The (Unsettling) Shape of Things to Come?

Just when we've begun to relax about our 'highly skilled migrant' status, there comes news of an proposed change in the immigration system here in the UK with an aim to model it on the way it runs in Australia. To quote Liam Byrne (UK Immigration Minister), "a new Australian-style points-based system will be simpler, cheaper and easier to enforce."

The Highly Skilled Pigrant Programme (HSMP) is a relatively new work permit category introduced with a view to bringing into and keeping skilled talent in the United Kingdom. This has been achieved, to a large extent, by dangling mainly the ease-into-permanent-settlement carrot. Also, before HSMP, if you had a work permit it meant you were tied to one employer and your status was dependent on them. HSMP allowed you the flexibility to do whatever you liked, as long as you could show you had been 'economically active' for the first probationary year, after which you were given a three-year further leave to remain (FLR) extension, after which you would be eligible for indefinite leave to remain(ILR), after one year of which you could apply to be a citizen of the UK, if that's what you wanted.

To cut a long story short, when the HSMP scheme started, it looked like this:

Initial 1-year HSMP -> 3-year FLR -> 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

It was then changed to this:

Initial 1-year HSMP -> 4-year FLR -> 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

Then it was changed again to:

Initial 2-year HSMP -> 3-year FLR - 1-year ILR -> Citizenship

This doesn't look terrible on paper but they've also made a significant fundamental change in that it's not sufficient to prove you've been 'economically active' (yes, you can shelve 'that' idea now) but you have to retake the points test and prove that you've been in what the government deems to be skilled occupation. This again, may not sound like the end of the world, but what is most unfair is making this legislation effective in retrospect. Additionally, you have to take an IELTS test and get a minimum score, which seems unecessary if they thought your English was okay to come here in the first place and now that you have lived in this country for one year! On reassessing themselves with the new points scale, a lot of people have found themselves terribly disadvantaged especially on the counts of age and earnings. Basically, if you were over 30 and didn't earn a Canary-Wharf salary (our euphemism for the ridiculous figures paid to the 'professionals' in uptown London), you could now be in serious trouble.

So you decide to move to England, get all your information together and apply, stating on the application form why you are keen to make the UK your permanent home (yes, that is one of the questions on the form) and sign it, saying you understand the terms and conditions they explain. When your application is approved, I believe the government enters into a sort of 'contract' with you, assuring you it will support your legal endeavours to make the UK your permanent home, particularly so if you are required to live here with 'no recourse to public funds' and yet pay full taxes to augment those 'public funds'. That is precisely why it seems absurd to have to prove your eligibility and immigration-worthiness all over again, using new critieria at the end of one short year. I am all for review and change with a view to improving efficiency, but I very strongly believe it is grossly unfair to make the new regulations applicable in retrospect.

We were lucky we were able to meet the new tighter regulations when applying for our extensions, but who knows what it's going to be like when we come up for our ILR permits? All this said, we really have had nothing to complain about since we've been here - and yes, a country has to put its own interests before all else. In that light, it looks like it's going to be change for the better. It just makes you think longer and harder about where and why you want to want to 'settle' or if you should really 'settle' at all.

I do apologise...

...I have been posting all over the place - the Google Checkout post should've been before the supermarkets one. I type in an idea for a post and save it as a draft before it goes right out to where it came from. I will try to organise my posts sequentially - I promise. If I still don't get it right, I'll apologise again and point you to where you should be looking - I promise.

The Google's going to get you!

Two words - Google Checkout

Class Definition - Now at a Supermarket Near You!

A metrosexual but rugby-loving (i don't know how that's theoretically possible but he really is!) colleague once asked me what supermarket was located in the shopping square near our home. I said we had a Co-op and he didn't appear to be moved. Another colleague piped in saying she had a Waitrose close to her house, to which his face lit up and he said "you know your town has arrived, if it has a Waitrose."

I read this fantastic article about the politics of social class played out in something as apparently innocuous as a weekly grocery shopping run. Like the article says, in Britain (and I'm sure the rest of the world's not far behind), where you shop says something about you and your life state. It is very interesting to see how more often than not, you will get the same item in different packaging. I have bought stuff from the Tesco Value range and identical stuff from the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range and honestly, I can't taste the difference. A friend of ours who has some behind-the-scenes experience from working in the packaging industry was telling us, anecdotally (sic), how they would do a batch of baked beans tins for ASDA and when done, they'd go and do a batch for Waitrose - same beans, different labels.

As dot (wisely) says, "we've come to a point where we pay for our perceived happiness on having the item and not it's actual value." The wank term for it in pricing strategy systems is CPV or Customer Perceived Value (there, now you have Google to thank for your education even!). Anyway, I don't want to proselytise, but where it doesn't hurt your brand- or class-conscious soul, take a look at the 'lower-class' alternatives and give them a shot - you just might be pleasantly surprised.

