How do you say “Howzat?” in Spanish or Japanese

 

For my American and Mexican friends, “Howzat?” is what a bowler in a cricket match shouts to the umpire when the bowler believes that the batter is out.

 

When Jan and I were first married and living in Takoma Park, Maryland, we played tennis at a local high school. One day, we came across some bemused Americans watching West Indian men playing cricket. We explained to the Americans, as best we could, what these people were doing, but I suspect that they understood very little. Years later, in 2016, I was being driven around Houston by a young American colleague who asked me to explain the mysteries of cricket to him. This took some time, so we agreed to continue the conversation over dinner. Before we met at the restaurant, I searched the Internet and, to my surprise, discovered a Houston cricket league, mostly played by men of South Asian origin.

 

Sano International Cricket Ground

Recently, in The Guardian I came across a town in Japan called Sano, about 90 miles northwest of Tokyo. Sano is well-known for its ramen restaurants, but also happens to be, since 1984, the location of the head office of the Japan Cricket Association (JCA). There are ten cricket associations in Japan from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south. According to the JCA website, there are 200 teams, 3,000 players and 15,000 participants (I am not sure what the distinction is between players and participants) in a country of 128 million people. Clearly, Japanese cricket is the very definition of a minority sport.

 

Cricket at the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club

Cricket was first played in Japan in June 1863. A Royal Navy team played a team of British Yokohama residents, captained by a Scot, James Campbell Fraser. Some players wore revolvers as they played, while others kept firearms within easy reach. The British Chargé d’ Affaires had warned British residents that they would be attacked by samurai on 25 June, but since the British government would not indemnify traders against losses, the businessmen refused to leave, unlike their servants and Japanese inhabitants of Yokohama, all of whom fled. The Royal Navy put men ashore to protect British subjects, and since they and the businessmen had nothing to do, they agreed to play a cricket match. Apparently, the Navy team won, but no details of the score survive. And since no samurai attack materialized, peace and calm soon returned to Yokohama.

 

James Campbell Fraser

The first cricket club in Japan, the Yokohama Cricket Club (now the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club) was founded in 1868. Ernest Price and a few other cricket enthusiasts met that year in the dining room of a Scottish tea merchant, James Pender Mollison (born in Glasgow in 1844, died in Kamakura in 1931), who had previously lived in Shanghai and played at the Shanghai Cricket Club. In the first match, Mollison opened the bowling and the batting – he was clearly an all-rounder.

 

J. P. Mollison

Cricket came to Mexico long before a leather ball met the willow of a cricket bat in Yokohama. Cricket accompanied British commerce after Mexico’s independence in 1821 had ended Spanish monopoly trade policies. Businesses from the USA, Britain and other European nations hurried to Mexico to seek profit from mining, farming and other businesses. In 1827, the Mexico Union Cricket Club (MUCC: now the Mexico Cricket Club, or MCC) was established in Mexico City by British and other foreign merchants and diplomats. Two early members were the British brothers Daniel (joined 1828) and Lewis Price (joined 1835). Daniel and Lewis ran an import-export business in Mexico City and the Gulf Coast port city of Veracruz. In February 1838 the club met at an AGM where a committee was formed to revise the rules of Mexican cricket. The rules agreed were those of the Marylebone Cricket Club in London (recently revised in 1835 to permit a new over-arm bowling action), amended as required by local circumstances. The Marylebone club’s rules stipulated that an over consist of four balls (today it is six), but a Mexican over consisted of twelve. The Mexican rules also provided for teams of fewer than five (the standard number was eleven). Other rules specified the required attire. Since this included a hat, the Mexican rules a hat law: should a fielder stop a ball with his hat five runs would be added to the opposition’s score.

 

In 1827 the membership of the club was 27, a mix of merchants and diplomats, mostly British, but some German miners also joined. One member particularly infamous in Mexican history was the US Chargé d’Affaires, Joel Roberts Poinsett, who wielded the American big stick with vigour both against Mexico’s government and America’s commercial competitors, such as the British merchants with whom Poinsett played cricket on Sundays, substituting a bat for a big stick. By 1837 and 1838 the first Spanish names appeared in the membership list: R. González, J. M. Chávez, A. Tagle and T. Durán, perhaps the first Mexicans ever to play the game.

