UK Borders Agency

Bobobolinsky said:
Stopping caucasian boaters is just the government saying "We are not Rascist" Lets face it we have a problem with Asian terrorism. To target asians, would be rascist. Therefore the government needs a homosexual's wife and we're it.
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Err...Whilst I agree the UKBA boarding of boats is a waste of time, the reason they do it is mostly customs enforcement and drugs rather than terrorism. How many brown people–let's not beat about the bush saying 'asian'–sail across on yachts illegally to terrorise us? I doubt any.

The terrorists in the UK appear to be British and home-grown. They used to be Irish white (making a come back now), recently they've been British brown, but not always.

But if drugs smuggled by yachts are the purpose of the UKBA/Customs boardings then, by your logic, UKBA have exactly the right target - 'caucasian boaters'.

If they really meant it there would be zero tolerance. If an illegal, export to country of origin, no three year cockups, if they get a lead injection on the tarmac, it will deter others. It should not be our problem.
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It's our problem because we're not uncivilised barbarians. Most of the safeguards that the 'illegals' rely on (due process etc...) are also safeguards that protect us from our government. If you start scrapping those then some day some megalomaniac in government will come and use exactly the same logic against us. I'd rather put up with some illegals hanging around then live in a society like that.

It's happened already in the USA where Obama is about to enshrine into law the indefinite military detention of Americans and non-Americans suspected of terrorism, at the will and say-so of the executive.

ps. just a warning to some of you - the deputy legal director of ACLU is brown. He might even be one of those evil sword-wielding hand-chopping Muslims.
 
DaveS said:
I'm sure they do.

For a few pounds you can buy a wee metal device called a hand tally. Standing in a position giving a clear view of the platform exit you click the tally once for every exiting passenger. After counting them all you transmit the result to your pall on the train using a thing called a "mobile phone". Damned clever stuff this technology...
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There is no pal on the train. There is no passport control on the train. It is all done when getting onto the train if your ticket shows that you are going to the UK.

Of course there are many ways to solve the problem........

Many countries (USA, China, Korea, Israel, ....) keep an accurate entry/exit record for every person. Not the Schengen states, and not the UK either.
 
Scotty_Tradewind said:
I'm all for stopping the scroats on their drug runs etc..

I just wish Boarder Agency could be taught how to board a sailboat in a more boaty manner when practising on the regular yochtie.

TV last week showed them boarding a yacht. The first thing they do is come alongside close to the cockpit presumably to give them an operational advantage over crew on a yacht.
However, by doing this they then had to heave themselves onboard using the yachts safety guard wires causing tremendous strain on the stanchions. :(
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True, but a proper yachty would have his/her extra boarding ladder in position ready for them, and assist/instruct on how to board his/her boat would he not?
Of course you would only know this if you had the correct RYA qualifications of course.
 
Searush said:
Nah, that's not "British", it's American. And you could move to Detroit to see how it works too. You appear to have a strangely distorted view of the world.
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You see, way too much telly Searush.

The British way is to flatten and destroy, over run and conquer, make slaves of the world, then we call them equal and give them all British passports. Whats not fair about that?

Mind you not being British, I don't always approve of this, but it is British!
 
semisimple; said:
Most of the safeguards that the 'illegals' rely on (due process etc...) are also safeguards that protect us from our government. If you start scrapping those then some day some megalomaniac in government will come and use exactly the same logic against us.
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+1

Pete
 
DaveS said:
For a few pounds you can buy a wee metal device called a hand tally. Standing in a position giving a clear view of the platform exit you click the tally once for every exiting passenger. After counting them all you transmit the result to your pall on the train using a thing called a "mobile phone". Damned clever stuff this technology...
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You started out with "45 tickets to Lille".

What do you do about the woman who bought one of those tickets but missed the train? Or the man in the queue behind her who checked his Blackberry on the platform and found an email cancelling the meeting he was going to in Lille?

Pete
 
prv said:
You started out with "45 tickets to Lille".

What do you do about the woman who bought one of those tickets but missed the train? Or the man in the queue behind her who checked his Blackberry on the platform and found an email cancelling the meeting he was going to in Lille?

Pete
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Maybe they have ticket barriers? I think that would solve all problems satisfactorily. I've never been on the Eurostar but I bet they've got ticket barriers a St Pancras to stop those without tickets boarding or disembarking the train with ease.
 
prv said:
You started out with "45 tickets to Lille".

What do you do about the woman who bought one of those tickets but missed the train? Or the man in the queue behind her who checked his Blackberry on the platform and found an email cancelling the meeting he was going to in Lille?

Pete
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My starting assumption is that the 45 tickets to Lille were counted as passengers passed through the barrier to board the train (an earlier post described the segregated barriers for Lille and UK). Since the barrier is only opened when the train is ready to load, your woman would have to be remarkably obtuse to miss the train: instead of finding her seat on the train, where else is she likely to go?

But lets assume she does miss it. Both she and the chap who only checks his Blackberry after going through the barrier are going to have to leave the platform. So 45 go through the barrier but two come back: they will have to talk to staff to get out, so they're known about and the initial count can be adjusted accordingly.

I really don't think this is rocket science.
 
rotrax said:
A trifle cynical I think.......
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Maybe not. I got out of heavy computing in 1993, when the NHS super system was being specced. The project has just been abandoned at a cost of £12 billion (that's £200 each from every man, woman and child in the UK). And, from the Daily Torygraph, about the Passport Office System...

"The 10-year deal signed by the Passport Agency, part of the Home Office, was supposed to cost between £80 million and £100 million. Figures show the final bill for the contract with hi-tech firm Siemens is £365 million - more than four times the initial quote."
 
Twister_Ken said:
"The 10-year deal signed by the Passport Agency, part of the Home Office, was supposed to cost between £80 million and £100 million. Figures show the final bill for the contract with hi-tech firm Siemens is £365 million - more than four times the initial quote."
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To be slightly pedantic 4 times a range of £80M - £100M is £320 - £400 so I don't understand where the Torygraph's "more than" comes from. However, on the general point, I entirely agree. The out of control spending on big IT projects which either fail or deliver far less than was promised is a UK scandal that wastes money at a rate faster than MPs' expenses and approaching bankers' bonuses.

It's not confined to the public sector either. I was involved on the periphery of the development of the systems that allowed the "opening of the electricity market" in 1998 which makes "settlements" work and permits you the dubious pleasure of changing Supplier. Now that is a complex system that cost an admitted £1000M (in reality thought to be at least 3 times that). Because of the time pressure to get the job delivered the big name IT companies involved charged - and were paid - incredible sums.

A couple of years later we tendered for a much smaller IT project. The short listed tenderers comprised three of the big outfits and one local firm. The big guys all produced expensive proposals which did not comply with the spec. The local outfit produced a proposal compliant in every way at a quarter of the cost. The difference was so striking that we did further due diligence to check that we hadn't missed something, but no. They were given the job and completed the job on time and within budget. Since retiring from full time work I now work for them occasionally, and a satisfactory, professional experience it is.
 
semisimple said:
It's our problem because we're not uncivilised barbarians. Most of the safeguards that the 'illegals' rely on (due process etc...) are also safeguards that protect us from our government. If you start scrapping those then some day some megalomaniac in government will come and use exactly the same logic against us. I'd rather put up with some illegals hanging around then live in a society like that.........
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+me too. I think we got very close with the Bliar/Brown government.
 
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