Immigration officers allegedly stole cash and property worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from small-boat migrants as they arrived in the UK. The officers have been charged with money laundering, misconduct in public office, and conspiracy to steal. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This was my constant argument with the host of the film podcast I collaborated on, which set five films as an oeuvre minimum to make a filmmaker a subject, which counted out SO MANY marginalised filmmakers, either bc they didn't make five or the films had been lost or neglected.

Waiting for the first actual judgment with hallucinated references

The Crown Prosecution Service has published new guidance for its lawyers to help tackle “honour”-based abuse, with spiritual and immigration abuse included for the first time. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

It does appear that this "transition to a new caseworking system" has resulted in the (permanent?) loss of much previously published data (see also e.g. stats on sexual orientation asylum claims)

My 50th on April 15. All I want is to be able to have a wee zoom call with Jane McDonald. Internet, can you make it happen somehow?

Interesting breakdown on how those people arrived before claiming asylum. Only 42% arrived by small boat. Of those who held a visa before claiming asylum, 35% (13,557) held a work visa, 32% (12,578) held a study visa, 19% (7,521) held a visitor visa, 14% held other forms of leave.

When the police found out how racially biased their retrospective facial recognition tool was, they actively lobbied to keep using it at those settings. We don't know how many other people have been in Alvi's situation and got arrested for something they didn't do because of it. This can't go on.

Asylum grant rate down to 42% in 2025. Given what we know about HO decision making (bad), lots of meritorious cases are being pushed into the tribunal system (probably without a lawyer given the legal aid crisis)

The HO summary says that the year on year grant rate for Syrian claims has dropped from 98% to 9% www.gov.uk/government/s...

That's a wutherin'.

This was the one I was previously on about

The High Court has granted the defendant in the Ammori / Palestine Action case permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal: www.judiciary.uk/judgments/hu...

New from FM: No breach of public sector equality duty by Home Office when housing LGBTQ+ asylum seekers | Katherine Soroya

6 days left to get your free download of Disability & the Gothic.

Hard to overstate how much the Tony Martin case fried the brains of a certain class of middle aged racist

Senedd votes in favour of implementing Westminster’s assisted dying bill

New from FM: Home Office announces a further extension to the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme | Jasmine Quiller-Doust

Some of you like dogs, in which case you may appreciate that guide dogs of Team GB for the Paralympics get official photos

Glad to see there is at least one politician seriously engaging with the absolute catastrophe currently taking place in UK Universities. Inflation linked fee increases will do nothing to abate a crisis that has taken thousands of jobs already. The horse has already bolted, where is the government?

“This policy doesn’t target people who broke the rules. It targets people who trusted them.”

Even leaving aside the cheating of it all, absent extenuating circumstances, Canvas IDs are university IT student IDs, which means that if these "Einstein/companion AI" people have your canvas information, they can have access to all of your student accunt information. This is such a terrible idea.

🌟It's showtime folks! 🌟 The 2026 @wearelapg.bsky.social Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards are officially launched 🚀 You have until 21 April to tell us about your legal aid heroes 😇 9 award categories covering every area of legal aid 🤗

New from FM: New report calls for overhaul of flawed age assessment process for unaccompanied children | Jasmine Quiller-Doust

Fond memories of working at NTL, woman rang up screaming at me. Her husband in background shouts at her, “don’t talk to them like that. They’re on fuck all” Then he takes phone off her, and gives me a line which I have used myself since “Do you have a manager you dislike intensely I can speak to?”

When immigration status has to be 'earned', exploitation becomes easier. Longer, conditional routes to settlement don’t just create insecurity; they give exploitative employers more power and silence survivors. Read more: www.atleu.org.uk/cases-news/e... #ModernSlavery #EarnedSettlement

Right, he’s been a significant figure in the Labour Party since at least 1985, the first of his 3 resignations was in 1998 and he’s been a known malign influence on our politics pretty much throughout, his downfall has not exactly come too soon

also if this were real - it is not! - we'd have to tackle the ethical concerns about our army of SENTIENT ROBOT SLAVES

Remember folks, the AI is not *actually* doing this; it is querying its training-data for statistically-likely things to appear to do under the given conditions, and replicating the highest-probability outcome.

It's the day Agent Cooper sends me his annual message! #twinpeaksday

This post is the single best advert for the fact that proper local journalism matters. If Jim’s team hadn’t put the pieces together quickly, this wouldn’t have been stopped.

Apart from all the other fucking times he's had to resign in disgrace.

Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital halts mass eviction after London Centric uncovered what was going on. Hundreds of Londoners now receiving bizarre door-to-door visits blaming misinformation and being asked to record videos saying they don't want to be evicted. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

Here's my write up freemovement.org.uk/tribunal-sla...

This is incredible

NEW WRITING: "If every occupation is an act of repair, every haunting is a moment of revolutionary possibility" On The Changeling (1980) and the eugenic capitalism that undergirds both American political power and it's obsession with private property: www.patreon.com/posts/haunte...

Whoever made the decision that Gillian Anderson would walk out on stage at the BAFTAs to Chappell Roan's 'The Giver' absolutely knew what they were doing.

I mean, the Labour Party's own conception of class is still stuck in a decades old idea of large local employers. The TUC at least recognises that people in the poorest pay and least secure work don't get weekends and bank holidays off. Try telling that to the average Labour spad

Ryan Coogler makes BAFTA history as the first Black winner of Best Original Screenplay for ‘SINNERS’. #Sinners #RyanCoogler #BAFTAs

Do you think with a couple of well placed emails he could be convinced to raise the issue of Fernando Poo in parliament?

Many happy returns to the multi-talented, multi-genre actor #KyleMaclachlan born 22 February 1959

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

Standards matter. Every time a Labour MP - a Minister no less! - is able to say things like this, our standards drop little by little where they matter. Starmer should think about the political culture he wants to model from the top.

This film shoud never have worked. It was destined to fail and take the franchise down with it. A thread on why Wrath of Khan was doomed to fail (but didn’t). #StarTrek

There’s a reason I think a lot about the debates around how money works in TTRPGs & Actual Play — because they are also faced by academic structures that have been hollowed out & are built on assumptions of how academic jobs & funding USED to work … before I was born.

You spend a decade trying to understand the UK’s baffling relationship to class, you think you’ve finally started to get it, then you see something like this and realise you’re right back to square one.

Georgia was skating to MORTAL KOMBAT at the Olympics exhibition gala

Today - on why lord why...Facebook comments demanding that more WELSH identity is demonstrated on a mural of... ... ... Mistar Urdd

Tech and tech-curious folks, what do you make of this passage? It's from a decision of the immigration tribunal criticising a couple of lawyers for suspected misuse of AI tools. I have thoughts but don't want to prompt.

If you're around Cardiff and fancy a bit of D&D in a good cause I'll be running 'The Pirates Wedding' at this event in support of Disability Mutual Aid Cymru on the 18th of April. www.eventbrite.com/e/gallivant-...