact them online rather than by phone to avoid huge waits.

Lin Homer apologised for her department’s ‘poor service’, but said she would respond failures by telling people to go online instead of boosting the number of call centre staff so people can get through by telephone.

It follows the admission that just half of calls to HM Revenue & Customs were answered between April and June, with some having to wait three quarters of an hour.

But then since 2005 Mrs Homer has frequently been accused of alleged incompetence in a variety of taxpayer funded roles

Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council 2002-2005

In 2005, Homer was criticised by the Election Commissioner for failings in her role as returning officer during a postal vote-rigging scandal in Birmingham in 2005

The petitioners also accused the city’s returning officer and chief executive Lin Homer of failing to discharge her duties in accordance with electoral law.

Judge Mawrey said that Ms Homer “threw the rule book out of the window” to deal with overwhelming numbers of postal vote application forms received.

He also  said fraud in the city ‘would have disgraced a banana republic’. He described Mrs Homer’s decision to allow postal ballot papers to be transported to the count in shopping bags as ‘the direst folly’.

Head of Immigration Service 2005-2011

She was then chosen by the Home Office to run what was then called the Immigration and Nationality Directorate – this time on £200,000, plus bonuses.

Already in chaos, it was on her watch in 2006 that we learned of the mistaken release of 1,000 foreign criminals. It later emerged some 450,000 asylum cases had not been dealt with but left in boxes at the Home Office. The new UKBA was meant to clear up the mess, and Mrs Homer became its first chief executive, on an astonishing £208,000 a year. But among a fresh run of scandals was the revelation that nearly 400 of the 1,000 foreign prisoners were told they could stay in Britain and dozens remained untraced.

2011 Chief of Dept for Transport

Mrs Homer was the Permanent Secretary at the DfT throughout 2011 when details of the new rail franchise business model were being thrashed out.

She was named by Sir Richard Branson last month as one of a handful of officials at the department whom his Virgin Rail team met during 2011 to voice concerns over the bid process.

Those concerns were ignored, said the rail boss whose warnings proved correct last week when the Government U-turned on its decision to award the lucrative franchise to his rival First Group due to an alleged catastrophic business model error.

The mistake is estimated to cost taxpayers £100million and the DfT has now been labelled “not fit for purpose”.

Her record of apparently gliding through disaster after disaster with immunity has not gone unobserved

Douglas Carswell MP (UKIP) “We seem to be governed by a clique of mandarins who bounce from one highly remunerated job in Whitehall to another and there doesn’t seem to be any proper democratic scrutiny as to whether they’ve done a good job in one role before they get the next one.”

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance  “The public bodies for which Lin Homer has worked all appear to have been plagued by problems and left taxpayers paying the price of failure.

You’ve missed the point, gentlemen. In 21^st century Britain if you are in government or politics, unlike almost any other aspect of life, incompetence is rewarded.

After all, it’s only taxpayers money, isn’t it….and at the moment Lin Homer is collecting it….

Pic h/t: This Is Money

Wow – such a storm over a woman crossing and uncrossing her legs during a TV interview…

A woman politician has created a storm of anger for describing a new government official as a ‘cocky little £93k madam crossing her legs Sharon Stone-style’. Former mayoress Ruth Price, 56, hit out watching deputy police and crime commissioner Sophie Howe giving a TV interview

Ruth Price’s remarks cause the sort of twitterstorm so beloved of the Daily Mail because itmeans some cheap hack can stay in the office and cut and paste tweets without having to expend any shoeleather. But, oddly enough, nobody seemed to be too bothered about her new job – funded by the taxpayer at a rate of £93,000 per annum.

Ms Howe, 38, was on a programme talking about her new government role as the future generations commissioner for Wales.

Excuse me?

Apparently the role of the Future Generations Commissioner is to make sure ministers’ actions are made with sustainability and the long-term interests of Wales in mind because, apparently “Planning for future generations requires a real capacity for making things happen across a wide range of policy areas, agencies and institutions”

There has been some concern that Ms Howe is a bit of a Labour Party insider and might therefore be unwilling to criticise a Welsh Labour government

She was a Labour political appointee to the role of deputy Police and Crime Commissioner and also previously worked as a Special Advisor to a Minister as well as being a failed Labour parliamentary candidate. In fact, if you look at her biography it is clear that she has followed the classical modern route of working as a political hack since leaving university.

Sounds just the ideal person to take over a taxpayer funded non job paying £93k which will mainly involve shuffling bits of paper, sending out meaningless memos and fancy declarations while sitting on platforms crossing and uncrossing her legs.

Just fancy – we thought the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was just a figment of someone’s colourful imagination…but then he wasn’t paid from money taken out of our pockets by the government….