On The Winning Team

It’s nice to have played a small part in an important victory.

Sadly I’m not talking about football because, though I screamed myself hoarse after Newcastle United’s equaliser in the dying minutes of this afternoon’s derby match, no amount of shouting could bring a second goal and glory.

And I didn’t even have time to voice my complaints about the government’s proposal to dock benefits from young people who leave their unpaid work experience, before the absurd plan was cancelled, thanks to some very vocal opposition from the very businesses that were supposed to implement it.

But I could claim a tiny amount of credit for a statement quietly released this week by the Home Office. Theresa May has evidently been listening to the chorus of outrage about the problems that artists, writers and musicians face in getting into our country.

I wrote with some passion about this issue back in August last year, astonished that our immigration authorities were treating international artists like criminals, even refusing them visas to visit their own exhibitions or book signings. I recounted the story of the Argentinian tango dancers, Ismael Ludman and Maria Mondino, who had been held for hours like illegal immigrants at Glasgow airport when they arrived for a tour of small venues in Scotland, before being ignominiously deported. This policy had made our country a mockery throughout the arts world and was turning Britain into a cultural ghetto. Some renowned performers, like the Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov, had even boycotted the UK, likening our system to the bad days of Soviet oppression.

My comments received hundreds of responses – almost as many as my equally vitriolic comments about the television programme Geordie Shore – and later the issue was picked up by the New York Times. Although this latter publication doubtless caused the Home Office considerably more embarrassment than my own paltry efforts, I’d like to share with you an email I received on Wednesday from the Earl of Clancarty, who’s been leading the campaign in the House of Lords.

He wrote: “We have scored a rather significant victory in the artists visa issue…There is to be a new scheme called ‘permitted paid engagements’ starting on April 6th which will be outside the points-based system. It will include academics, barristers, artists, poets, writers, musicians, performers and sportspeople who wish to visit from non-EU countries. They will now be able to stay for up to a month and can be paid fees, e.g. for a book tour. Application is made at the port of entry and is effectively free. Thanks again for the article you did last year which was a great help.”

I’d really like to thank those readers who responded to my appeal to lobby their local MPs over the issue. It seems we have a government that’s prepared to listen if we shout loudly enough (except on the NHS, of course – I doubt Cameron would back down if the entire country walked along Downing Street with megaphones pointed at his window).

Meanwhile my latest campaign is gaining momentum. Since my diatribe against the Life In The UK Test, which all permanent immigrants to this country now have to take, scores of people have emailed or tweeted me support. Even someone with a first class history degree from our finest university said he couldn’t answer the questions.

My American wife took the test last week and I’m proud to report that, after a nightmare of nocturnal revision that was worse than cramming for my A Levels, she emerged with a pass. Only two out of twenty candidates succeeded, which is about the national average, apparently.

She did fail one question, though. She was utterly flummoxed by a phrase that hadn’t appeared in any of the test questions: “refuse collection”.

Poor love – it’s taken her five years to learn to use “rubbish” and “waste” instead of “trash” and “garbage”. I told her that I have never knowingly used the phrase “refuse collection” and probably never will. How long before the government throws this rubbish test into the bin?

Exam Time

Poor Jo. Every night for the past fortnight she’s been tucked into a corner of the sofa with her face buried in a terminally dull book called “Life in the United Kingdom”. As if living here through a fifth freezing winter weren’t bad enough, she now has to study like a fifteen-year-old and prepare to answer completely pointless questions like ”In the 2001 General Election, how many first-time voters used their vote?” For this week my wife takes her citizenship test.

Despite the fact that she’s married to me, has lived here for half a decade, has a child who is beginning to speak with a Geordie accent, and is paying our Exchequer three times the average amount of UK income tax, she must overcome this hurdle to be allowed to stay here for good.

The test, which every prospective immigrant has to take, is purportedly about life in our country. That would be totally reasonable, of course, if it actually were. I’d have no complaint if there were questions of real relevance: like how to pay your TV licence or your ex-wife, or who has the right of way on a roundabout, or does Sainsbury or Tesco has the cheapest hummus, or who should be the next England football manager. Sadly none of these are in the book. Instead it’s an old-fashioned history exam torture, with questions about 16th century Huguenots, the Irish potato famine, and whether Indonesia is a member of the Commonwealth: in short, it’s mostly a collection of dull, dry facts with little bearing on living in the UK today. I don’t know which government official dreamed this up: clearly someone who doesn’t have a life at all.

At least back at school, history lessons gave you a flavour of the past, the human stories and drama behind the facts. This book is all percentages and dates, some with vaguely racist undertones: “How many refugees from South East Asia have been allowed to settle here since 1979?”; “In which year were centres set up in the West Indies to recruit bus drivers for the UK?”; and “In which year did married women get the right to divorce their husband?”

