Discussion

Main Board| Accommodation Wanted| Accommodation Offered
Start a new discussion on this board

Let your next career move come to you.

my polling station story

Everyone's got one.

 

No dogs at mine.

 

I was there at around 8.30am and there were just two of us.  There were two people doing the registration pencil-and-ruler dance. I stood for 10 minutes while waiting for them to resolve a problem with the chap in front of me, who I know. This is a tiny polling station in a small village.  The chap in front of me is a retired Gurkha. The gentlest, most polite, toughest chap I know. 

Usual business, he's a Nepali national who has given service in the UK for a British regiment for the entirety of his career and is now retired and resident in Britain and awaiting Citizenship.  He was using his HM Armed Forces Veteran Card as photo ID and the polling officer was being difficult about it saying it was not adequate and where was his passport or driving licence. She said, about three times "yes but dont you have a passport or driving licence like normal people" .   Normal people? NORMAL?  Jesus. He smiled and was embarrassed. I interrupted and said she needed to apologise as that was not an acceptable expression. She said sorry - to her credit - and that she meant "like most people are using today".  He said that was the issue. He was not able to do what "most people " were doing.

He then very calmly said he did not have a licence to drive and had never learned and didn't have the money for a car anyway. Then he sighed and said the following in a very dignified way, which he must have learned off by heart as it is the precise wording of the guidance on the Home Office website as it happens (save for the bit in brackets):

Gurkhas seeking British citizenship may do so either by transferring to the wider Army after five years’ Service (which I did not do as I remained loyal to my Brigade), or after discharge by initially applying for settlement and then naturalisation. Once they have indefinite leave to remain, they can apply for Citizenship immediately if they meet the other main requirements. 

Then he said

After I retired I obtained indefinite leave to remain and I have applied for Citizenship but have not received my passport yet and have not received any correspondence from the Passport Office about this.  I have a right to vote as members of the British Army, including now members of the Ghurka Brigade, can register to vote which I have done which is why I have a polling card.  The eligibility runs for 5 years from application and I retired 2 years ago.  In the meantime I have to use my Armed Forces ID which was developed for precisely this purpose. 

 

They then accepted his ID.

Awful.

Ignorant and fussy. 

Appalling that he had to trot this out and I infer from how he dealt with it that he had experienced the same treatment a number of times.  

It's a piggin disgrace that we treat Gurkha brigade servicemen like this. 

 

 

 

 

It’s not just Gurkhas. The point is that jobsworths haven’t been briefed properly. Computer says no. Beyond demeaning. Other countries riot, the Brits tug their forelock and say oooh isn’t the King regal? 

I think the legislation doesn't allow them to accept the armed forces ID wasn't big johnny mercer kicking off about that?

agree re normal people get fvvvvcked village peasants (no offence)

he had a Gurkha brigade lapel badge, nothing else to indicate (other than he is of course identifiably Nepali but you'd have to be a bit switched on to the issue to see him and think ah right he's a Gurkha.  The lapel badge is a pair of crossed Kukris. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking. 

they broke the law.  the list of acceptable forms of photo id does not include the veterans id card. the veterans id card came out after the list was put together.  having said that the secretary of state has the power to amend the list. but clearly didn't. 

he should've just whipped out his Kukri and taught her a lesson in manners.

Ghurkas have always been treated badly in Britain.  They are the bravest men on the planet and are willingly fight for Britain and the sacrifices they've made for this country just can't be repaid.

Have you seen the tests they go through just to get in to the unit?  And how crushing it is to them when they fail?

When any old British eejit can just go to a website, signup, pass the medical and they're in.

It’s in need no doubt but we are travelling in the  opposite direction. Total disregard of the honourable dedication to duty by others - because forrin innit - is becoming entirely fine. Thez immigranz see?

My polling station story is that there was a 4x4 parked, badly (natch), outside my Zone 2 polling station so I immediately switched my local council and London Assembly votes to the Greens. 

Imagine being that much of a khunt that you’d drive the 5 minute walk to your local polling station in a 4x4. 

it's a bank holiday weekend.  you might have been heading to your place in the country/to collect your kids from boarding school for an exeat weekend and stopped off along the way?

 

joanna lumley or not, I feel strongly about the moral obligation we have in respect of people who have given service to the British armed forces. All of them. Gurkhas are a particularly strong example of a whole Brigade and nation on whom we piss as a thank you for their commitment. 

