I don't think anything more usefully summarises the UK than seeing the "left wing" government kick the fuck out of one of the few genuinely successful export sectors of the last ten years because racist pensioners who will never vote for them don't like foreigners.
Spurious Home Office decisions rejecting student visas are threatening universities' ability to enrol young people from abroad, it is claimed. New rules come into effect in June that will punish universities if more than 4 per cent of study visas are rejected by the Home Office. However, the changes coincide with a marked increase in the numbers of visas being refused by the Home Office on spurious and inaccurate grounds, according to research by universities that has been shared with The Times. Neither students nor universities are able to challenge the decisions, which are often taken months after a university has accepted the applicant and in some cases just days before they are due to start studying.
UKVI carries out discretionary "credibility interviews" to ascertain that a student's intentions to study here are genuine. In another interview, when asked why they had chosen to apply to their chosen institution, the applicant said they had considered several factors, including the university's ranking, employability support, student satisfaction while also noting that it was an ancient institution and cited the year it was founded. The UKVI rejected the application, explaining that they were not satisfied the applicant was genuine given they had quoted the wrong founding year. The university subsequently confirmed that the applicant had provided the correct year and the UKVI caseworker was incorrect, but the decision could not be reconsidered.
In another case a foreign student was rejected from obtaining a visa to study at the University of East Anglia due to a dispute over whether the university was in Norfolk. The applicant asserted correctly that it was, but the UKVI caseworker appeared to confuse Norfolk with Norwich, which is the capital of the county, and rejected the application - believing the applicant was wrong.
In another credibility interview the applicant was asked to describe some of the taught modules they would be studying as part of their degree. The applicant explained that they had been offered a place to study a PhD in biomedical engineering which was fully research-based so did not have any taught modules. Despite this, the UKVI refusal letter stated that they were not satisfied on the basis that their answers were "vague and generic" and had failed to explain the taught modules they would be studying.
It is almost, almost, impressive just how Labour have taken the massively dysfunctional and incompetent Home Office and managed by dint of policies and rhetoric to make it even more dysfunctional and incompetent. It is a true testament to how hostile they are to migrants.
archive.today/07Hdr
I analyzed over 10 years of anti-trans legislation. Over 330 bills have passed, with ~300 of them in just the last 5 years. There is no precedent in American history for so many bills to target one particular minority group like this in such a short timeframe.
www.thedissident.news/the-ratchet/
Briefly here to post that the ‘Women Strike Back’ exhibition has just launched in Bristol. It explores the activism of Black and South Asian women. Free and open to the public. Pls do share the news.
www.bristol247.com/news-and-fea...
Really enjoyed this piece! My forthcoming book Bisexuality and Beyond (global.oup.com/academic/pro...) touches on the exclusion of bisexuals from Switchboard that you mention - London Bisexual Group and Edinburgh Bisexual Group both set up pretty long-lasting bisexual phonelines in response
If Reform had won, Labour's statement would be that this result is a stark reminder we need to listen and learn from voters who rightly feel betrayed by modern politics.
But the Greens won by a comfortable margin, so it's: these voters are stupid and also sinister and, ugh, Muslims
A graphic saying 'Hosts needed in Sheffield. About the guests: Single males between 19 and 28 years-old From Eritrea, Sudan, and Afghanistan All speak varying levels of English. Could you host? Message us here or email info@refugeesathome.org'
We’re facing a crisis in Sheffield.
Seven potential guests – all young men in desperate need of a place to stay this week – have been referred to us.
Could you help? Please message us or email info@refugeesathome.org ❤️
‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks
I am 100% sure that have been more articles about youth gender surgeries than actual youth gender surgeries in 2026. When is someone going to reckon with the fact that ‘pivoting’ on this issue means signing on to a moral panic?
QueerAF newsletter text that reads: English Trans+ children to be banned from school toilets Long-awaited guidance, which dropped a day before the key judgement in the EHRC case, sets out bans for Trans+ children using bathrooms, being in PE classes and joining school trips that align with their gender. Parents will need to be told, in almost all cases, if a Trans+ child wishes to socially transition in any way in English schools, new statutory guidance released for consultation sets out.
“It’s absurd for this government’s proposed guidance to suggest that schools need to seek clinical advice if a young person wants to change their name, uniform or hairstyle,” @transactualuk.bsky.social
Pure moral panic. How, precisely, would a child who experiments with a different haircut or pronouns get “locked in” to a trans identity?
The parents who had no problem letting her identify as trans suddenly restrict her from identifying as cis? It makes no sense.
"if they socially transition too early we think they can get locked onto a trajectory that may not have been the correct natural trajectory for them"
Direct quote.
Hilary Cass here arguing for children to be prevented from being known by a preferred name or getting a haircut in case it encourages them to continue later in life to transition.
Hilary Cass acts like gender variant children should have the transness hazed out of them.
do you know what would help!!!!!!!! living in a society that lets people experiment with their gender without treating it like the most important thing in the world!!!!!!! letting people get it right or wrong without politicising their decisions!!!!!!! just being chilled about gender!!!!!! aaahhhhhh
The front cover of a small booklet titled ‘Geographia Visitors’ Guide to London’, subtitled ‘with folding pictorial plan’
The inside front pages of Visitors’ Guide to London. On the left is a fold-out insert on green paper titled ‘Calendar of London Events - 1965 Season’, which includes events like the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition and the National Stamp Exhibition. The right hand page reads ‘Geographia Visitors’ Guide to London with Bus Diagrams, Plans and Pictorial Map of London showing the Places of Interest’
Entry in Visitors Guide to London titled ‘Coffee Bars’. It reads: Within the past few years there have sprung into existence in inner London scores of coffee bars and coffee houses. Many have now become favourite rendezvous for art students and young people. In Soho, Chelsea and Knightsbridge they are especially prevalent and frequently possess unusual décor or atmosphere.
Found in my parents’ house - a Visitors’ Guide to London from 1965. My favourite entry is the one on ‘Coffee Bars’, a ‘rendezvous for art students and young people’. In Soho, Chelsea and Knightsbridge, we are helpfully informed, they ‘frequently possess unusual décor or atmosphere’! ☕️
The UK government is proposing radical and punitive changes to settlement rules. This is settlement, not citizenship. The consultation is open until 12 February; please respond to it and oppose these evil proposals. Amnesty have a good guide: www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/gu...
My review of 'Uneven' is now readable on History Today's website. Uneven sets out one way for bisexuals to reclaim a place in queer history. The problem is that it can sometimes seem like simply sorting historical figures into new, differently labelled boxes: www.historytoday.com/archive/revi...
