The Tory Party conference is the place where leading Conservatives get
to "let their hair down" and head off into flights of fancy about giving
the working class/young people/foreigners (delete as applicable) a good
hammering. This is not just to cuddle up to the Torygraph and the Daily
Mail but to square things with the assembled Tory ranks in case they
are needed for election purposes.
The Tory party conference is the place where leading Conservatives get to "let their hair down" and head off into flights of fancy about giving the working class/young people/foreigners (delete as applicable) a good hammering. This is not just to cuddle up to the Torygraph and the Daily Mail but to square things with the assembled Tory ranks in case they are needed for election purposes.
Here we see a odd bunch – assorted wannabe MPs, smug looking councillors looking for "business contacts", the famous "blue-rinse" brigade and rather wierd looking young men dressed as if they were heading off in the evening to meet Miss Marple to play her Acker Bilk LPs. So naturally the speaking ministers look to whip them all up.
First Eric Pickles – who looks like every Tory pastiche going – announces the revival of the old buy your council house scam – a good deal since you can then see it repossesed by the bank so you can then start selling The Big Issue! Then George Osborne tells us if we stand firm then everything will be OK – No, we didn’t believe him either.
Then up steps Theresa May who, since she couldn’t announce the return of hanging for sheep stealing, decides to have a go at human rights. Naturally she concludes that this is something all upstanding Brits can do without. Alas she has got a bit carried away and forgotten to tell the truth as we see below.
Here is an entertaining story posted on the BBC website today:
A claim by the Home
Secretary that an illegal immigrant could not be deported because of his
pet cat is wrong, according to England’s top judges.
Theresa May told the Conservative Party Conference that the ruling illustrated the problem with human rights laws.
A spokesman for the Judicial Office said the man’s pet had had nothing to do with the judgement allowing him to stay.
Mrs May has since told the BBC that her speech had been checked for accuracy.
Addressing party activists in Manchester, Mrs May attacked
what she said were excessive uses of Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights – the right to family life.
She said Article 8 had been used to prevent the removal of foreign national prisoners and illegal immigrants.
She said: "We all know the stories… about the illegal
immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up,
he had a pet cat."
Within minutes, a spokesman for the Judicial Office at the
Royal Courts of Justice, which issues statements on behalf of senior
judges, said: "This was a case in which the Home Office conceded that
they had mistakenly failed to apply their own policy – applying at that
time to that appellant – for dealing with unmarried partners of people
settled in the UK.
"That was the basis for the decision to uphold the original tribunal decision – the cat had nothing to do with the decision.
The case in question occurred in
2008 and involved a Bolivian student who said he could show he had a
proper permanent relationship with his partner and should not be
deported.
At an earlier hearing in the case, a judge said: "The
evidence concerning the joint acquisition of Maya (the cat) by the
appellant and his partner reinforces my conclusion on the strength and
quality of the family life that appellant and his partner enjoy."
But the judgement allowing the man to stay had nothing to do with the cat, said his lawyer, Barry O’Leary.
He told the BBC that his client and his British partner had been together for four years at the time of the appeal.
"As part of the application and as part of the appeal, the
couple gave detailed statements of the life they had built together in
the United Kingdom to show the genuine nature and duration of their
relationship," he said.
"One detail provided, amongst many, was that they had owned a cat together for some time."
The Bolivian man eventually won his case on appeal because
the Home Office had ignored its own immigration rules on unmarried
couples.
Those rules stated at the time that an individual should not
normally be deported if they can show the relationship is genuine and
long-lasting.
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal appeal ruled that the
Home Office’s failure to follow this rule was the key issue in the case,
not the human rights considerations – and not the cat.
But Mr O’Leary said the case has been unfortunately
misrepresented in the press after a light-hearted remark by Senior
Immigration Judge Gleeson was taken out of context.
She said that the cat that had featured in the earlier hearings "need no longer fear having to adapt to Bolivian mice".
