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The Sun
2 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
ID cards will not stop illegal immigration from fuelling Britain's black market – we must quit the ECHR instead
IDENTITY Cards, if introduced, would be a burden on the law abiding, change the relationship between the citizen and the state but do nothing to stop crime and safe guard our borders. Indeed the idea that they could do so is laughable. 3 The answer to Government failure is, of course, always seen as yet more Government and higher taxes to pay for it. Illegal migrants swim through the system because the borders are not secure but by magic an ID card would stop them. Drug dealers, Russian Oligarchs and other undesirables launder money by the billions, once again an ID Card is the answer. Yet this is just displacement activity, a state that is broken seeking to mend itself by doing more, rather trying to do what it is meant to do well. Identity Cards, if introduced, would be a burden on the law abiding, change the relationship between the citizen and the State but do nothing to stop crime and safe guard our borders. Indeed the idea that they could do so is laughable. Remember illegal migrants are illegal. They work for people who do not dutifully fill out PAYE returns and they rent property from exploitative landlords. 3 It is already the case that honest businesses, which are the vast majority, have to go through expensive administrative hoops to check up on their employees, likewise landlords with their tenants, but these make no difference. People who employ illegals or who let them property do not care, and because they operate outside the law they pay less and charge more for the service, making the most out of the failures of the migration system. Additional checks merely put up the profit margins of those who disobey the law and reduce them for those who obey it, they do not begin to solve the problems. Consider the tented village in Park Lane in the very centre of London, last year it was at the north end near Marble Arch but it was cleared in an act of bold leadership by the authorities. It has now popped back up at the south end near Hyde Park Corner. A remarkable success for the government. None of them would have an ID card, so if arrested what would the authorities do? It certainly would not deport them because our deportation ratios are feeble and human rights excuses allow illegal entrants to stay for the most spurious reasons. 3 Foreigners in this country are meant to have an ID card anyway - it is called a passport. But those who are here illegally dispose of them as without a clear country of origin them it is harder to be sent home. ID cards, while making no difference for criminals, would be a burden on the law abiding. First of all there would be an additional cost because they would have to be paid for and this would come in the form of extra taxation, but it is not just the cost. The Windrush scandal is a reminder of what happens when the UK adopts a continental style 'show me your papers' attitude. Some people were even removed from this country who were found to have been here legally and had been for decades. The hostile environment policy turned out to be hostile for His Majesty's subjects but not for criminals. AJP Taylor, one of the last century's most famous historians, said that 'Until August 1914 a sensible, law abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the State, beyond the Post Office and the policeman'. This was the foundation of freedom; law abiding people would not be bothered by the State and would not have to prove who they are or be asked about what they are doing by the authorities. In the UK we do not have to register with the police where we spend the night and we do not even need to show our driving licence if stopped for an alleged motoring offence, there is a seven day window in which to do so. The State has limited powers over what we do. The argument for identity cards says that if we are innocent then we have nothing to fear, but that is not true. Inconvenience and intrusion have increased in recent years, as successive Governments have tried to increase their control of individual lives. This reached a peak during Covid when limits were put on people's shopping and outdoor exercise. These onerous rules would have been easier to enforce draconianly if ID cards had then been compulsory. Track and Trace was fortunately useless but it would have been able to follow our every move with ID cards being registered wherever we went. As we now know that lockdown was excessive, went on too long, damaged the economy and made little difference to the end result, thank goodness the lockdown Stasi did not have this additional power. To stop crime and reduce illegal migration a range of different policies are needed. We need to pull out of the Refugee Convention and the one on European Human Rights. We need a Government that is willing to be tough. Donald Trump has managed to reduce illegal entries in April by 91 per cent, not by ID cards but by effective action. Britain is broken, swathes of public services do not work. This is the fault of the Blairite constitutional settlement that has stymied decision making. It is not the fault of the hard pressed, over taxed, honest citizen who does not need to prove who he is or worse still pay for the privilege.
BBC News
2 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Gardens in Duns open to public for first time in over 40 years
A historic walled garden and glasshouses in the Borders are to open to the public for the first time in more than 40 last public viewing at the site now run by The Hugo Burge Foundation (HBF) near Duns was in foundation is taking part in Scotland's Garden Scheme which encourages owners to open their gardens to raise money for part of the initiative, the walled gardens and glasshouses will be open every Friday afternoon in July and August. The glasshouses were built in the early 20th Century by Mackenzie and Moncur, who counted Queen Victoria among their estate owner at the time, Robert Finnie McEwan, commissioned the company to design and build them as part of a grand development plan for the house and fell into disrepair before the late Hugo Burge financed their restoration and are now at the heart of the work of the foundation which carries his name. Head gardener Toby Loveday said: "The driving force behind opening the gardens is to allow people to appreciate our beautiful surroundings at the peak of summer."We're looking forward to seeing the reaction to our contemporary approach within such a historic horticultural space."As it develops, there will be opportunities for visitors to enjoy seeing the garden grow and change over all the seasons to come."HBF chief executive Lucy Brown said they hoped the site would offer visitors a "sense of beauty, nurture and calm that is often missing in the anxious and ever-present online world".
Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Times
Family ‘abandoned' by health services before depressed son took his life
A doctor whose son electrocuted himself says she is 'devastated' by the findings of an inquiry into the circumstances around his death. Jane Macdonell felt 'gutted' when concerns raised by the family about the way Harris Macdonell was cared for when he began struggling with mental health problems, were not addressed. She said her son was placed on an adult psychiatric ward in Melrose, known as Huntlyburn Ward, at the age of 16 and never recovered from the experience. Sheriff Peter Paterson used his judgment after the hearing in Selkirk to highlight the shortage of hospital beds in Scotland for struggling children and teenagers such as Harris. He also said the lack of security on the adult ward from which Harris ran away 'simply defies common sense'. However, he ruled there were no precautions that could reasonably have been taken which would have prevented Harris's death. His mother, who was a paediatrician in the Scottish Borders when her son died, said: 'I would not, in the Borders, have had a child with leukaemia sitting on my ward for nine nights who was ill. I would not have had a sick neonate [newborn baby] sitting on my ward for nine nights who was ill. They would have found a bed somewhere. They would have gone to a specialist ward. 'Whereas for Harris it was good enough to put him in Huntlyburn. There is just this difference in the treatment of mental health patients from other medical patients.' It was early February 2018 when Harris, a keen rugby player and musician, was admitted to Huntlyburn after a period feeling low and suicidal. On February 10 he ran out of the building, heading for the bypass towards Tweedbank. Staff collected him in the ward car but, the determination says, 'As they were driving at a speed of between 30 and 40mph, Harris jumped from the vehicle.' His face was so badly injured he had to have plastic surgery. Later, in a creative essay as part of his English Higher course, Harris would describe his experience in the adult mental health unit, from the gloomy entrance, and chemical smells to eating meals listening to other patients screaming. He concluded: 'I think that no other young person should have to go through the experience I had. It was the wrong place for someone who was already mixed up, frightened and unsure of who they were.' However, after a spell at the mental health unit for young people in Edinburgh in 2018, Harris's condition improved. He returned to school, obtaining four Highers with grades B and C despite his illness. It was when lockdown was imposed in 2020 that the then 19-year-old's mental health began to decline. Macdonnell says — despite her medical expertise — she did not have anywhere to turn for help, describing the family as 'abandoned'. • David Macdonnell: Why grieving parents now beat a path to our door 'You need to have somewhere that families know they can go to,' she said. 'There was nobody who took care and interest for Harris's wellbeing.' The fatal accident inquiry determination says his parents saw Harris in their kitchen around 9.30pm on August 18, 2020, after he had attended rugby practice. His mother realised he was missing the next morning and his body was discovered in the field opposite the family home later that day. Sheriff Paterson highlighted the 'remarkable courage' of Jane Macdonell in giving evidence in public amid the 'unimaginable pain and suffering' of losing a child. Macdonell said she felt she had no option but to seek the inquiry. 'I felt it was the only avenue I could go to that might result in some change to the system, that might shine a light on what's going on,' she said, adding that she was 'devastated by the limitations of the process'. She said she has since been in touch with other families whose children, like Harris, have a diagnosis of autism with high function and have taken their own lives. The determination said the shortage of beds for children and adolescents 'should not happen' and while the contribution it made to Harris's death was 'impossible to say' it may have affected his ability to engage with services in 2020. It also highlighted the need for better controls on entry and exits to Huntlyburn Ward. Dr Kevin Brown, from the young people's unit now based on the site of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, had told the inquiry: 'In the period since 2018 there has been a significant deterioration in the care and treatment of young people in the YPU.' Brown described services as overwhelmed and said: 'The standard of care received by Harris in 2018 would be unattainable now.'