 

In 1864, a British traveller, Henry Bullock, described a game. The ground, in a village called Nápoles (now a neighbourhood of Mexico City), was a meadow ‘as hard as iron’ surrounded by cactus hedges. Nápoles was favoured by foreigners as a location for their country houses and estates, and was conveniently reached by tram. The players, a number of whom were over 60, assured Bullock that Mexico’s turbulent politics had never disturbed their cricket, even when shooting could be heard in the nearby hills. The best player that day was a Mexican, who had been educated at Bruce Castle School in Tottenham, north London. Bullock noted that while the ladies attended church, the men played cricket, supplied by a firm called Blackmore with beer, for ‘Cricket is nothing without beer’. The season ran from October to March, April to September being the rainy season.

 

At the time of Bullock’s visit, Mexico was an empire ruled by the Austrian Maximilian, imposed by Napoleon III. It seems that Maximilian (who came to a sticky end, executed by a Mexican firing squad in June 1867) was a cricket fan, since he appears in a photograph taken by a Belgian photographer, François Aubert, in 1865.

 

Aubert's photograph of Maximilian at the 1865 cricket match. Maximilian is said to be in the centre. I cannot identify him, however.

In 1868, after the restoration of the Mexican government of President Benito Juárez, an English-language newspaper began publication in Mexico City. The Two Republics included reports of cricket matches of the MCC. They were still played on Sundays in Nápoles by two teams, the Blues and the Reds, which were rarely able to muster a full complement of eleven players. On 31 October the MCC played a combined team of Barron, Forbes & Co., the Railway Company and the Gas Company. Players were to take the 7am train from Calle San Bernardo and Calle Cadena. Play started at 9am sharp, to be interrupted by breakfast at 1pm, and stumps drawn at 4pm. The MCC lost the match by a substantial six wickets.

 

Two Mexicans played that day, a Mr. Mora and J. M Trigueros, the latter a member of a prominent sporting family, who scored 64 of his team’s 269 runs. Trigueros later founded the Victoria Cricket Club, whose members were, in part, Mexican students at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios (School of Arts and Trades), and some non-Mexicans. At this point, international politics brought cricket to a halt. Unable to reach agreement over foreign interference in Mexico, the British government terminated diplomatic relations in 1867. Many MCC members left the country, but the club was able to muster seven players for one last game to play Victoria’s ten. MCC won by 32 runs and ten wickets, but did not play again until the resumption of Mexican-British diplomatic relations in 1884.

 

Dining Room of the Reforma Athletic Club, 1920s?

The revival of cricket was a consequence of the return of foreign business interests to Mexico under the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (a period known as the Porfiriato: 1876-1910) whose regime encouraged foreign investment. Soon there were clubs in Pachuca, a silver mining town where British miners had first arrived in 1824. Many were from Cornwall. They brought with them their pasty, still baked in Pachuca to a Mexican recipe. There was also another MCC: the Monterrey Cricket Club in northern Mexico. In 1887 a match between a Mexico City team and a Pachuca team ended with a win for Mexico City by 27 runs and eight wickets.

 

Reforma Athletic Club, 1920s?

The three Pachuca teams joined together in 1895 to form the Pachuca Athletic Club, and clubs popped up in parts of Mexico that seemed most unlikely places for the extensive areas of grass required for cricket. In 1992 there was a club in Mérida, on the Yucatán peninsula. Even in the desert of Coahuila bat was heard to strike ball when a Scottish cattle rancher, David McKellar became the founding president of the Santa Rosa Athletic Club whose team was known as Los Rancheros. On 4 July Los Rancheros played a team of English railway workers from Ciudad Porfirio Díaz. McKellar’s team won by 65 runs, but his sporting career came to a violent end. Local Mexican ranchers objected to his fencing off his land and water sources. On 29 July they ambushed him and shot him dead.

 

Cricket flourished in the parts of the republic where British businesses were active. There were a number of teams in the capital: Mexico Cricket Club, Mexico Wanderers, British Club, United Railway Men, Read and Campbell Cricket Club, Pearson and Son, Mexico Gas and Electric Light Company, and a Canadian eleven. And the teachers of the English school in San Cristóbal, just outside the city, joined the workers of Pearson and Son, who were building a great canal to drain the Valley of Mexico to prevent regular flooding of the capital, to found the San Cristóbal British Cricket Club.

