So what do the stars hold for asylum, immigration, the Big Society and the new foot soldiers of the Civil Society? (community and voluntary groups to you and me).
January 2011 will see immigration blamed for the continuing extreme cold weather. Never mind that most people come from warmer climates that are themselves disintegrating rapidly. Burst pipes will as the thaw sets in also be blamed on asylum seekers and immigrants, but this time perversely because so few of them will be prepared to ‘volunteer’ to fix them aka Big Society style
February will be Big Society Month, not only will there be a range of ‘topical’ conferences and conversations but national and local government would have thought about how and where to wield the axe - so all of a sudden everything will be an opportunity for volunteering and developing and repacking yourself as a good neighbour
March as a wave of redundancies hit the public, community and voluntary sector more people will have the time to be good neighbours. As cuts to policing continue everybody who is anybody will volunteer to be a neighbourhood watch coordinator. The UK Border Agency will see this as an opportunity to ‘smoke out illegals’ and will find the money to reward neighbourhood watch coordinators who report people. After all everybody needs good neighbours!
National Census day will cause a general hiatus of concern when its discovered that some communities simply aren’t engaging.
April – as there will be more people unemployed than employed, day time television will get a radical revamp, with programmes sponsored by Poundland. The net figures for immigration will be published and there will be confusion as to whether this means the points based system is or is not working. The Government will finally realise that it can’t clear its backlog of 400,000 cases by June 2011 as promised, and rumours will circulate about the possibility of an amnesty. No one however will be able to make a decision and the issue will be fudged with half hearted and complex compromises and overtaken by celebrations for the Royal Wedding.
May – Government will need to think about the EU again. Continued enlargement and the end of rules for A8 nationals will mean that the government will need to think about setting up some very complex procedures to marshal numbers into new categories that distort the real benefits of migration.
June - Seeing the success and positive results of investing in TV programming, all the 99p shops in the country come together to sponsor Little Asylum Seeker, in the Big Country - the new reality programme where 32 nationalities come together to win the votes of viewers for leave to remain in the country. Guardian readers are initially horrified by the thought but consider it an exciting anthropological celebration of modern culture(s), Telegraph readers will tut and are suitably outraged in the mistaken belief that their licence fee is paying for the programme.
July – Extreme hot weather will be blamed on asylum seekers, this time because there was not enough people to build fans and install air conditioning systems. London will start yet another count down to the Olympics for 2012, and celebrate and market its multiculturalism abroad, whilst ignoring it at home.
August – those that can afford it will go on holiday, those that can’t will be asked to arrange for their own holiday at the end of their street where a community run ice cream van staffed by volunteers will be made available. People will marvel at their home grown sun tans, and question the validity of ever needing to go abroad again, and so bring forth the end of the recession with an increase in consumer spending.
September – There will be a general feeling that the worse of the recession is over, and government agencies and local government will start planning for the future. But having found the Big Society can be done on the cheap, and as far as the evidence is concerned no one’s death can actually be attributed to the Big Society, cut backs will continue.
October - After 16 weeks of high drama the winner of Little Asylum Seeker in the Big Country is announced. They are interviewed by the Daily Mail who using an undercover investigator dressed as a Sheikh discover that actually the imaginary Sheikhs’ imaginary family is from the same town as the winner but has never heard of them. The winner is deported, this time not by Group4 but a team of volunteers who have been drafted in to fly a specially charted plane.
November – a doctor who has overstayed on his work permit and then volunteered at the hospital where he used to work is found to have made a ground breaking discovery that finds a cure for the common cold. His discovery and hard work is awarded with a deportation order. There is public unrest as people say ‘this one can stay’ and that he is vital to supporting work in the run up to the annual flu epidemic. Alas, all the protests are in vein and he is detained in detention centre with his two children (with the Government rebranding childrens centres as Sure Immigration Centres, with an obvious emphasis on child care!)
December – Christmas is cancelled because Santa Claus (despite being originally a Dutch national, is now a secondary migrant, who has been habitually resident at the North Pole) cannot get entry clearance to the UK. Under the points based system his reindeer get more points than him!.
The above is purely for entertainment. However as last years events at RAMFEL have proven stranger things have happened….
You don’t always need the power of second sight or be up with zeitgeist to predict the future, sometimes all you need is the courage to speak out.
Happy New Year one and All.
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