Mark Andrews: Shabana's £40,000 asylum giveaway, World Book Day, and how Trump should choose Iran's next leader
I'm thinking of starting up a side-hustle in people trafficking, to take advantage of the Home Secretary's new plan to encourage enterprise.
Shabana Mahmood plans to offer unsuccessful asylum seekers up to £40,000 to return to their country of origin, which seems like a grand idea to me.
Its the equivalent of those 'no-win, no-fee lawyers'. The traffickers will now be able to argue that even if their customers are denied asylum, they will still take home a shed load of money. Gotta be worth a punt, hasn't it?
More to the point, when they return home to the countries they came from, what does the Home Secretary think these people will do with their new-found wealth? Buy-to-let in Kabul, maybe? Unit trusts? Maybe a flutter on the Albanian stock market? My bet is that a fair wedge of it will end up going in loans to friends and family, who will also try their luck with the boat gangs. It sure beats the old Enterprise Allowance Scheme.
I might even go on Dragon's Den.
*****
Meanwhile, the Donald says he should have some say on the selection process for Iran's next leader.
Now this, I would love to see. I suggest he gets a shortlist of 14 candidates together, divides them into two teams, and sets each team a simple task, like letting out studio flats in Manhattan, or haggling with traders on a Turkish bazaar. At the end of each task, the poorest performer gets fired.
I'm not saying this will bring peace, democracy and stability to the Middle East. But it would sure make great television.
*****
Who did you dress up as to mark World Book Day? I did think about going as Ali Khameini, might as well make use of all those old blackout curtains, but then thought that might be a bit risky, didn't want to end up on the end of one of Donald's missiles. In the end I plumped for Gregg Wallace, at least I didn't have to bother with any trousers.
I do wonder, though, whether World Book Day kind of misses the point. I vaguely remember something called 'reading week' at junior school, which didn't involve any fancy dress, just five consecutive afternoons sat in silence with Wide Range Readers. Seemed much easier, and we probably learned a lot more.
But maybe the whole idea is a bit outdated now, and needs a rethink. Perhaps we should have World Phone Day, where youngsters spend the morning staring at their phones for hours on end, followed by an afternoon session on how to write abusive posts on Facebook and Twitter.
At least it would improve the grammar and spelling.
