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I learn today that people delayed beyond the 45 minute target time for passing thru the Control are venting their displeasure by slow hand clapping. Staff deem this to be public disorder and have requested extra police to control the inflamed crowds. Having nothing to do with the situation personally, it occurs to me that, if there is a budget for extra police, why not spend it on extra people to man the desks?
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I would love to be dragged up in court for public disorder - slow hand clapping. Would I play this one to the gallery or what.
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Yes, but what gallery.
Run the risk of being sent down as well for contempt of court if they weren't amused...
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I'm not surprised, I went through on Sunday, long lines of people at both EU and non EU. The Epassport gates seem to stop working and people had to be sent around to a desk to have their passports manually checked, which slowed things down. Signposting wasn't great and lots of people were in the wrong queue. Some queuing in the EU lane when they could have (tried to) used Epassport lane. I didn't know about the 45 min target, I think I was in the queue for about 35 min. LHR (and BA) were a bit of a poor relation to SAS and the Scandinavian aiports used over the past couple of weeks, which were very good minimal queues and on time for all flights.
About 2/3 of the desks seemed manned but I think the main reason was they were giving some people a bit of a grilling. UK passport holders seemed ok, but even EU passport holders were often asked questions. No doubt due to the reports of slack border control of the past few years.
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>> I would love to be dragged up in court for public disorder - slow hand
>> clapping. Would I play this one to the gallery or what.
>>
That's what our anti-terror legislation is for. No gallery...
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>> extra police to control the inflamed crowds.
>>
How do they stop the hand-clapping ? Handcuffs?
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probably solved the problem by opening both the gates and their arms wide and welcoming them all in!
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I have had no problem at all at Gatwick ........
I do not see how the police can arrest hundreds of people slow hand clapping.It is up to the border authority to get their act together.
Another good ploy is the bleat , a few years back the police were stopping people getting to the railway station after the rugby when somebody in the crowd started a sheep like bleating which was taken up by thousands , the centre of Twickenham sounded like an outback sheep farm ............
Next time I go through Heathrow I might give it a try.
Last edited by: retpocileh on Tue 10 Jul 12 at 14:48
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How many passengers, who are coming via Heathrow, are illegals?
I think the number is quite low compared to how many illegals enter via ferry ports, where there is no checking.
When I crossed the channel few months back, a border official just boarded the coach and asked everyone to show their passports. No scan or comparing against the computer database. So anyone with a false EU passport will enter without being challenged.
A good number of illegals are over stayers - again won't come under entry port scanning.
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The queues at Liverpool airport last Friday were fairly awful, took about 30 minutes to get through. This struck me as too long for a small provincial airport.
I was also on Eurostar last week travelling from Brussels to London and discovered that you now have to show your passport when getting off the train in the UK. You also have to show your ticket: this caught me out as I had left it on the train. Apparently this is to close the so -called Lille loophole. This involved buying a Eurostar ticket from Brussels to Liile and simply staying on the train to London. No on board ticket checks on a Eurostar. Passengers to Lille do not go through border control in Brussels (according to a recent documentary on R4, UKBA staff in Brussels have been threatened with arrest for trying to check such passengers passports). There is even a special 'channel' for Lille passengers to go through. So now there are checks at St Pancras. There were only a handful of UKBA staff at St Pancras but the process seemed to be smooth enough with no delays (apart from for me without my ticket)
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Anyone travelling anywhere at any time should always be ready for hideously long delays. I've walked straight into and out of airports of all sizes and levels of traffic, and also had to queue in them for no apparent reason. The delays or lack of them have never been entirely predictable.
All I can say is that standing in a sweaty queue for up to an hour is not at all unusual anywhere. I think people are complaining about nothing, or perhaps looking back on their own previous travels through the rose-tinted spectacles I am often accused of wearing. Wimps.
And for God's sake don't start telling me it upsets the nippers. If they start whining tell them to shut up and whomp them upside the head. That's what was done in my young day.
:o}
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 10 Jul 12 at 17:17
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Abysmal service from a poor inefficient service - the only saving grace is that that dreadful woman Theresa May may fall on her sword over it - although I doubt it, she's either too thick to realise that something needs to change or too arrogant, sadly I think it's the latter.
