by Mike McNabb
In the worst government tradition, it was a good day to bury bad news. Yesterday started with the continued furore over the expense account of the Conservative MP Derek Conway; then it continued when the Inland Revenue's online self-assessment site crashed.
Cue national outcry about politicians and "the taxman".
With all this furore going on, it was perhaps convenient for the Home Office to slip out an announcement that for the first time child asylum seekers are to be forcibly deported.
Hard-hearted
Not that asylum seekers generally are number one in this nation's popularity charts. But you would think there is something about removing children that would make even the most hard-hearted think again.
But not this government.
Liam Byrne, the immigration minister and former social care minister of all things, blamed it all on the child traffickers. He believes they will be deterred by the new hard line.
Really? When did making a regulation stop people wanting to break it?
Hollow promises
The largest numbers of child asylum seekers come from places such as Afghanistan and east Africa. It is like an inventory of the world's troublespots. As they try to make good their escape, many are abused en route by their adult child traffickers and made false promises of safe refuge. That promise of safe refuge is even hollower after yesterday's announcement.
In an earlier commentary on this website we cited the case of Al Bangura, the Watford footballer, himself the victim of child trafficking. He was refused asylum in the UK, but after a long battle he was granted a work permit. Yet his distressing story remains a reminder to us all of why children feel the need to escape their homes and families.
Role models
These days we are often told that young people need role models. Al Bangura is one. And one that the very children this government now wants to deport could relate to as they assimilate into UK society.
In another recent move that ranks low in the humanitarian stakes, the government is planning to restrict health care to failed asylum seekers, something commented on by my colleague, Amy Taylor.
So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that this one was coming.
But there is one other question that Byrne needs to answer: when these children are returned to their countries of origin, what happens then?
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