simon linde

[Poetic Outlaws @OutlawsPoetic]

"All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions."

-- W.B. Yeats

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@macman9999 you think they'd have said

[simon linde @s_linde1]

enjoying the snooker. but how old is mark williams? #snookerworldchampionship

[Jack Kenmare @jackkenmare_]

Still don’t know how Aldershot manager Mark Molesley kept a straight face in this. An all-timer

[fredesque @FredTaming]

“Leave the peach cobbler in the kitchen alone,” mother would say, going upstairs.

But I couldn’t help myself. I sneaked in and watched him. Watched him make his stupid little peach shoes, taunting.

“Nobody’s going to wear those,” I’d say. “They’re stupid.”

But on he worked.

[Mark Kieran - Democracy Activist @MarkKieranUK]

WARNING: THREAD CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE

🧵 What a morally vacuous, embarrassingly incompetent monster Suella Braverman is.

Having worked at the Home Office deciding asylum applications, I know the 1951 Refugee Convention's terms are far clearer than her pernicious propaganda would suggest.

She says many asylum seekers base their claims on “feeling” discriminated against in their home countries. But the scope of the Convention is limited to people who believe they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” for some specific reasons. Those reasons are race, nationality, religion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Mere feelings of discrimination would not meet that rigorous test, and any application made on those grounds would (rightly) be fast-tracked for refusal.

She suggests that persecution, by definition, must involve a threat to life. Not true. Persecution often DOES involve a threat to life, but other things can qualify as persecution (arbitrary detention, unjustified confiscation of assets, withdrawal of state protection from crime). Braverman knows this, but the boneheads whose votes she is soliciting do not, so hey, why not spin the line?

In my time at the Home Office, I refused many asylum applications which, on the evidence presented, clearly did not meet the test of a well-founded fear of persecution on Convention grounds. The majority of those applications were made by people (mostly young men) who appeared to be seeking better economic futures for themselves and their families. That's completely understandable, and I never blamed them for trying, but it's not grounds for asylum, so neither did I feel any guilt in refusing them…that's not the purpose of the asylum system.

But I did grant asylum to a number of people who had clearly faced unimaginable horror in their own countries before escaping to the UK, where they felt safe and where they believed they would be able to live the rest of their lives in peace.

There was the Sikh activist who had a kettle of boiling water poured over him during a police interrogation. There was the woman from a minority Muslim sect who, when her husband died, and her neighbours started throwing stones through her windows at night, sought the protection of the local police only to be publicly ridiculed and then gang-raped by six officers in front of her three young children. There were the young Tamil men forced to inhale the fumes of burnt chilli powder by Sri Lankan police. Others hung upside-down and beaten for days until they confessed to crimes they played no part in. And many, many more with genuine, provable experiences just as gruesome.

Nearly thirty years on, I can still recall the faces of those people as they recounted their experiences to me during interviews and the tears in the eyes of the interpreters as they translated words no one should ever have to hear.

Since my days in the Home Office, I can’t recall a single Home Secretary who hasn’t had to wrestle one way or another with the asylum system. But neither can I recall one who has approached the task with as little humanity in their heart as Braverman. Truly, she is in a league of her own.

I simply don’t believe the majority of people in this country support the cruel policies that Braverman embraces so enthusiastically. As I listen to her today, my sincerest hope is that when Open Britain and our partners finally deliver a functional democracy in this country, monsters like her will never again be able to game their way into high office and abuse the power they find there.

This is our fight.

If you've read this far, please consider giving this a retweet and following me, @OpenBritainHQ and @StopTheRot_UK so you can be part of this positive change. Thank you.

[simon linde @s_linde1]

#youngfathers tearing it up, so good

[simon linde @s_linde1]

zig's been in the pills again

[simon linde @s_linde1]

rocky III charity boxing/ wrestling match. rocky vs thunderlips.

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@AJamesMcCarthy how rude

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@AJamesMcCarthy that's good, but have you seen the moon outside my window?

[Paul Eggleston @pauleggleston]

For the millionth time I SAID WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@RichardS7370 i was 15 and this year was an awakening 🤯today, i'm going with
1. doolittle
2. bizarro
3. playing with fire
4. mind bomb
5. paul's boutique
...so many other great records though which feels criminal to leave out... technique, 3ft high, disintegration, automatic #5albums89

[simon linde @s_linde1]

https://t.co/jHVlJ7mrEM
this is the link for the song in full. much better 🙂 please give it a listen ❤

[simon linde @s_linde1]

of course i'm biased because i'm her dad... but stop what you're doing and listen to this, which she wrote recently. so good ❤

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@gal_dms ah well i think you'll boss it ❤

[simon linde @s_linde1]

when you've been promised a sausage if you pose for a photo

[A. Bonkdóttir, Ar.T @TheBonkQueen]

RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris but I'm different. and better. maybe even better than the gods

[simon linde @s_linde1]

ziggy and i #bonobo (sort of) #glastonbury loving it

[simon linde @s_linde1]

@ASYE_SW still fuck off 🤣