No Borders, No Nations, No Immigration Officials

OK. Consider this a warning. If you make me get out of a coach at three o' clock in the morning and stand in a queue to be called forward and have my passport checked so I can get back into this shithole of a country you can expect me to slag you off in a blog post. If you also happen to have been accused of participating in a "sex for visas" scam that just makes it much easier for me to write something. Even if those allegations originate in a bastion of top-quality investigative journalism like the Sun.

I have to confess I don't understand what would drive somebody to become a immigration official. No doubt most of the people who join the police do so out of some misguided conception of public service and to help others. Similarly many soliders end up in the army because they can see no other option or because of a misplaced sense of patriotism. But who wakes up one day and says, "I know I want to protect the UK's frontiers from hordes of eevil forners"?! The same kind of person who gives out visas to women with impressive mammaries or who amuses themselves with the passport photos of "ugly" applicants before having them deported, apparently.

Everything to do with the issue of immigration is contaminated by a distasteful concoction of racism and classism. Tossing a hefty dose of sexism into the mix isn't going to improve things. Let us hope - for once - that this is another one of those stories that Murdoch has pulled out of his butt.