"The latest headline-grabbing initiative from a panic-stricken government." David Davis, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, went a bit over the top in his judgment of Labour's five-year plan for immigration and asylum: a government so certain of victory at the election expected in May can hardly be said to be panicking. But tough talk from the Tories and the loss of two ministers to immigration-related scandals in the past year have rattled the government; and, in attempting to recover its composure, it has gone far beyond a cure for present woes. Until recently, ministers distinguished between two types of immigrant: those who come openly to Britain in order to work or live with their families and those who arrive clandestinely as asylum-seekers or illegal labourers. To the former they were kind, relaxing immigration rules and opening new routes to settlement. The latter were subjected to draconian new laws and a steady deprivation of legal rights.
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