The challenge of writing a blog about real life events when once a week it is printed as a column in a newspaper is quite significant. The same is true in terms of the issues that appear on social media. This piece was written on Friday Morning and then published today by which time the world of politics, social media and real life events has potentially changed dramatically. The theme for todays piece in one sense is as old as mankind itself and certainly not unknown in our modern society. Its source is a posting on facebook late last week by a good friend of mine who helps to run a number of charitable groups in Brighton and Hove. However the heart of the story is much broader in local terms than our city and indeed in one sense is very much an International story. On Thursday my friend Dave was at Pool Valley Coach Station saying goodbye to a friend of his who I will call Eddie. Dave had known Eddie for several years whilst he has been living here, although by now he is due to be in in Zimbabwe where he was born. The time they have known one another have been a very difficult time for both men as for nearly a decade they have been involved in disputes and discussions with the UK Immigration service trying to get an agreement for Eddie to have a residency status that would allow him to leave and return to the UK. I am not claiming to known the full facts and I find the nature of our immigration processes very hard to understand and write about. However Dave has another friend who I know quite well, I will call her Betty. Betty was a nurse in the NHS for many years having arrived in the UK from Africa, she has children who were born here. However as the immigration rules changed Betty was then denied the opportunity to work in the UK and so for a number of years she volunteered with a range of charities as she waited for her status in the UK to be agreed by the Immigration service, or for her to be deported. During that time her Mother died and she was faced with a dilemma. If she returned home to grieve with her relatives, she would be prevented from returning to the UK. However her children including one child with particular needs would be left either without their Mother or else she would be forced to relocate them knowing that at least one of her children would suffer significantly as a result. After many failed attempts to be given the right to remain permanently, her case was given the green light. Now Betty and Eddie are entitled to do what most of us can do, to travel and return to whichever nation we can afford to visit, to work and earn a living and to make the right decisions for our children, taking into account various aspects of their needs. Both Eddie and Betty are people who have made a huge contribution to our city, and both have lived here for many years whilst our Immigration system has made its mind up about their cases. One could easily argue that a much swifter decision for both Eddie and Betty would have been more dignified, alternatively perhaps a very quick decision might have got it wrong for both of them, so it is hard to judge.

When we read of how many civil servants have been recruited to get us out of Brexit and then that the promised assessments for how society will be impacted by our departure was never even written, one begins to wonder how our government operates. I have a number of friends who have or who still work in the peripheries of the civil service. One worked in education and spent many months with colleagues working on an educational resource for Schools in the period prior to the 2010 election. As soon as the coalition came to power, the new Minister ordered the resources which by that time had been printed, DVDs had been produced etc to be placed in a skip. All those person years worth of work and the cost of the printing etc was wasted by a snap decision that did not even take the time to assess if the resource was worth keeping. The problems faced by Eddie and Betty may have been caused by any number of failures, but society as a whole is paying a huge price for these. A lower price perhaps than Eddie and Betty paid personally, but still a price we cannot afford if we wish to be seen as a credible nation.