Pavilion of the Reforma Athletic Club, Avenida de la Reforma, Mexico City, c.1900

 

Cricket team of the Reforma Athletic Club, early 20th century? The only Mexican seems to be the figure at the far left.

Thomas Phillips, founder of the Reforma Athletic Club

However, the most prestigious cricket club in Mexico was established in Mexico City, when, on 16 March 1894 Thomas R. Phillips called a meeting to discuss the foundation of the Reforma Athletic Club to play lawn tennis, cricket and other sports. The club took its name from the location of its first sports round, on the Avenida de la Reforma, on the site now occupied by the Rufino Tamayo Museum. The club moved to two other sites, before settling at a location in Naucalpan some 14 kilometres northwest of downtown Mexico City. The Reforma’s website proudly notes that in 1896 the club formed the first national football team, whose players were: M. S. Turner, Robert J. Blackmore, Charles Blackmore, Claude M. Butlin, Ebenezer Johnson, Ted Bourchier, P.M. Bennett, C.D. Gibson, Vicente Etchegaray, Julio Lacaud, Robert Lock, and Phillips who was also the team’s trainer. Some of the team’s members also played for the Reforma’s cricket team, and it was the cricket players that organized the first sports league in Mexico in March 1900. The first football league kicked off later, in 1902, but proved to be much longer-lived. The cricket league ended in 1909, while the football competition is now Mexico’s professional league

 

Reforma Athletic Club Football Team, 1901

Claude Butlin, who had played football and cricket for the Reforma club, was one of Mexico’s most outstanding sportsmen. In addition to football, he played cricket, rugby, Basque pelota, golf, cycling and hockey. He scored Mexico’s first ever point in a Davis Cup tennis tournament. Butlin, born in Sri Lanka in 1872 or 1877, arrived in Mexico in 1890. He died in 1940, the proud owner of 450 trophies

Claude Butlin with his trophies

Another significant figure in the history of Mexican cricket is Luis Amor, a Mexican sugar plantation owner, educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, who was captain and treasurer of the Mexico Cricket Club (MCC). His brothers Alejandro, Víctor and Pablo, also educated at Stonyhurst, played for the club. At the annual general meeting in December 1900 the MCC elected as Honorary President the Finance Minister, José Yves Limantour, one of the most powerful figures in the Mexican government. Clearly the Amor brothers had friends in high places.

 

Aerial view of the contemporary Reforma Athletic Club, Naucalpan, Estado de México

The Reforma continues to be the leading cricket club in Mexico, although there are now teams in several cities. The Asociación de Cricket de México aims to have a club in every state in the republic and to make cricket the number one sport for girls (I assume that weaning boys off football is too great a challenge) by 2030. Judging by the names mentioned in match reports and the accompanying photos, the majority of players are of South Asian origin. However, there is a national women’s cricket team, whose captain is Caroline Owens, which suggests that Mexican girls may not be flocking to the sport.

 

Cricket match at the Reforma Athletic Club, possibly 1920s

I have not yet discovered the precise Japanese or Spanish equivalent of Howzat?, but by studying reports of matches in Mexico I have picked up. Much of the basic vocabulary is English (hat trick, maiden over, over, wicket). Other terms are Mexicanizations of English terms: fildeador for fielder, portador de wicket for wicket keeper, abridor for opener. But a serious cricket fan might be rather shocked to learn that bowling is lanzamiento (throwing) and a slow bowler is a lanzador lento. [For my American and Mexican friends, a bowler must never throw a ball.] An ingenious invention is unir una sociedad (to form a partnership: literally to incorporate or consolidate a business partnership or corporation).

 

My best guess at Howzat? Is one of the following: cómo estuvo? (how was it?), or more colloquially in Mexican Spanish qué hubo?, or more colloquially still qui húbole? (roughly, what went on?). A phrase which would surely perplex a Mexican is the translation of the English “he was caught at deep square leg”: le agarró en la pierna cuadrada profunda. To the uninitiated this conjures up images of a player with a rather basic prosthetic leg being tackled rugby-style.

