Tim Collard's blog on (and off) the Daily Telegraph

This blog is based on the one I write on the Daily Telegraph website (blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/timcollard). But it also contains posts which the Telegraph saw fit to spike, or simply never got round to putting up.

I'm happy for anyone to comment, uncensored, on anything I have to say. But mindless abuse, such as turns up on the Telegraph site with depressing regularity (largely motivated my my unrepentant allegiance to the Labour Party), is disapproved of. I am writing under the name which appears on my passport and birth certificate; anyone else is welcome to write in anonymously, but remember that it is both shitty and cowardly to hurl abuse from under such cover. I see the blogosphere as the equivalent of a pub debate: a bit of knockabout and coarse language is fine, but don't say anything that would get you thumped in the boozer. I can give as good as I get, and I know how to trace IP addresses.

Friday, 18 September 2009

Oh dear, Lady Scotland

It seems that Baroness Scotland, the Attorney-General, has been caught very nastily. As the Government’s chief law officer, she was quite properly responsible for promoting legislation closing loopholes for those who employed non-British citizens whose immigration status prevented them from working. Now she has been found employing a cleaner who was indeed in Britain on a visa which precluded working.

Lady Scotland has denied any culpability in this matter, saying that she had been shown documents which confirmed her cleaner’s right to work. Obviously the courts will have to rule on this, and it is quite right that legal judgment be suspended until they have pronounced.

However, my own interest is sparked by my knowledge that many illegal immigrants are employed for the purpose of undercutting the national minimum wage. Whatever the immigration status of Baroness Scotland’s cleaner, I would be interested to know what the Tongan lady was being paid. If a Labour Attorney-General has employed the wrong person in genuine ignorance, she may survive; if she has not been paying the minimum wage, she will certainly not. Information, please.

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