I have nothing to add to this

If the entire gay population of Iran turned up in the UK, then I would allow the entire gay population of Iran to stay here. If that cost us so much money that we had to have fewer Olympic Games, Millennium Domes and Trident Missiles, then I think I could probably live with that. I believe in the 1940s, the Daily Mail took the view that the Jews were probably exaggerating the situation in Germany, and that in any case, we couldn't afford to be over-run with pawn-brokers and psychoanalysts.

There is a buried assumption that "people who could justifiably claim asylum" necessarily "cost money". How does this work? They might, or they might not. We don't like it when unemployed Anne Franks run away from that nice Mr. Hitler and our government has to find them houses and pay them benefit. But I have noticed that when skilled Polish people come over here and start doing useful jobs at fair prices, we like it even less. But you can't put a financial cost on someone's life; I venture to say that finding houses for unemployed foreign homosexuals might turn out to be more cost efficient than spending £20 billion {Check this - ed) on having a war against Iraq.

If someone leaves a starving baby on my doorstep, then, at that moment, keeping that baby alive has become my responsibility. It is simply irrelevant to say "But what if all the starving babies in the world were left on your your door step. You might not have room for them. And anyone, if you buy a couple of tins of baby food than all the other unmarried mothers will say 'I don't have to be prudent; if things get difficult, I'll just dump my child with that Mr. Rilstone, who has an open door policy and is obviously a soft touch.' So best just leave it out in the cold to die, and reduce the surplus population."

Working out a system whereby we could share all the homosexuals fairly among the various liberal western states might be a good idea, of course. Do we know which countries have a shortage?

- Andrew Rilstone, in comments