At Last, Someone Thinks of the Children

In an effort to compensate for recent derelictions, the Department of Unfitness for Purpose has come up with a real tabloid-pleaser. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate, which extends such compassion to a certain kind of African, "is planning to remove failed asylum seeking children who have no family in Britain", starting with five hundred Vietnamese. Apparently the failures' best interests will be "a primary consideration", but sufficient flexibility will be permitted that other primary considerations will be permitted to take primacy: "There are likely to be occasions when IND takes a decision to remove ... which is not in accordance with the best interests of the child but is necessary for the immigration control." The failures will be permitted "non-legal representation", but the Department of Unfitness for Purpose will take upon itself the responsibility for the final decision, there will be no right of appeal and they could be back in Vietnam, Angola or enjoying the privilege of military service in the Democratic Republic of the Congo within the space of a week.

A team has been established to look at "problems", presumably of the public-relations variety, which surround the "provision of support" to children who have had the temerity to slip into Britain unaccompanied. As everyone knows, Britain's levels of sex, violence and swearing render it at least a Certificate 15 destination, and the UASC (the Home Office acronym for the problem at hand) would clearly be better off under proper supervision in their countries of origin. A forcible repatriation scheme to Albania "envisaged that children would be met on arrival at Tirana airport by border police and an NGO coordinator, and given a welcome pack, including basic toiletries", which we must only hope would have been provided at the expense of Albanian, not British, taxpayers.