“Now that’s a good one”, said Jo. “Much more of this and I’ll be exercising my historic right”.

There are sample tests you can try out on the internet. I had a go with some of my friends, including one with a first class history degree. We all failed. My Mum, who this week passed her 91st birthday and who still has an inquiring brain that’s as quick as lighting, did pretty well but missed several trick questions like “how many Bank Holidays are there every year?” Has it made her less of a British citizen not to know that there are only four official bank holidays, and the rest are called public holidays? Not a bit of it. Despite having worked through the book myself in an effort to be supportive, I tried it again last night – and still failed.

If the test itself is hard, arrangements to take it are even more complicated. You have to book the appointment online but the test centre in Newcastle was so overbooked that there wasn’t a single date available on any day in the future. The system only takes bookings six weeks in advance and every slot was full.

I rang the “helpline” to complain and a woman said coldly “You’ll have to find another centre”.

“But Middlesbrough and Carlisle are hours from where we live – are you going to pay our petrol costs?”

“I can’t help”, came the icy reply. “But you’re supposed to be a helpline”, I replied. “You’ll have to find another centre”, she said with arrogant finality.

“I’ve thought up a great new question for your test”, I said tetchily: “How far does the average person have to travel to take the ill-conceived, chauvinistic, anachronistic Life in the UK exam?” Not surprisingly, she didn’t know the answer.

Why Is Britain Treating Artists Like Criminals?

A few months ago two young Argentinian tango dancers, Ismael Ludman and Maria Mondino, had a bad experience at Glasgow Airport. Now what I don’t know about tango would fill several libraries, but I’m told these folk are big in the dance world.

Argentinian tango isn’t like the flouncy stuff you see on Dancing With the Stars. It’s exotic and erotic, sinuous and sexy. With their upper bodies welded together, the dancers intertwine, their legs making graceful arcs around them. It’s fascinating and beautiful, and Ludman and Mondino are two of the best exponents. They travel the globe giving workshops and they’re quite well-known in Scotland, apparently, which is why they were invited to tour a few village halls and other small venues.

Sadly, the UK Border Agency had other ideas. The couple were held at the airport, refused entry and sent home. Just two casualties of a new immigration system that is making a mockery of Britain’s claim to be a magnet for international culture.

I only know about this because I was in Kirk Yetholm on Saturday night, where a public meeting, chaired by my daughter, was held to highlight the problem. There were artists, writers, musicians, gallery-owners and film-makers, even a true-blue-blooded member of the House of Lords, and they were all concerned about a system that is threatening to turn Britain into a cultural ghetto.

In 2008, our government introduced a new points-based visa system for non-EEC immigrants. It’s similar to the one that works successfully in Australia, except that in Australia there’s a special category that allows short-term visits by artists, writers and performers. Australians think it’s important that their country’s cultural diet is enriched by the work of significant international artists. Yet, despite Britain’s claims to be at the heart of cultural exchange, when they brought in our new immigration law, the government simply forgot about the arts.

Big festivals, like the Edinburgh International Festival, are given special status, but smaller events, like a book-signing by an award-winning American writer at your local Waterstones, or an appearance by a international director at a film festival in Hawick, requires a “licensed sponsor”. No sponsor, no entry, and the cost of each licence and visa runs to hundreds of pounds.

Sometimes the artist would have to travel hundreds of miles to get a biometric test – a ludicrous expense if you’re just performing for one night at a village hall where a few people like to tango.

The situation is now absurd: an international writer or a photographer on a tourist visa faces deportation if they so much as open a notebook or take a single snap; an established artist can’t even come to visit his own exhibition of paintings.

Musicians and poets from Africa, artists from Russia and China, and now Argentinian tango dancers, have fallen foul of the rules, and the world’s greatest living pianist, Grigory Sokolov, has simply deleted the UK from his touring itinerary. These are people of genius, whom we idolize for their extraordinary creative talent, and then we let the staff of the UK Border Agency treat them like illegal immigrants. They aren’t stealing employment from us, we invite them to our shores to enthrall us with their art.

According to the meeting in Yetholm, the government simply needs to create an “artists and entertainers visitor” route to solve the problem, and yet, despite a crescendo of complaints from every part of Britain’s cultural establishment, Theresa May’s Home Office remains oblivious and Jeremy Hunt’s Culture department is doing nothing to help.

The Argentinian tango dancers have got their revenge, however. There’s a magical YouTube video of them performing around their suitcases in the airport, a tribute to our pointless bureaucracy and the jobsworth mentality of the UKBA. Do take a look, before you write to your local MP.