Are UK Immigration authorities racist...
Friday, June 20, 2008
... or is rape a less serious offence than insider dealing? Or perhaps UK law enforcers simply like soft targets? Or maybe the people planning to meet one American visitor are less likely to vote Labour than those planning to meet the other one? Or perhaps they care less about the safety of Glaswegians than Londoners?
Compare and contrast and then please, please tell me a more favourable way to interpret this. I hate it when the BNP links to my posts and I fear this will be one they like. But then I also hate it when I find myself fearing to post something because the BNP might link to it. It makes me feel so very unlike a freeborn, outspoken, Englishman.
Miss Stewart and Mr Tyson are equally recognisable. Neither could melt easily into into British society. Both are very wealthy and therefore equally unlikely to end up as members of our multi-million army of the "economically inactive". So on what basis can these two decisions be distinguished?
Surely the only sensible criteria are (a) their potential threat to our citizenry, and (b) the danger of their repeating their offences here? As to threat, I would rather bump into Martha in a dark alley after closing time than Mike - not (before any passing BNP members get excited) because of the respective colours of their skins but because of their known propensities for violence. As to the risk of repeat offending, let's assume it's equal for argument's sake. Are we really more afraid of shareholders being unfairly disadvantaged than of women being raped? Or of any of the other crimes in Mr Tyson's past being repeated?
Here, in the interests of fairness, are the details of Martha Stewart's crimes. You judge.
I thought people who had done the time were free to move on. I just about fell over backwards when I read this story. As for Mike Tyson, I believe that he is a menace to society and should not be allowed out at night or during the day for that matter.
Posted by: Colin Campbell | Friday, June 27, 2008 at 11:06 PM
I think you hit it when you write about soft targets.
Posted by: jameshigham | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 06:18 PM
Miss Stewart was specifically not convicted of fraud. She was convicted of lying to or not revealing all she knew to the investigators of the fraud. This is less serious than fraud but apparently more serious than rape and general thuggery. Pace Tom's fears about approving noises from the direction of the BNP but, in the absence of any contrary evidence, keeping Stewart out and letting Tyson in cannot but be a blatant example of racism on the part of our rulers and their apparatchiks.
Posted by: Umbongo | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 05:50 PM
I admit that it's a bit barmy but I'd still prefer fraudsters to be kept out of the country - we really don't need any more than we already have.
Posted by: Letters From A Tory | Friday, June 20, 2008 at 10:10 AM