 

For a readable history of Mexican cricket see Craig White’s The Golden Age of Mexican Cricket:

https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/team-sports/golden-age-of-mexican-cricket-part-1/

https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/team-sports/golden-age-of-mexican-cricket-part-2/

See also Michael P. Costeloe, “To Bowl a Mexican Maiden Over: Cricket in Mexico, 1827-1900. Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 26, no. 1: 112-124; and William H. Beezley. Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Tales of Porfirian Mexico, Lincoln: Unversity of Nebraska Press, 18-19, 22

Boris Johnson’s Political Indifference to and Neglect of Russian Influence in the UK

 

Yesterday, a friend sent me a government Press Release.

 

On 17 October 2019 the Intelligence and Security of Parliament submitted to the government a report into Russian influence in Britain. The report was the result of an extensive Inquiry by the Committee. The Committee noted that because of the security sensitivities of its enquiry, the report had to undergo a process of review in four stages, the last of which is confirmation by the Prime Minister that the report does not prejudice the work of any of the government’s security agencies. The committee noted that this process usually takes four months.

 

The report was published yesterday, some 29 months after it was submitted to government. In other words, Boris Johnson delayed publication of a very important report for more than two years and slipped it into the public domain in the midst of the Ukrainian invasion to bury it as deeply as possible in the news media.

 

Only he can know why. However, it is notable that:

·      The report states that, while the US government published an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, the UK government failed to enquire into Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Johnson was, of course, a leading proponent of Brexit, so such an investigation might have questioned the very event that led him to power.

·      After the 2019 election, Johnson attempted to impose as chair of the committee one of his Brexit cronies, Chris Grayling (popularly known as “Failing Grayling”). This manoeuvre failed.

·      The report notes Russian links to influential figures in Britain, and the failure of a number of governments to pay any attention to the security implications of this influence. It is worth noting that a number of Russian oligarchs resident in the UK have been large donors to the Conservative Party (although the report does not refer to this – both Conservative and MPs and MPs from other parties sit on the committee, so perhaps this is not surprising).

 

Of course, this report did not warn the government that Russia might invade Ukraine, but it did raise some very important questions for the government, which it ignored until such time as the questions are more or less moot.

 

I am copying here the press release that accompanied publication of the report. I have highlighted some points that seem particularly relevant to today’s crisis.

 

INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY COMMITTEE OF PARLIAMENT

PRESS NOTICE

 

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament publish predecessor’s Russia Report

 

“This Report is the result of an extensive Inquiry by the previous Committee. We would like

to take this opportunity to thank the Chair of that Committee, Dominic Grieve QC, and the

former members of the ISC for all their work: it is a matter of great regret that it was not

published last November, ahead of the General Election. The following press notice is that

written by the previous Committee.

 

Intelligence and Security Committee questions whether Government took

its eye off the ball on Russia, finds that they underestimated the response

required to the Russian threat and are still playing catch up:

 

·      Russian influence in the UK is the new normal. Successive

Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open

arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through

the London ‘laundromat’, and connections at the highest levels with

access to UK companies and political figures.

·       This has led to a growth industry of ‘enablers’ including lawyers,

accountants, and estate agents who are – wittingly or unwittingly – de

facto agents of the Russian state.

·      It clearly demonstrates the inherent tension between the Government’s

prosperity agenda and the need to protect national security. While we

cannot now shut the stable door, greater powers and transparency are

needed urgently.

·       UK is clearly a target for Russian disinformation. While the mechanics

of our paper-based voting system are largely sound, we cannot be

complacent about a hostile state taking deliberate action with the aim of

influencing our democratic processes.

·      Yet the defence of those democratic processes has appeared

something of a ‘hot potato’, with no one organisation considering itself

to be in the lead, or apparently willing to conduct an assessment of

such interference. This must change.

·      Social media companies must take action and remove covert hostile

state material: Government must ‘name and shame’ those who fail to

act.

·      We need other countries to step up with the UK and attach a cost to

Putin’s actions. Salisbury must not be allowed to become the high water

mark in international unity over the Russia threat.

·      A number of issues addressed in this published version of the Russia

Report are covered in more depth in the Classified Annex. We are not

able to discuss these aspects on the grounds of national security.