What I Like to Call Robbery

Boy cousin comes to visit us this weekend, which I am really looking forward to! We have train tickets to do London this weekend – it’s a ‘pilgrimage’ we make with almost all visiting family and friends who are interested. It is about an hour away from Oxford by train (fast train, might I add) and an hour and a half (with no roadworks and no accidents waiting to be cleared off the motorway) by coach. London’s got lots of things to see and do, as you would know, and if you don’t have the luxury of plenty of time, it can get a bit mad. We have realised that London’s just as lovely simply walking around and not actually getting into any of the major attractions. Buy yourself a Day Travelcard and use the tube and bus to get around and ‘see’ most of London. The banks of the Thames, St Paul’s Cathedral, the houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Buckingham Palace gardens, Leicester Square, Hyde Park…you know where I’m going with this. If you really want to see things from the inside, there are still quite a few that you can do for free – some we’ve done include the Tate Modern and the National Gallery. All of this brings me to what prompted me to do this post. While planning a loose itinerary for Sunday, I thought we could do Madame Tussaud’s (yes, we’ve been here one year and haven’t done it yet). I went to their website to look up opening times and ticket prices and I was aghast at the £25.00 that they charge as a walk-up entry fee!! Children under 5 years of age go free apparently, but then who would want to take an under-five to a museum with wax models of celebrities?! The London Eye costs a slightly more reasonable £14.50 but you have to queue for hours to get through and if you want to ‘fast-track’ yourself, you have to, you guessed it, shell out more - £22.50 on this occasion! All these are costs for one person, and as dot rightly pointed out, look frightening when multiplied suitably for a group. I think it is robbery, plain and simple.

I do understand that it is expensive to maintain the structures and keep them attractive and visitor-friendly. I suppose regulating the number of visitors is also a challenge, but it’s funny how the numbers don’t seem to go down despite the ridiculous prices and you can see that they’re milking it for all it’s worth! It makes me mad! Discussing this issue with dot, he reminded me that there were different (higher) entry fees for non-Indians at monuments and other tourist attractions in India and we discussed that though it may seem unfair on the face of it, if you think about it, it’s nowhere near how much you have to shell out elsewhere.

That’s my rant for the day done then. I must add though that Tussaud’s or no Tussaud’s, London on a spring day should be a right treat and we’re all looking forward to it.

P.S. GroupSave with 2for1 Entry is worth looking into if you are three or more adults travelling together.

We did go away...

...on the Arriva 280 out of Oxford...stopped for an impromptu picnic at Thame and then carried on to Aylesbury, stopping at Wheatley on the way back. It was last Saturday and we had a fantastic time.

Thame's a lovely little town with lots of quaint mom-and-pop shops that are ever so exclusive and pricey. I was thinking about how they manage to sustain their business at those prices, but it's a town that looks like it has a lot of old money. Oxford, while being such an old historical city has very few exclusive small shops and an abundance of chain high-street stores - you see one, you've seen them all. Oxford's large floating student population could have to do with it.

So, yes, we did go away and come back and spend the rest of the weekend enjoying a huge, lazy Easter lunch, refreshing the garden (merci beaucoup R) and playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto. This is the life.

"Are you going away for the weekend then?"

.... a question I have been asked and have asked several times to several people over the last couple of weeks. It's a very British or even, I daresay, a very English thing.

We do get our weekends here and lots of long ones as well through the spring and the summer starting with the Easter one this weekend. Last Saturday, we met an old friend of dot's, from his IIT days, who is keen to do an MBA and for whom the toss up is between doing it in Europe and doing it in the USA. The fact that we 'got our weekends' away from work was a huge deal to the couple and something we take a little for granted. Dot knows friends in North America who haven't been able to take a weekend off in as long as three months and it's pretty much the same story back home in India. The unfortunate bit is, if you don't do it, someone else will, and that makes people go on and on and on without taking a break. As far as I understand, the quantity of time spent doing a task can never be the sole measure of productivity. But like I said before, it's a vicious cycle with no break in sight.

I do enjoy the weekend, whether it means doing absolutely nothing and lolling about on the pullout sofabed (we've only just discovered that it can actually be pulled out) watching re-runs of Hope and Faith and 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter on ABC (dot's favourite type of weekend - yes, a lot of American TV never killed anybody) or going shopping (my favourite type of weekend - and whoever said too much shopping killed anybody?!) or taking a bus ride to explore a new place (our favourite type of weekend). It gives us time to relax and recharge. Also, there are always a million things to catch up on in the 'having a life' department that we keep putting off and the weekends force us to tick items off that list. So whether we "go away" or not, I am very grateful for the gift of the weekend.

Besides, last Saturday was a gorgeous Oxford spring day and I do think that tipped the scales more than a little in favour of Europe and may be even Oxford's own Said Business School! Okay, so you haven't heard of it - but who knows when that might all change?!

If my dark blogging frequency past is anything to go by, I might not get back to this for a while. If I don't see you before Sunday, Happy Easter to you and yours.