Cronus wrote:
Exactly - why wouldn't she prepare and answer accordingly? We know she's an excellent speaker and can think on her feet - I assume we've all seen her in action in debates. So why trip up now? The answer is pretty obvious. She didn't know.
Either way, targets shouldn't be a toxic subject. Even that bumbling mess Diane Abbott agreed this morning that targets need to be in place. How can any department function without utilising data and having goals?
No, targets are only toxic if your agenda tells you it is. Targets or some similar KPI are right and proper and should be set according to the numbers being dealt with. The issue here is the overzealous manner in which the rules have been applied due to the strength of feeling surrounding immigration. Common sense has failed in the case of the Windrush generation - but until it became clear an entire wave of migrants had fallen foul of an administrative cock-up which left them exposed to migration rules, you had individuals working on individual cases. Sometimes the wider picture takes longer to materialise.
As I said, it's being sorted. I've now seen several of the Windrush generation being egged on by TV journalists, telling us how they don't feel welcome and how racist the UK is, yet whose cases have already been resolved quickly and efficiently, and have been granted indefinite leave to remain at a single interview taking less than 2 hours.
And I don't agree she would necessarily have known about targets set in every part of the Home Office. Is the CEO of any business employing some 30,000 people personally informed of every target set in every office of every division? Of course not. Immigration is only one division of the enormous behemoth that is the Home Office, and only some parts of that division had set targets.
Yes, she should have been better prepared and better briefed. So should Glyn Williams, who was sitting next to her and also didn't know the answer. But like I said, it should also have been a simple matter to correct her statement and get on with the job.
i feel that your comment on targets is a rather unfair comparison.
In terms of controlling immigration, very much the topic pre the Brexit referendum and quite possibly the reason for it, the strategy for reducing or, capping numbers will have been driven by central government and in the way that a CEO may demand his managers to drive cost reductions of 10%, it's is highly likely that there would have been substantial pressure from central government and i those circumstances, it's unbelievable to say there were "no targets" or, to deny all knowledge of them .
Maybe in her memoirs, we will find out the reason that she had no knowledge or, twisted the truth.
However, Rudd was drowning under the increasing pressure regarding Windrush, which is the reason that she finally had to go
I think had the numbers been smaller and people's lives affected to a lesser extent, there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place, as the issue wouldn't have made the national press.
She will have realised that the situation was getting difficult when the Tory press started to be less sympathetic.
Personally, I think that she was being a little Clintonesque, when she denied that targets existed, perhaps hoping that the issue would disperse.
However, when "we" start deporting people or, denying them access to services or, the right to continue working , in a country that they were invited to live in, the ante increases somewhat.
Amber Rudd has been unlucky and no doubt, after the dust has settled, she will be given another opportunity for a different ministerial role, assuming thet the Tory's are still holding the reigns.
