If You Don't Like It, Go Back Home

There is in Britain a profit-making business among whose beneficiaries more than a hundred women have gone on hunger strike; at whose establishments self-harm is endemic, with medical treatment required every other day; where assaults are apparently commonplace, racism acceptable, information on basic legal rights withheld, vital documentation lost, and food literally filthy; where nearly half the women have been detained for more than ninety days, a period which is still considered by some to be too long for suspected terrorists; where more than half the women have no legal representation; where seventy per cent of the women have reported rape. The Observer's word to describe this business is "overstretched"; self-evidently, these derelictions are the result of a sheer overabundance of good intentions.

The business, of course, is asylum seeker disposal. One establishment is Harmondsworth, which is run by Kalyx, who apparently cannot afford to muster a spokesbeing. Kalyx is "part of a very large, stable and growing international family, whose primary aim is to improve the quality of daily life of all those we serve", just like Tony.

Another establishment is Yarl's Wood, which is run by Serco. Serco regards central government as "a rapidly evolving market" and is committed to "helping local and national governments balance the need for improved public services with voters’ demands for lower taxes". One of Serco's non-executive directors is Margaret, Baroness Ford of Cunninghame, a recently-created Labour peer who has "worked extensively in regeneration and is a specialist in public-sector reform and leadership development". Fancy that.