In the mid nineties there was some sort of scheme whereby loads of south sea islanders came over to work in the armed services.

I wonder what became of all of them?

I know anout this because all of a sudden where I lived in hampshire you had all these teams playing impossible sevens rugby in fifteen a side games and hitting the ribs out of you

The thing with playing at being a colonial power (as the UK does, if only a little now) is that you have to look after your people, wherever they are. If you don't it's a) wrong but b) also backfires. 

I had a moment of clarity on this when caught in Lebanon during a conflict flare up in '08. The Americans moved a Navy battle group to the eastern Med and offered any of their citizens that wanted it a free ride out. The French did the same. The Brits? We had a call centre to ring (not making this up) where a polite but utterly clueless person read a line to you off the computer screen in front of them that can be summed up as "don't panic". 

Hadn't realised this knives were called Kukris. We had an  Gurkha tea her who used to his to make (insincere) disciplinary threats in the classroom. Once a kid fell asleep on his desk and thr knife came down onto the desktop to wake him up, chopping off an inch or so his long floppy hair 

We all called it a machete but I can see it should have been called a kukri.

You learn something new all the time eh.

Gurkhas are a particularly strong example of a whole Brigade and nation on whom we piss as a thank you for their commitment. 

I have a different view on this.  There's a reason that the opportunity to serve in Britain is always so massively oversubscribed.  Leaving aside the opportunity to live and work in a first world country, it is a major earner for local Nepalese communities, and in particularly when former soldiers came back with their military pensions.  I read an article that these people often became respected pillars of their respective communities, started businesses, etc etc.  The UK got soldiers sure enough, but as a result indirectly provided massive funding for Nepal - the whole point of not giving them citizenship was to ensure they went home and Nepal had the benefit of these people.  JL's celebrated intervention upset the whole applecart, and has resulted in significant harm to Nepal and the collapse of many communities that were popular with Gurkha retirees.  

Like most immigration, it's great for us and of course on an individual level its better for them, but we are still sucking the best and brightest out of the countries which need them the most.      

Warren the second half of your epistle (epostle?) took an interesting turn but … ummm… nah. That’s too close to ‘we showed these Johnnies how to be civilised and run a country the British way - trains, civil service, tea at 4.30 and no w**king, and that’s payment enough !’ 

I aint buying it. Arrest Lumley. Let’s keep Nepal under servitude and steal their soldiers. I mean, they don’t even grow sugar cane there for Goddam sake!

I went to the polling stations with my two daughters (early teens and year 1) . After the hoo ha around my driving licence and scanning for my address, they said "and is this Mrs Irvine"? Either the most deadpan delivery of a joke, or the codgers round her literally think "young people" for anyone under 50. I corrected them despite knowing my wife couldn't make it to vote, and I had turned up solely on an anyone but Tory ticket so was sad to see the extra vote go to waste. 

Re the allowing this person to vote with the veteran card, what's the legal position if they are validly registered? Is it just an evidential question of whether or not the person was actually that person, or is their vote void simply due to the ID not being valid? 

Good question 

One might read the rules that prescribe what you can use as ID as indicating that voting without the right ID invalidates the vote as you cannot vote without appropriate ID. if someone allows you to vote then that is an unlawful vote. 

if that is not the correct reading then it follows that ID as a discretionary matter for the polling officer.  That has to be wrong because that invites massive corruption as it would be lawful for a polling officer to decide to grant to vote to all sorts of people who could not prove their connection with their polling card. 

I started voting by post during covid and continued that so have no interesting stories about yesterday. The various Ls who can vote did so (with ID). The one handing in his postal vote at the polling station had no problems. The one voting before work time had to queue as everyone was trying to vote before work and the other 2 voted in the day (the beauty of lawyers being able to work from home now I suppose).

 

Went i elwent they had a print out showing pictures of all valid forms of ID.  It included a blue badge parking thing, but not a picture of a driving licence or passport.

On the subject of aldershot, I once copped off with a lady in the local night spot, "Cheeks".  She then told me she had to go back to her husband and his friends.  All paras by the look of them.  I was so scared for the rest of the night I could not get drunk

I used to rather fancy Joanna Lumley in a milfy sort of way. I have a photo of me with her at Madam Tussauds somewhere in the loft. 

And then I went right off her. 

I do however hold her in high esteem for her unflinching support of the Gurkhas. 

Maybe not the polling station story you were inviting Mutters?

Join the discussion

Login Register