Originally posted by peterdavid@Aug 1 2005, 09:37 AM
Statistics are like a lamp post to a drunken man - more for leaning on than for illumination. Process and procedure are the last hiding place of people without the wit and wisdom to do their job properly; this applies ten fold for Entry Clearance officers and, for the most part, MPs who couldn't give a monkeys about their constituents and will fob them off with all sorts of statistics so that they don't have to do anything themselves to help.

I don't care if 99% of applicants turn out to be bogus, and the filipina skips off as soon as she gets to the UK leaving the hapless british guy standing there like a lemon wondering where it all went wrong. That does NOT mean that everyone therefore needs to be treated like ****.

Taking that approach is as wrong and immoral as locking up every single Muslim just because a handful of them turn out to be fanatical nutjobs. An ECO has a DUTY to aproach every application on its MERITS, with no PRECONCEIVED PREJUDICES about a situation; nor should he allow himself to be UNDULY INFLUENCED by IRRELEVANT CONSIDERATIONS.

There could be a million reasons why there are less applications for ILR than for initial entry clearance. Maybe the marriage failed and the filipina went home? Maybe they both left because she just didn't like the UK/was homesick. Maybe they moved elsewhere for job reasons, or were just simply fed up of the bureacracy and prejudice of the UK. For the Home Office and that MP to take such a basic statistic and then, with no evidence WHATSOEVER, to claim that therefore this means most marriages are bogus and, therefore, you should expect to be treated with suspicion and derision, is appalling. Given that the Home Office can't even generate a list of the asylum seekers that it KNOWS ABOUT, let alone the ones it doesn't know about (I've seen this from the inside), I attach about as much credibility and realism to Home Office statistics as I would to an episode of Bad Girls.

So, I'm not impressed with that MPs response; it certainly does not make me look at the Embassy process with less displeasure and contempt; if anything, it only heightens my condemnation of their attitude and approach. What the hell happened to "innocent until proven guilty"???

If it were my MP, he'd have been given a right mouthful from me about due process, balance of probabilities and the requirement not to let political and prejudiced personal bias influence the actions of a civil servant in carrying out his duties. Any ECO trying to hind behind the claim he is "only carrying out orders" is a moron. What a dunce.
ditto