Times
4 days ago
- Health
- Times
No NHS cataract op after six years … in England I'd have waited weeks
W hen Averil Walker's grandson was born she could not see his face. She had to feel his little features with her fingers. For years, Walker, 63, from the Borders had been waiting for surgery to remove the cataracts clouding her eyes. Her world had faded behind a yellowish haze, forcing her to give up snowboarding, driving and the job she loved. 'I couldn't see shapes, I couldn't see colours,' she said. 'I sat and cried numerous times. Fortunately, I do have good friends and I could rely on them, but I also did not want to burden them with my woes.' Walker, who lives on the Southern Upland Way, said that from the day her cataracts were detected in 2017, more than six years passed and no appointment letter arrived.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Lessons From Barnes & Noble: Surviving The Threat Of Amazon
When Amazon disrupted the bookselling business model in the 1990s, some established bookstores ... More folded while others persisted. The key to survival was in the so-called "opportunity framing" adopted by CEOs. Words matter. When a company is faced with a disruptive new business model, leaders can respond in a number of ways: They may brush it away as unimportant, they may sound the alarm about it, or they may urge their employees to get creative and adapt to the opportunity. Each response impacts the actions the company takes. And that, in turn, can make or break the company's future. In our research published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, my co-authors Christoph Zott (IESE Business School), Andreea Kiss (Lehigh University) and I shed light on a subtle but powerful driver of corporate survival in the face of disruption: how CEOs frame the situation. Our findings stem from a study on the bookselling industry in the U.S. between 1996 and 2011. Throughout the 1990s, American bookstore giants Borders and Barnes & Noble ruled the industry with their megastores. But when Amazon came into the picture, with its new online bookselling model, both Borders and Barnes & Noble recognized the shift that it represented. Both invested in e-commerce. But only one survived. What defined this fork in the road? It wasn't about money or access to technological solutions. It was about leadership framing of the new business model and the way it was sustained over time, which impacted the direction taken by the two incumbents. The importance of CEO framing When Amazon first launched as an online bookselling company in 1994, both Borders and Barnes & Nobel were at their prime. Hundreds of stores across the U.S. offered an array of books and music, with each company worth billions of dollars. But the emergence of Amazon's new business model (online-only browsing with fast home delivery) shook the two retailers' foundations. Each company responded in its own way: while Barnes & Noble worked continuously on integrating the online business model with its traditional store model, Borders focused on its physical stores and managed the online business model separately. By 2007, Borders was no longer profitable, filing for bankruptcy in 2011 and closing all of its stores. Barnes & Noble managed to survive, with around 600 stores still operating in the U.S today. Several factors account for the stark difference in the two competitors' journeys – among them, that Borders was late to invest in e-commerce and never properly integrated it into their physical stores. Those decisions, which determined the companies' futures, were largely propelled by the way each firm's CEO framed the new online model. Barnes & Noble's CEO spoke about the internet as a transformative force and outlined concrete strategies like introducing in-store kiosks, integrating logistics systems and aligning salesforce incentives for in-store and digital sales. This sustained 'opportunity framing' galvanized internal support and led to what we call a blending logic of integrating online and physical stores. Borders, on the other hand, engaged in ambiguous and shareholder-focused framing. Its CEO framed the online model as a secondary, 'adjunct' business. What's more, Borders outsourced its online presence to Amazon for several years, foregoing an important learning opportunity for digital innovation. Why language matters Though rooted in bookselling, our findings can extend beyond the business of books. Today, one of the biggest disruptors is the introduction of AI into the workforce – whether it's creating images and texts for media or changing the way pharmaceutical companies do clinical drug trials. By looking at how legacy industries responded to disruptive business models in the past, we can extend those lessons to today's leaders so they can better navigate change. It's particularly difficult for established firms to adapt to new, emerging business models because incumbents are often set in their ways. There's resistance to disruptive challenges, especially for companies with an existing commitment to a business model that works and has been working well for some time. In our research, though, we found that a successful adaptation requires CEOs to frame new business model opportunities in four complementary ways: intense (signaling excitement and growth potential), concrete (clearly articulating how value will be created), future-oriented (focusing on the future potential, not just short-term risks) and inclusive (involving key stakeholders like employees, customers and partners). The key lies in persistence. Our analysis of Borders and Barnes & Noble shows it's not enough for a CEO to check those boxes once. What truly made the difference was sustained framing over time: repeated, emotionally resonant and specific communication that continually reinforced why the opportunity mattered and how the organization should respond. If a CEO wants to see real change in their organization, they need to engage in sustained opportunity framing, over the span of several years, in order to yield results and push the company forward. Our research adds to growing evidence that language is a strategic tool, especially in times of disruption. This research suggests that leading through disruption is not just about vision or strategy; it's about sustained, multidimensional communication. By framing new business models as exciting, specific, forward-looking and inclusive of stakeholders, CEOs can help steer their organizations toward innovation, even when the future is uncertain. By Yuliya Snihur, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at IESE Business School.
