I don't know if it's been mentioned, but it's great to see that the little Afghan lad Adanan has been granted permission to stay in the UK. Flintoff played a part by writing to Priti Patel, pleading his case. He's joined Lancashire cricket team and has a big future, according to Freddie. Good luck to him!
That's brilliant! Seemed such a great natural talent, incredible to think he's had no real coaching beforehand Hopefully now he can make a real go of forging a career out of something he clearly adores
not only that but he seemed a genuinely lovely lad, learned English in quicksticks and was trying very hard to fit in.
Poor lad, walked and hitched his way in to England. Imagine doing that at 15 years old on your own. Good luck to him .
I have a big problem with the language around this kind of thing. Sure, it's great that one more person has been granted permission to stay in the UK when they might otherwise have been cast out. But he's nowhere near the only one out there who is committed to learning English and has something to offer the country. I'm not sure I can be convinced that making exceptions because people happened to have done something out of the ordinary is anything other than a really nasty bit of politicking which just serves to sticker a Priti-Patel-style-smirk on a system which is specifically designed to do the exact opposite for the vast majority. For a very different example of the same strategy, see pardoning Alan Turing (and only him) - by singling out an individual the implication is that everybody else is somehow unworthy of having been granted the same treatment.
Not saying he should be singled out but he deserves a chance to stay. He's gone about it the right way by applying to the home office and putting forward his case. I've been invloved in many cases like this as a teacher - written many references for families wanting to stay in the country due to problems they faced in their own country. Luckily we won the cases and they managed to stay - they hadn't done anything out of the ordinary but I'm just as pleased for Adanan as I was for them. I'm also sure there are many that are rejected but doesn't mean we can't be pleased for those who do.
Fair enough. Just seems like it's being reported in a way that sets it up as a trial by general public to me, and that's not an alternative to a fair system - I'd say it was strictly worse. You shouldn't run immigration - or anything - based around the idea that you'll probably be OK if you're lucky enough to end up with people in the right positions who'll have your back. Arguably doing that kind of thing for a thousand or so years is exactly how we got into our current situation!
It isn't as thousands of others who don't do anything out of the ordinary are also granted permission to stay. My friend's wife for instance - took them years to gain the right to stay in this country.
I'm sure we're not fundamentally that far apart on this, but if you can't see how the narrative here is that he's somehow earned the right to stay by being good at cricket and appearing on the television, and that said narrative is poisonous when put against the line which is far more usually taken by most of the press and our own government, then I'm not sure what else I can say! I just find the terms in which it seems to be being presented worrying, that's all (that's the terms in a wider sense, nothing at all to do with your post specifically).