 

“The UK is one of Russia’s top Western intelligence targets: particularly given the UK’s firm

stance against recent Russian aggression and the UK-led international response to the 2018

Salisbury attack. Russia’s intelligence services are disproportionately large and powerful and, given the lack of rule of law, are able to act without constraint. The fusion between state, business, and serious and organised crime provides further weight and leverage: Russia is able to pose an all-encompassing security threat – which is fuelled by paranoia about the West and a desire to be seen as a resurgent great power.

“Russia is a highly capable cyber actor, employing organised crime groups to supplement its

cyber skills. Russia carries out malicious cyber activity in order to assert itself aggressively -

for example, attempting to interfere in other countries’ elections. It has also undertaken cyber pre-positioning on other countries’ Critical National Infrastructure. Given the immediate threat this poses to our national security, we are concerned that there is no clear coordination of the numerous organisations across the UK intelligence community working on this issue, this is reinforced by an unnecessarily complicated wiring diagram of responsibilities amongst Ministers.

“We do however welcome the Government’s increasingly assertive approach when it comes

to identifying, and laying blame on, the perpetrators of cyber attacks and the UK should

encourage other countries to adopt a similar approach to ‘naming and shaming’. The same is true in relation to an international doctrine on the use of Offensive Cyber: this is now

essential and the UK – as a leading proponent of the Rules Based International Order –

should be promoting and shaping Rules of Engagement, working with our allies.

“Russia’s promotion of disinformation and attempts at political influence overseas - whether

through the use of social media, hack and leak operations, or its state-owned traditional media - have been widely reported. In the UK, the use of a highly-dispersed paper-based voting and counting system makes actual interference with the mechanism difficult, but we should not be complacent about other forms of interference: the UK is clearly a target and must equip itself to counter such efforts.

“Yet this Inquiry found it surprisingly difficult to establish who has responsibility: the

defence of the UK’s democratic processes has appeared to be something of a ‘hot potato’,

with no single organisation identifying itself as having an overall lead. We understand the

nervousness around any suggestion that the intelligence Agencies might be involved in the

mechanics of the democratic process, but that does not apply when it comes to the protection of those processes. And without seeking to imply that those organisations currently responsible are not capable, the Committee have questioned whether DCMS and the Electoral Commission have the weight and access required to tackle a major hostile state threat. Democracy is intrinsic to our country’s success and well-being. Protecting it must be a ministerial priority, with the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism taking the policy lead and the operational role sitting with MI5.

“In terms of responsibility, it was noted that – as with so many other issues currently – it is

the social media companies who hold the key but are failing to play their part. The

Government must establish a protocol with these companies to ensure that they take covert

hostile state use of their platforms seriously, with agreed deadlines within which such

material will be removed, and Government should ‘name and shame’ those which fail to act.

“There have been widespread allegations that Russia sought to influence voters in the 2016

referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU: studies have pointed to the preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and Sputnik, and the use of ‘bots’ and ‘trolls’, as

evidence. The actual impact of such attempts on the result itself would be difficult – if not

impossible – to prove. However what is clear is that the Government was slow to recognise

the existence of the threat – only understanding it after the ‘hack and leak’ operation against the Democratic National Committee, when it should have been seen as early as 2014. As a result the Government did not take action to protect the UK’s process in 2016. The Committee has not been provided with any post-referendum assessment - in stark contrast to the US response to reports of interference in the 2016 presidential election. In our view there must be an analogous assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum.

“What is clear is that Russian influence in the UK is ‘the new normal’: successive

Governments have welcomed the Russian oligarchy with open arms, and there are a lot of

Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business, political

and social scene - in ‘Londongrad’ in particular. Yet few, if any, questions have been asked

regarding the provenance of their considerable wealth and this ‘open door’ approach provided ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through the London

‘laundromat’. It is not just the oligarchs either - the arrival of Russian money has resulted in a growth industry of ‘enablers’: lawyers, accountants, and estate agents have all played a role, wittingly or unwittingly, and formed a “buffer” of Westerners who are de facto agents of the Russian state.

