juliet

I haven't engaged with it at all, I don't agree that it's the problem. We probably can afford to let more people in, certainly in cash terms we can afford to, as long as we accept that if they are a net cost then that's money we can't then spend on something else.

When I referred to 'expensive' I was talking about the process of determining applications - expensive as in a waste of money if we ignore the outcome, which I rather thought at the time was what you were advocating, though you have since clarified that you weren't.

I'd just say that asylum and immigration are different systems, and if we want to change the immigration system, we should do so in an honest manner, not by letting people through the asylum system whose claims turn out not to be satisfactorily founded.

As for the immigration issue, I'd happily have a more liberal immigration regime with some of these countries, especially the ones with a history of, ahem, engagement with the British state.

At the same time, we are a wealthy and crowded island, a free-for-all would cause an influx. In terms of volume, I'd freely swap the more liberal policy globally for having a less liberal one than now for much of continental Europe.

Unfortunately, these are two things we can't do, because we've given our democratic control of both of them away, and is one of the reasons I don't think we benefit from membership of the European Union (I often discover that this makes me right wing too, right wing like Tony Benn, of course).

As for negative media stereotypes, I'm afraid I don't have time to sort out asylum seekers, I'm too busy trying to work out how to stop the Tories winning every local election round here by turning them into a referendum on Travellers.