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 10 Jul 12 at 17:57
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Set up as an arm's length delivery body UKB is nothing of the sort. Instead, ministers micro manage every element of its organisation.
Brodie Clark was an honourable and decent public servant kebabbed for Ms May's political furtherment.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 10 Jul 12 at 18:14
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The UKBA is just an arm of the civil service. Should be like the police force.
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BP - rarely disagree with you but this ones quacks, it swims and is therefore a duck - if an organisation can't organise itself into a credible working entity in the UK's premier airport, bearing in mind the amount of staff and money that's been thrown in recent months it's definitely needs sorting - political interference or not it's in a real mess and it needs sorting, someone somewhere needs to be kicked up the backside and in short order.
The current cock up by the Home Office on Olympic security is yet to break cover.
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It's a big organisation Rob. Chucking resources at in the short term might put some bodies on the ground and help a bit but it's not going to overcome years of political fiddling.
Over the last few years large numbers of staff were 'let go' In the way of these things plenty of them would be the people with the skills and zip to get on in the world outside in security, immigration advice and other fields. The dead wood stays in the tree.
Passports, identity, borders and immigration staff have been subject to constant re-organisation by sucessive Home Secretaries back to Blunkett. Nothing scoffs resources and staff morale like re-organisation. Each new split is accomapnied by a re-brand and a new mission; less vision though on how it will be delivered. But look, the politicians are 'doing something'.
Staff are currently be 're-educated' following the latest change. Co-hort, by co-hort they're taken to presentations on how fantastic the new vision will be and how carp the old one (aand by inference its staff) was. Again it does nothing for motivation. Been through same process myself about 10 years ago . The good staff either jump or are invited to join the change teams. The rest try and carry on.
Not saying for a minute that nothing's wrong; dont get me started on Immigration and Asylum and the concept of getting the right decision first time!!
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>> The UKBA is just an arm of the civil service. Should be like the police
>> force.
As I understand it that's broadly the aim. Either way, it won't work if the professional officers have a politician second guessing then at every move.
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Police Commissioners !! Just wait.
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The day will come when instead of passports you will have a tag in the back of the neck, and be scanned as you walk through portals. Then later on this will be expanded to other points of the cities, and country so that you can be tracked by big brother where ever you are!
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The "Agency" concept for government compulsorily imposed requirements is, I think, totally flawed
I am a proponent of "small government" generally, but I cannot see the logic of outsourcing, (for profit?) things such as border controls, DVLA, etc, etc.
I think if the service/tax (or whatever it may be,) is legally enforced by governmental policy, it should be staffed by people who are directly responsible to government and not to an agency head.
Civil Servants, I think they are called!
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We already are.............if they can be bothered.
I don't vote cos I find them all pathetic. Me, rank Tory through and through though if I had to be placed in a bracket. However, I wouldn't vote this lot in now if my ruddy life depended on it.
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I think a lot of natural conservative voters think the same Martin.
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I've travelled in and out of the country by all methods on a regular basis all my adult life. Air travel used to be the easiest and most pleasureable method. Now, while it remains ( sometimes marginally ) the quickest, it is by far the most demeaning and unpleasant.
I would like to see a return the the levels of courtesy and efficiency we mostly used to enjoy at airports and a relaxation of the "must be seen to be trying to do something about the threat despite the fact we know it's futile" strategy we now have endure.
Perhaps we should instead wish for and encourage a Government which made it patently and demonstrably clear to those who seek to harm us and ours that that would be a huge, monumentally huge, and immediately responded to mistake...
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after the elf and safety forms had been completed. Country's stuffed.. No going back.
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Still not as bad as the US, where immigration officers assume that anyone who dares "cross the line when called" is intent on bringing down the USofA and its up to you, the traveler, to convince them otherwise. Queues of two hours can be commonplace.
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I know, and what's more they get really sniffy when you point out that they only have a country because we decided we didn't really want it after all, or indeed when you ask if they could they please repeat a question in English...
:-)
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One of them asked me if I had been convicted of any offence, and got rather sniffy when I said i didn't think it was required for entry any more.
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>> not as bad as the US
Australia can be a bit po-faced as well.
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>> Police Commissioners !! Just wait.
+1
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Border Agency Staff at LHR a Bit Soft - Zero
