As I write this, southern England has had two periods of snow already, with more forecast in the next few days. Scotland and northern England have had much more snow. And it's not even Christmas yet!
We had some snow in Basingstoke last weekend - Saturday morning to be precise. It was falling down hard but stopped in the afternoon. The accumulation must be about 6 inches - what an average Bostonian calls a "dusting". There was some snow Monday night, maybe an inch of snow. It has been cold, a little less than 0C, but it was not that bad. The snow and freezing temperatures have caused much misery, as I describe below.
Flights from all the airports, including the major one, Heathrow, have been cancelled or delayed since Saturday. As you see in the TV, thousands of passengers have been camping out in the airport, in the hopes of getting to some place before Christmas. We had a holiday party at my work on Friday. Few of my colleagues flew from US to attend it and were supposed to fly back over the weekend, but haven't. Not to be left behind, train travel has been affected too. My daily commute to London has become a pain, with frequency of trains reduced to half, trains getting overcrowded (sometimes there is not even a place to stand) and journeys taking longer stopping at all the stations in between. Looks like they are gritting the main roads, but they are hardly in drivable condition. All this for few inches of snow!
The reason for the disruption is the country is not prepared to handle the snow. The reason for being unprepared is that they are not used to getting snow. Actually they have been getting snow for the past three years, but did not get any for about ten years before that. So you can say they have been warned for three years. Being prepared costs money in terms of materials, equipment, storage and labour, but the cost of all this havoc is much much higher. Hope they learn the lesson and be prepared next year. One can always hope!
As you may expect, I have been eagerly checking the weather in Boston. At last my prayers have been answered (I was only wishing for a white Christmas for Boston) and the north east is finally getting some snow. When we moved out of Boston, we thought we were getting away from all the cold and snow, but we have been cheated. The next time we move, we should find a place where people can handle the white stuff a little better.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
UK Immigration "Reform"
A new government came to power in UK in May 2010 (a couple of weeks before we moved to UK), with a promise to overhaul the immigration system in UK. They have done exactly that with their announcement 10 days ago, dropping a bombshell that Tier 1 (General) visa category will be closing down from April 2011.
To provide some background, there are two options available for professionals from outside EU who wish to work in UK (EU citizens are free to live and work in UK without a visa).
Both these visas are point based systems, giving points based on age, education, previous earnings, English language proficiency and availability of funds. They are both a little better than US's H1B visa, since spouses of the visa holders are allowed to work. But, as you can see, the Tier 1 is more attractive - you can come to UK and look for a job, are free to work for anyone, change jobs without the need to tell the government. It is this visa category whose life has been endangered with the most recent announcement.
I have a vested interest in following Tier 1 since we used it to come to UK. Though my wife and I had our jobs transferred from the US, we had already made a decision to move out, applied for the visa and then got offers to work in UK. Even if we did not get offers, we would have moved and then looked for jobs here. The announcement does not affect us, since it is closed only for new applications. If we choose to, we can extend our three year visa by another two years, then apply for "Indefinite Leave to Remain" - roughly similar to US's Green Card and apply for UK citizenship after a year. That path is still open to us (at least as of yet).
The reason for government's fight against immigration? It is politics, stupid. The voting public tend to view immigration as bad when the economy is going south. The delicious irony is that you need immigration when the economy is bad. In the last six months we have been busy injecting money into the system - we bought a car, bought a house, furnished it fully, been sending our son to a nursery, in addition to all our day-to-day expenses. Also, everyone agrees there is a shortage of skilled labor and reducing immigration severely restricts companies' ability to crawl out of recession. How do you convince people that having more qualified professionals living in the country is better for everyone? You can't. So you go with their sentiments and promise to cut down on immigration, instead of correcting it. That's exactly what this government has been doing.
The reason for killing Tier 1? Supposedly 30% of people on Tier 1 are abusing their visas and are doing low skilled jobs, ergo kill the visa. Even if you agree with the number, this logic is as thoughtful as saying, "gee there are all these people cheating on taxes, let's get rid of taxes altogether". Whenever there is a system, there are people who will abuse it. All you need is safeguards against the abuse. And killing Tier 1 achieves as much as putting band aid on a breaking dam. As Gideon Rachman of Finacial Times notes, the net immigration is going to be untouched with this. All you have achieved is to get a desi to rant in his blog.
To provide some background, there are two options available for professionals from outside EU who wish to work in UK (EU citizens are free to live and work in UK without a visa).
- Tier 2 (General) is roughly similar to US's H1B visa - you need to be a qualified professional and have a job offer from a company facing labor shortage.
- Tier 1 (General) is for highly skilled immigrants, places higher requirements, but you don't need a job offer to apply for the visa.
Both these visas are point based systems, giving points based on age, education, previous earnings, English language proficiency and availability of funds. They are both a little better than US's H1B visa, since spouses of the visa holders are allowed to work. But, as you can see, the Tier 1 is more attractive - you can come to UK and look for a job, are free to work for anyone, change jobs without the need to tell the government. It is this visa category whose life has been endangered with the most recent announcement.
I have a vested interest in following Tier 1 since we used it to come to UK. Though my wife and I had our jobs transferred from the US, we had already made a decision to move out, applied for the visa and then got offers to work in UK. Even if we did not get offers, we would have moved and then looked for jobs here. The announcement does not affect us, since it is closed only for new applications. If we choose to, we can extend our three year visa by another two years, then apply for "Indefinite Leave to Remain" - roughly similar to US's Green Card and apply for UK citizenship after a year. That path is still open to us (at least as of yet).
The reason for government's fight against immigration? It is politics, stupid. The voting public tend to view immigration as bad when the economy is going south. The delicious irony is that you need immigration when the economy is bad. In the last six months we have been busy injecting money into the system - we bought a car, bought a house, furnished it fully, been sending our son to a nursery, in addition to all our day-to-day expenses. Also, everyone agrees there is a shortage of skilled labor and reducing immigration severely restricts companies' ability to crawl out of recession. How do you convince people that having more qualified professionals living in the country is better for everyone? You can't. So you go with their sentiments and promise to cut down on immigration, instead of correcting it. That's exactly what this government has been doing.
The reason for killing Tier 1? Supposedly 30% of people on Tier 1 are abusing their visas and are doing low skilled jobs, ergo kill the visa. Even if you agree with the number, this logic is as thoughtful as saying, "gee there are all these people cheating on taxes, let's get rid of taxes altogether". Whenever there is a system, there are people who will abuse it. All you need is safeguards against the abuse. And killing Tier 1 achieves as much as putting band aid on a breaking dam. As Gideon Rachman of Finacial Times notes, the net immigration is going to be untouched with this. All you have achieved is to get a desi to rant in his blog.
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