Time to take control of illegal immigration

You are slumped at your desk in Downing Street past 1am, working on a speech on immigration, your desk littered with empty crisp packets, Larry the cat staring at you witheringly. You must finish this speech for the prime minister with a tough flourish; the government will “clamp down”, “crack down”, get down down, deeper and down to tens of thousands of migrants (net) a year. Reaching into the cupboard of hyperbole you find it bare and so end the speech with a slightly lame “no ifs, no buts”. That was me in 2011 and, of course, in the following years there emerged several ifs and not a few buts. Net migration soared, and those of us writing Cameron’s speeches would dance around the tens