Solicitor for Blokh solicitors, Elena Tsirlina published a book to help 'lay people' get to grips with the maze that is immigration law relating to academia, "A Practical Guide to Immigration Law Relating to Students" .

I just received this email from a trustee of a charity - who wishes to remain anonymous - about the corrosive effect 'safeguarding' rules are having on the work of his organisation. Unnecessary proceedures poison the work of the organisation and can absorb scarce resources...

"The vetting and barring regime continues to have detrimental effects on the operation of charities. As a trustee I, and others, am faced with re-assuring our staff, officers, and volunteers that the actions they are taking are reasonable in the light of ever increasing fears of the consequences if something goes wrong, especially when volunteers are visiting “vulnerable” people. Rather than vetting creating re-assurance it is creating anxiety through an attempt to have rules covering all eventualities.

Research Fortnight is the UK’s leading independent source of news, analysis, funding opportunities and jobs for the academic research community. Available fortnightly in print and daily online, Research Fortnight has been published continuously since 1994.
Asked to contribute a piece for the excellent latest issue focusing on immigration policies and academia, here is what I wrote:

"Populist policies harm UK's reputation
The UK's one-size-fits-all approach to immigration is already hurting, but some of the risks are long term, says Valerie Hartwich

I just received this from a university tutor, a case that 'shows up the absurdity of the CRB system'.

'Student out on placement, all going ok, manager finds out CRB check due to expire soon. If not resolved student’s placement will terminate then despite all being happy with her performance to date. So on one day she is fine to be out alone with ‘vulnerable’ people, the next day she is deemed so risky that she cannot even enter the workplace! What nonsense.'

Well said. It is strange how the day somebody's CRB check expires, all hell breaks loose and everybody panics that they are suddenly the most terrible threat.

They are the same person, but the paperwork has expired so they become de facto dangerous.

An art gallery in Liverpool has been served with a 'noise abatement notice', prohibiting it from holding live music events.

Assuming the music wasn't that loud - this is yet another sign of the growing regulation of live music.

Music is often now classified as 'noise pollution', and many live music events have to measure sound levels outside.

Of course - not all music is to everyone's taste, but this uniform definition of music as 'noise' is part of the growing official view that sees all social life as messy pollution.

It's a view that comes from the EU too - with Parisian clubs and others falling foul of similar regulations, and setting up protests in celebration of night life.

Islington council warns people not to attach notices to trees - in a notice attached to a tree.

This was was clearly a mistake, the actions of a junior worker without a huge amount of common sense.

Yet the incident represents a real trend - which is while community posters are being cracked down on, council posters in public space are growing apace.

So while you may be threatened with an on-the-spot fine for putting up a lost cat poster, councils are hanging more and more notices off lampposts, on bins and electricity boxes - urging you to give up smoking, drink less, or warning you about dog fouling or bag theft...

Public space seems to be rapidly becoming the private space of officials.

Read on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16628232

The excellent Migration Rights Network's blog published a piece today in an attempt to make sense of apparently contradictory reports on the effects of immigration.

The Guardian newspaper recently published an article on Plymouth city's plans to introduce a limit to the number of foreign students allowed into shops.

The UK is well known as a destination for English language courses, and the country has benefited greatly from the direct and indirect revenues generated by those students. At a time when immigration laws are making it more difficult for English language schools to recruit, and giving an unwelcoming image of Britain, this will only strengthen the notion that foreigners are not really wanted here, even if they pay nice sums of money to up their linguistic skills.

Somebody just emailed me this - Birmingham council is charging people to take personal wedding photographs in public parks.

“You are welcome to use our parks or green open spaces as backdrops for your wedding photographs and/or film recordings of your Wedding day for personal use only, with prior permission from us. Use service specific Parks form to make your request providing dates, times and the name of the site where you want to take your photographs. There is a charge of £50 for commercial photographs and £25 for non-commercial photographs.”
[http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/usingparks]