So finally "only" three months after I applied for my new visa under their premium same day service for £950 (almost $2,000 for you in the states), the UK Border Agency admitted to my MP's office that they had made a decision on my application and would contact me with the result in due course.

This comes after they told us the day I applied that everything was in order and I should just go have a cup of coffee while they glued it into my US Passport. 15 minutes later everything changed as they admitted they had "misplaced" my file and couldn't do anythign without it. Of course the concept of looking for it never occured to them until weeks later when my MP's office demanded something be done about locating the file. Then it became a major case of CYA and try to pretend it wasn't anything to do with them, that they needed to make further inquiries to assure themselves that Alan & I were genuinely married, etc.

Do you miss the old Soviet State? Pine no more, welcome to socialist Britain.