“There is an obvious inherent tension between the Government’s prosperity agenda and the

need to protect national security. To a certain extent, this cannot be untangled and the priority now must be to mitigate the risk, and ensure that where hostile activity is uncovered, the proper tools exist to tackle it at source and to challenge the impunity of Putin-linked elites. It is notable, for example, that a number of Members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian companies linked to the Russian state – these relationships should be carefully scrutinised, given the potential for the Russian state to exploit them.

“In addition to the Putin-linked elites, the UK is also home to a number of Putin’s critics who

have sought sanctuary in the UK fearing politically-motivated charges and harassment, and

the events of 4 March 2018 showed the vulnerability of former Russian intelligence officers

who have settled in the UK – one of the issues we address in the Classified Annex to our

Report.

“It has been clear for some time that Russia under Putin has moved from potential partner to established threat, fundamentally unwilling to adhere to international law – the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 were stark indicators of this. We therefore question whether the Government took its eye off the ball because of its focus on counter-terrorism: it was the opinion of the Committee that until recently the

Government had badly underestimated the response required to the Russian threat –and is

still playing catch up. Russia poses a tough intelligence challenge and our intelligence

Agencies must have the tools they need to tackle it. In particular, new legislation must be

introduced to tackle foreign spies: the Official Secrets Act is not fit for purpose and while this goes unrectified the UK intelligence community’s hands are tied.

“More broadly, we need a continuing international consensus against Russian aggressive

action. Effective constraint of nefarious Russian activities in the future will rely on making

sure that the price the Russians pay for such interference is sufficiently high: the West is

strongest when it acts collectively, and the UK has shown it can lead the international

response. The expulsion of 153 ‘diplomats’ from 29 countries and NATO following the use

of chemical weapons on UK soil in the Salisbury attack was unprecedented and, together

with the subsequent exposure of the GRU agents responsible, sent a strong message that such actions would not be tolerated. But Salisbury must not be allowed to become the high water mark in international unity over the Russia threat: we must build on this effort to ensure momentum is not lost.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory committee of

Parliament that has responsibility for oversight of the UK Intelligence Community. The

Committee was originally established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994, and was reformed, and its powers reinforced, by the Justice and Security Act 2013.

2. The Committee oversees the intelligence and security activities of the UK, including the policies, expenditure, administration and operations of MI5, MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The Committee also scrutinises the work of the other parts of the Intelligence Community , including the Joint Intelligence Organisation and the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office; Defence Intelligence in the Ministry of Defence; and the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism in the Home Office.

3. The Committee consists of nine members drawn from both Houses of Parliament, and appointed by Parliament. The Chair is elected by its Members. The Members of the Committee are subject to Section 1(1)(b) of the Official Secrets Act 1989 and are routinely given access to highly classified material in carrying out their duties.

4. This Report was prepared by the previous Committee:

The Rt Hon. Dominic Grieve QC MP (Chair)

The Rt Hon. Richard Benyon MP

Stewart Hosie MP

The Rt Hon. Caroline Flint MP

The Rt Hon. David Hanson MP

The Rt Hon. the Lord Janvrin GCB GCVO QSO

The Rt Hon. Kevan Jones MP

The Most Hon. the Marquess of Lothian QC PC

The Rt Hon. Keith Simpson MP

5. The present Committee Members are:

The Rt Hon. Dr Julian Lewis MP (Chair)

The Rt Hon. Chris Grayling MP

The Rt Hon. Sir John Hayes CBE MP

Stewart Hosie MP

Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP

The Rt Hon. Kevan Jones MP

Mark Pritchard MP

The Rt Hon. Theresa Villiers MP

The Rt Hon. Admiral Lord West of Spithead GCB DSC

6. The Committee sets its own agenda and work programme. It takes evidence from Government Ministers, the Heads of the intelligence and security Agencies, officials from UKIC, and other witnesses as required. The Committee makes an Annual Report on the discharge of its functions and also produces Reports on specific issues.

7. The Committee receives highly classified evidence, much of which cannot be published without damaging the operational capabilities of the intelligence Agencies. There is therefore a lengthy process to prepare the Committee’s reports ready for publication, which consists of four stages and takes around four months. The fourth stage is for the Prime Minister to confirm under the Justice and Security Act that there is no material remaining in the report which would prejudice the discharge of the functions of the Agencies (by this point this has already been confirmed by the Agencies themselves). It has previously been agreed that the Prime Minister would have ten working days in which to provide this confirmation, before the Report is laid before Parliament. The Committee’s report on Russia was sent to the Prime Minister on 17 October 2019.

