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• Migrants:      The migrants in Calais are obviously        interested in only one thing — getting to Britain.  Why?  Because the benefits available here are far better than anywhere else.  They are supposed to seek asylum in the first European country they reach, which would generally be Italy, Greece or Spain.  But those countries have no hand-outs to offer them.  And even France is unattractive by comparison with Britain. Solution?   Cut benefits for asylum seekers.

• Philip Hammond is right. I never thought I’d have occasion to say that!  But I agree with the UK Foreign Secretary that “Europe can’t protect itself and preserve its standard of living and social structure, if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa”  (The Telegraph, 10 August 2015).  But Hammond’s suggested solution is short-sighted.  He’s only talking about returning those not “entitled to claim asylum back to their countries of origin”.  How? He does not say. The UK authorities don’t deport would-be migrants who have no ID – ostensibly because the authorities don’t know to which country to deport them. Would-be migrants know about this and throw their ID documents away.  What a lame excuse this is on the part of the authorities!  Don’t they have any interpreters who can figure out what language a particular person speaks, and where they are from?

• Really? The Refugee Council says on its website: “Asylum seekers do not come to the UK to claim benefits.  In fact, most know nothing about welfare benefits before they arrive and had no expectation that they would receive financial support.”  Really?  So why are so many prepared to risk life and limb to get to the UK after traversing several other European countries?
  
  
• Overpopulation:  The root cause of the migrant crisis is overpopulation in the third world, leading to competition for scarce resources, leading in turn to internecine conflict, resulting in their spilling over into Europe.Solution?  Don’t give aid to any country that is not taking positive steps to control population growth. Alternatively, give aid only in the form of condoms and check to make sure that they are being distributed and used!

• Condoms: There is a resistance to condoms in certain quarters together with ignorance of their use. The Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to condoms is irrational.  The Church instead preaches sexual abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage as the way to combat HIV/AIDS. This is fine as an adjunct to condoms, but not as a substitute for them. And of course, besides combating  sexually transmitted diseases, condoms are an effective form of population control.  But their use has to be actively promoted.  Until  a government can prove that it is engaged in an effective programme of population control, aid to that country should be suspended.