Debt of Gratitude

It appears that there is some method in the Government's planned deportation of 1400 Iraqi asylum seekers, beyond the self-evident one of Christian charity being its own reward. Now that Iraq is safe, at least for those less valuable than Des Browne, something between 450 and 650 deserving cases are to be airlifted out of the country, along with their dependents, to begin what the Guardian euphemistically calls "a new life" here in the Poodle Archipelago. Since there are now so few cases of genuine hardship in Iraq, these people have been "hand-picked", in order to ensure that the British taxpayer is not overly discommoded; the choice having first been conveniently narrowed down by the Foreign Office's stipulation that no-one who had worked with British forces for less than twelve months could be in any significant danger. The refugees will be taken to Slough for two days and thence to "resettlement areas" where they will be on hand to take the blame for any British jobs lost by British workers in the promised recession.