aml1982

I received a response from Lilian Greenwood's office this morning. They were asking for my address when I move back because they can only directly help constituents. Let them know that I don't have one yet, wasn't asking for help on my case alone, and was just trying to raise general awareness of the problem in the hope that it might get escalated.

LP9

In those cases if you have family in that constituency use their address temporarily.

Brit3964

Signed and shared via Facebook. From a former stuck in the FBI namecheck for 2 years+ ex-pat I know how frustrating dealing with officialdom is. This side of the Atlantic or the other, it doesn't matter. My UK passport is good till March next year. Hopefully when I come to renew, this problem will be taken care of (and pigs might fly!).

aml1982

I don't unfortunately. I have a lot of friends in Notts, but having checked Ms Greenwood's constituency boundary, none of them live in her area. So I am hoping I will hear back from Chris Leslie, Graham Allen or Kenneth Clarke some time soon!

aml1982

Well, by that time all production should have returned to the UK, so I would imagine the biggest delay you will face will be the international post.

lyonsden1193

Signed

Sheepdip

I'm doing the same thing in August when I go back for the first Brighton home game

p.s. - posted on Facebook too.

LP9

38 Degress Campaign page http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forum...ssport-delays-

Please go there and add 3 votes to it if possible. Thanks.

gbr2usa

I don't think they are prioritising by travel date..........I had my original date of June 25th........it's the 23rd and I a mbeing told at LEAST another 10 weeks..................

gbr2usa

Done!

aml1982

I'm not necessarily talking travel date, I am talking travel reason, i.e someone who uses their passport for business, or someone who is making an international move, should take priority over someone who needs a passport for vacation if both applications are submitted at the same time.

Sally Redux

gbr2usa

At this point, I don't think they are looking at anything...............I think all of us would just probably be told "change your travel plans" regardless of the situation..............it is a very sad state of affairs. I contacted the Passport and Identity Office in the UK.................another complaint, but hopefully if we can rattle some cages, some sort of investigation will take place. I have been looking at a lot of stuff regarding this...........I was under the assumption that the applications were being processed in the UK, but apparently they are not.............they are still being processed here...........it is all very misleading, confusing and of course totally frustrating. I saw a news report from DC were a lady and her family actually went to the Embassy and did come away with their passports..............lucky for them....but low and behold, they Embassy when questioned about the delay, needless to say had no comment.............typical!!!!!!!

LP9

Be nice if we could all get to Washington. Be nice if we had that option, but we dont since we were led to believe it would be done in a short timeframe, and now they have our passports, birth certificates and such.

Thanks for all the help everyone, please keep it coming!!!! We are having an impact. I've made a number of important phone calls today and things are moving.

Steve_

I've always thought the UK is an excessively passport-centric country, I always remember seeing stupid travel programmes on British TV looking down their noses at Americans because so few of them had passports. Well the reality is that Americans don't need passports because they can travel (or could at any rate) anywhere in North America without them. You can still visit Mexico and get back into the US using a SENTRI card or an EDL (I think, by land at least). And also visit Canada using NEXUS, EDL - and you only need those to get back into the US, Canada is okay with a driver's licence. You can also use your US LPR card, if you happen to have one, even Canada will accept it.

Also in the US there is the option of a passport card - why is there not a UK equivalent, it would be much more useful when visiting places where they don't stamp your passport (which is pretty much the whole of the EU and Switzerland at least). You could use ID cards but it cost jazillions and has now been scrapped. A lot of EU states have various types of ID that are acceptable (if they're even checked, because you know, they actually adopted Schengen).

One of the more bizarre experiences I had with this was in the 1980s, you had to have a passport under the Prevention of Terrorism Act to visit Northern Ireland (at least this was the impression given to me by customs) but you didn't need one to visit ROI. Huh?

Also because the UK never fully adopted Schengen (thank you Thatcher) in many cases you only need a passport to get back into the UK.

So now, because you need to have a passport to a far greater degree than in pretty much any other developed country, as soon as there are cutbacks, everyone goes bonkers.

Another classic example of insular British "we know best" thinking, imo.