 

A picture tells it all: Ms Patel stands with Ukraine?

 I saw this in my paper this morning and it focused my mind on our government's appalling treament of refugees for the last ten years or so.

Steve Bell's cartoon in today's Guardian. Priti Patel is seated at the table.

 

Our prime minister is a boastful oaf. Everything his government does is “world-leading”, or some such phrase. However, you can never take a word he says at face value. Any statement is more than likely to be on a spectrum somewhere between a bare-faced lie, a distortion, a partial truth, or a gross distortion. The day that he tells the whole truth is an exception. The same applies to the members of his government.

 

My friends in USA and Mexico will be fortunate never to have come across our Home Secretary, Priti Patel. She and our prime minister will tell you, for example, that they are implementing a tough but fair asylum system to take back control of our borders, in the Brexit terminology. In fact, if you arrive in the UK by any means other than an officially sanctioned UK government procedure (which does not exist) you cease to be a person fleeing persecution. Instead, you have committed a crime: you might be imprisoned or sent to an offshore processing centre (which does not exist either). Priti and Johnson may tell you that they are leading the world in welcoming refugees from conflicts that tear at our heart strings. But, if you are not the right sort of refugee (for example, Syrian, Eritrean and the like don’t bother to apply). Nevertheless, she and the boastful oaf will assure you that everything they do is in the best tradition of the generous British people’s history of welcoming refugees.

 

Believe none of it. Her department has frequently been judged in the UK courts to have mistreated refugees, asylum seekers and/or immigrants unfairly (or worse) in breach of her department’s own rules and/or the law. She does not care. After the initial rescue of c.15,000 people from Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the western withdrawal, the government promised a world-leading, generous, “bespoke procedure” to allow Afghans to apply for asylum in the UK. Ms. Patel and her boastful boss love that word “bespoke”: you might think it means specially tailored to the desperate circumstances of desperate people. But you would be quite mistaken. “Bespoke” means “We will boast about it but will do nothing to implements it.” Six months after announcing the “bespoke” procedure for Afghans, nothing has been arranged.

 

Unfortunately for Ukrainians, the scheme established for them is also world-leadingly generous and bespoke and the boastful oaf himself has invited them to flock to the UK.

 

A few examples. First of all, you have to complete online a 14-page form and upload various documents on a website that crashes. Imagine that you have fled your bombed home. Do you stop to collect the documents that Ms Patel requires and do you have the time and internet access to complete the form as you flee? One British man described his attempt to bring his partner to the UK. They began the process in Kyiv before they decided to escape. The 14-page form requires the applicant to select a sub-contracted company that will take biometric data. This couple selected the contractor in Kyiv, but fled to Copenhagen before they could get the required data. A Home Office official patiently explained to them that they must return to Kyiv to source the data from the company named on the form. That’s the Patel procedure. Another British man and his Ukrainian partner managed to escape to Rome, only to be told that she must attend an appointment at the British consulate in Poland. Ukrainians who have managed to reach Calais (from where they can travel to the UK by ferry or train) were met by UK officials seated a trestle table with a hastily typed notice telling them to make an appointment with a consulate in Paris or Brussels (the latter open only 3.5 days per week).

 

The UK welcomes Ukrainian refugees in Calais

The scheme is so bespoke, that if you live in the UK your family members in Ukraine can be given refuge in the UK. But, if you are a Ukrainian who lives here but you do not have “settled status”, you cannot invite any members of your family to join you in the UK under any circumstances. If you do have settled status you may find that a person you consider to be a family member (e.g. an unmarried partner of many years, stepchildren over 18 years of age) are not “bespoke” members after all. They can “bespokely” wait in Ukraine or in a shelter in Poland.

 

Today, Jan heard the Transport Minister, Grant Shapps, asked on BBC Radio 4 why more Ukrainian refugees have not been welcomed to the UK. He explained patiently that Mr Zelensky wants his people to remain close to Ukraine! Mr Putin should hire Mr Shapps immediately as Minister of Propaganda in the UK.

 

Well said Steve Bell: