Well here’s a startling opening paragraph, in an article in the Guardian:

Home Office officials are being rewarded with shopping vouchers for helping to ensure failed asylum seekers lose their attempt to stay in the country, new documents reveal.

It’s hard to get the head around that. Life and death for asylum seekers, and shopping vouchers for the people who reject their asylum applications.

A process shaped not, as we fondly imagine, by the facts of each case, but by petty bribes.

Deluded people from countries ruled by dictators or theocrats or both combined into one SuperBully, thinking the UK is a bastion of liberal thinking and human rights, only to find that its officialdom would rather have a shopping trip than help someone escape a horrible fate.

Official guidance obtained by the Guardian shows that immigration staff have been set a target of winning 70% of tribunal cases in which asylum seekers are appealing against government decisions that they should leave the UK.

These officers are also incentivised by Home Office reward schemes involving gift vouchers, cash bonuses and extra holidays, according to information received under freedom of information laws.

Asked what rewards were given to presenting officers and case owners in the fields of asylum and immigration, the department confirmed high-street vouchers for £25 or £50 were handed out to “recognise positive performance over a short period of time”, including when officers “exceed their casework targets for a month”.

Critics said it was a new low for officers to be rewarded for outcomes that meant asylum seekers being asked to leave the UK for countries where they claim to be facing persecution or war. The incentives undermine confidence in the fairness of the system, they say.

It does, rather.

Fancy an afternoon at Marks & Sparks?

H/t Kausik