I don’t want this blog to become monopolized by the “Iraqi translators” story, but if it does, it’s not a huge price to pay. While I was running and then recovering from the Montenegro Adventure Race (of which more later), a number of things have happened.
The venue for tomorrow’s meeting has been changed. It will still take place tomorrow (Tuesday 9th October) at the same time (7-9pm) with the same speakers in a changed venue very close to the original one: the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House. The long-suffering and highly efficient Mette Kahlin will be standing outside the door of the old venue (Committee Room 14 in Parliament) pointing the way to the new venue. To get there, walk to Parliament and find the very ugly building at the corner of Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment, facing Big Ben.
The meeting is still going ahead in order to keep the pressure up on the government. Today, Gordon Brown announced acknowledged the existence of these Iraqi staff (in his words, he “paid tribute” to them - ho ho ho) and announced a new more policy:
Existing staff who have been employed by us for more than twelve months and have completed their work will be able to apply for a package of financial payments to aid resettlement in Iraq or elsewhere in the region, or - in agreed circumstances - for admission to the UK. And professional staff — including interpreters and translators — with a similar length of service who have left our employ since the beginning of 2005 will also be able to apply for assistance.
Apparently more details will follow later this week, but the bloggers involved in this campaign will keep up the pressure to ensure that a) the government follows up on this announcement, and b) that the “agreed circumstances” that Brown mentioned are broad enough to have an impact on the lives of Iraq employees of the government. Frankly the terms outlined above leave a nice back door for the government, since it’s safe to assume that all locally employed staff will have contracts that are less than 12 months. Let us join together in holding Mr Brown’s feet to the fire on this one.
Oh, and Dan Hardie is not a doctor.