Timo Betcke
timobetcke.me
Timo Betcke
@timobetcke.me
660 followers 380 following 2.1K posts
Professor of Computational Mathematics, University College London. My views reflected here are my own.
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Fiona Bruce hates it when a politician actually brings facts. Not something that is wanted at the modern BBC.
Stephen Kinnock explains the Dublin agreement where the UK could send asylum seekers back to the first country they stepped into the EU, when we were members of the EU

With Brexit, when we left the EU, we were no longer able to do that
The BBC should be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up as a truly independent broadcaster. The British Broadcasting Corporation has done incalculable damage to the UK democracy over the last 10 years.
Classic BBC radio 4 Today this morning. Obsequious chummy chit chat with Reform. " Thank you for giving us your time we know you are very busy " said at least three times . Followed by an attack dog interview with the Labour minister. It's quite like old times with John Humphreys.
Whenever I see White House press conferences I am reminded how Julius Streicher was convicted to death by the Allies in Nuremberg for being the propaganda organ of the Nazi regime.
“Leavitt” is what I shout at my dog when he eats his own poop.
Reposted by Timo Betcke
Almost nobody in the Cons Party or beyond it had noticed that the Shadow Home Secretary with two other frontbenchers and 5 backbenchers tabled a bill in May to deport 3 million people - stripping almost every pensioner, parent or nurse who did not take out citizenship of their right to live here
Good point. There are exceptions.
That would be terrible. Politicians need different qualities than journalists and comedians.
Interesting point. At school, it was always emphasised that the lack of constitutional safeguards was a big reason for Weimar's failure. The US Constitution is full of safeguards, and it could not prevent the rise of fascism.
NATO is not dead. While Trump was a huge blow to NATO it is still an invaluable tool for its other members as deterrence against Russia.
Modern Tech companies are to Trump what IBM was to the Nazis.
Why is Apple, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Blackstone, Google, OpenAI, Amazon and others financing the destruction of the WH and desecration of the grounds, something that is infuriating to huge chunk of the American population? Do you hate your customers that much?
I am still suspicious about some of Polanski’s fantasy views on NATO and I don’t think Greens in local government have a good track record.

But I will celebrate when the Greens give Labour a big bloody nose at the next local elections.
Mehdi Hasan, "Is rejoining the EU a Green Party aim"

Zack Polanski, "Yes it is"

And just like that, the Green Party have leapfrogged the LibDems
I learned “Never forget. Never again.” at school, our most important lesson.

But it always came with a disclaimer.

If our closest allies are building concentration camps for migrants or the world’s largest economy builds concentration camps for whole ethnicities we look away and we forget.
48h is not bad given that Labour first had to run a focus group on how to respond to racist Tory policies.
This is a good response. Why did it take 48 hours? What kindal of Micky Mouse operation are they running in there?
NEW: Labour condemn Tory plan to strip people of indefinite leave to remain:

“It’s utterly grotesque that Tories want to deport people with the lawful right to be here to achieve ‘cultural coherence’.

“This policy would mean tearing families apart and ripping out our neighbours from communities."
I wonder when they start selling tactical gear and other ICE merchandise.
Reposted by Timo Betcke
Just to repeat, Katie Lam is advocating for ethnic cleansing and Robert Peston just nods it along
So Peston failed to ask

"No British government has ever revoked permanent status retrospectively. has it"

"Has ANY government done this since Idi Amin?"

"So you want to deport most nurses who aren't citizens, simply because they don't earn enough money. Do you think that is fair play?"
Her fault. She would have been fine had she mixed it up with human sewage like water companies do.
I am just waiting for Kemi Badenoch's ICE to come and snatch me off the street for ever claiming child benefit when I was allowed to do so.
Reposted by Timo Betcke
A mother with settled status whose child is disabled. The father is British by birth. They have received DLA for the child. A Tory government would deport her?

I'd really like any Conservative who has ever talked about the "party of the family" to explain why this is the right thing to do.
A policy this expansive would certainly mean mass stripping of permanent residence status from people with ILR (including pensioners and parents of British children) on a scale far beyond anything any democracy has ever done before. There is no public support for such an extreme policy.
Via @sundersays.bsky.social the Conservatives' draft legislation - absolutely clear that it applies to (and is intended to apply to) legal permanent residents claiming state pension (on the basis of their contributions) or child benefit for British kids.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbi...
And I hope it stays that way. But we are already seeing the weakening of ILR, with Labour aiming to extend the waiting time for ILR to 10 years, an international outlier and just short of abolishing it altogether, harming any sector (such as universities) that needs overseas professional workers.
The university sector will already be hammered by Labour's proposal to extend the wait time for ILR to 10 years. No scientist will want to come here just to have to pay extortionate visa and NHS surcharges while having an unsafe status for at least a decade.
Your comment lays bare the outright racism driving those who push for these policies. They think about nurses and care workers from the Philippines or Nigeria. They do not think about the university professor from Germany. Yet, we are all equally migrants in this country.
I committed the grave crime when I was younger to claim child benefit for our son when I was eligible to do so. Just waiting for Katie Lam to extend these proposals to people with settled status so that she can send Kemi's British ICE to my house and arrest me for doing what was legal at the time.
Realistically I don’t think that the fascists would get through such an extreme policy. But then that’s what I also thought about Brexit.
Given that Katie Lam does not want to distinguish between settled status and ILR under those rules I would be deported if she gets her way.
Right now I am more worried about Labour than about the disgusting Tory racists. Labour’s plan to increase the wait time for ILR to 10 years will kill off the university sector completely. No scientist in their right mind will want to come to the UK anymore.